GOP Senate Candidate Will Be Anti-Middle Class
Who Will Win GOP Senate Primary? It Doesn’t Matter; GOP Candidate Will Be Anti-Middle Class
News
from
The Michigan Democratic Party
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 3, 2012
Contact: Kirstin Alvanitakis
517-371-5410
No Matter Who Wins on Tuesday, GOP Nominee
Will Have a Clear Record of Supporting an Out-of-the-Mainstream Ideology that
Would Devastate Michigan’s Hard-Working Families
LANSING -- Mark Brewer, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, spoke
today with reporters about the upcoming GOP primary -- and how little the
outcome matters. That’s because both Clark Durant and Pete Hoekstra support an
out-of-the-mainstream agenda that would devastate Michigan's hard-working
families.
"It doesn't matter whether Durant or Hoekstra wins the primary because
both men have spent the last six months pushing an agenda that will paint a
target on the back of Michigan's middle-class families,” said Brewer.
“Both Durant and Hoekstra want to raise taxes on the middle class to pay for
more breaks for millionaires, privatize Medicare and Social Security and
eliminate federal student loans. After making promises to the extreme elements
of their party during the primary, these guys are going to have a hard time
explaining their out-of-the-mainstream agenda to Michigan voters."
On the call, Brewer also discussed the specifics of Hoekstra and Durant’s plans
to end Medicare and privatize Social Security, cut taxes for millionaires while
raising taxes on middle-class families, protect taxpayer giveaways to companies
that outsource jobs, oppose equal pay for women, end federal student loans and
more.
Below you will find background on the Hoekstra-Durant anti-middle class agenda:
#1: Privatize Medicare and Social Security
Clark Durant and Pete Hoekstra have repeatedly supported plans that would:
- End Medicare as we know it
and let private insurance companies make health care decisions for
seniors. [Wall Street Journal, 4/04/11; Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities, 5/16/12] - Raise the costs of health
care for seniors by thousands of dollars. [St. Petersburg Times, 4/22/11]
#2: Cut Taxes for Michigan's Very Rich; Raise Taxes on
Michigan's Middle Class
Both Pete Hoekstra and Clark Durant have pledged to raise taxes on Michigan’s
middle-class families while cutting taxes for millionaires and billionaires.
- Pete Hoekstra supports Herman
Cain’s 9-9-9 tax plan that would that would raise taxes for the average
middle-class family by more than $4,000 a year while cutting taxes for
millionaires in half. [The Hill, 2/16/12; Associated Press,10/18/11] - Hoekstra also supports the
so-called “Fair Tax” (i.e., eliminating the income tax altogether and
creating a whopping 23 percent national sales tax) that would raise taxes
on the bottom 80 percent of taxpayers by an average of $3,200 per year and
give the richest 1 percent a $225,000 tax break each year. [Institute on
Taxation and Economic Policy, September 2004] - Clark Durant supports Sen.
Mike Lee’s 25 percent sales tax, even more regressive and more devastating
to the middle class than Hoekstra’s 23 percent "Fair Tax."
[Durant website, accessed 8/2/12]
#3: Protect Taxpayer Giveaways to Companies that
Outsource Michigan Jobs
- Hoekstra has also voted on
numerous occasions to protect tax breaks for companies that outsource.
[Vote #324, 5/28/10; Vote #518, 8/10/10; Vote # 120, 5/01/02; Vote #4,
2/1/06; Vote #258, 6/17/04] - Clark Durant supports the Tea
Party budget, presented by Sen. Mike Lee from Utah, that would also reward
companies that have shipped jobs overseas and made huge profits on the
backs of middle-class families. [Durant website, accessed 8/2/12] - The Lee-Durant budget
incentivizes the outsourcing of American jobs by moving to a territorial
tax system where companies do not have to pay taxes for profits made in
other countries -- meaning a huge tax break for companies that move
operations and jobs abroad. [Sen. Lee, Saving The American Dream Budget,
accessed 7/18/12; CBPP, 2/28/12]
#4: Drive the Tea Party Social Agenda against Mainstream
Michigan Values
- Pete Hoekstra Against
Equal Pay for Equal Work for Women: Pete Hoekstra told a Tea Party
crowd in Royal Oak that the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act “shouldn’t be the
law” and called Equal Pay for women a “nuisance.” The Ledbetter Act
ensures that women have the ability to fight wage discrimination in the
workplace. [Grand Rapids News, 4/13/12] - Pete Hoekstra and Clark
Durant Making it Harder for Kids to Attend College: Both Hoekstra and
Durant have called for the elimination of the Department of Education, a
move that would eliminate Stafford Loans and Pell Grants. Pete Hoekstra
even said he’s “tried to kill federalized student loans for eighteen
years.”- 303,000 students in
Michigan make use of Stafford loans. - 337,000 Michigan
students rely on Pell grants. [Senate Dems, accessed 8/2/12] - The Hoekstra/Durant
plan to end these programs would be extremely destructive to Michigan’s
middle-class families. [Tea Party Rally, 9/3/11; MLive, 7/20/12;
Huffington Post, 5/14/12; Detroit News, 6/30/12; National Women’s Law
Center, accessed 8/2/12]
- 303,000 students in
- Pete Hoekstra and Clark
Durant Fight to Ban Women's Access to Birth Control: Pete Hoekstra
sponsored “personhood” legislation seven times while in Congress. His
legislation would outlaw some forms of birth control. In 2012, Durant was
endorsed by an organization that fought to deny women access to
contraception -- he supports their platform. [HR 881, co-sponsored on
2/4/09; HR 618, co-sponsored on 1/22/07; HR 552, co- sponsored on 2/2/05;
HR 3069, co-sponsored on 5/5/04; HR 639, co-sponsored on 2/6/97; HR 641, co-sponsored
on 2/6/97; HR 1625, co-sponsored on 1/3/96; Washington Post, 10/28/11;
Washington Post, 7/25/12] - Hoekstra proposed creating
an Office of the Birther, run by a joint FBI-CIA panel, to verify the
president’s citizenship. [Lapeer Tea Party meeting, 5/01/12] - Hoekstra supported
drilling for oil in the Great Lakes. [Detroit Free Press, 5/12/12] - In 2011, Durant said he
believed the wealth gap “should be wider.” [Grand Rapids News,
11/10/11] - Durant compared the public
school system and the fight for school choice to the fight of Abraham
Lincoln and the Republican Party against slavery. [Detroit Free Press,
12/08/11]
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