Brewer: Doesn’t Matter Who Won Debate, Both Candidates Share Anti-Middle Class Agenda
LANSING – Mark Brewer, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, issued the following statement today following today’s first and only televised GOP candidate debate:
“It doesn’t matter whether Durant or Hoekstra won this debate or which one of them wins the primary because both men have spent the last six months pushing an agenda that will harm Michigan’s middle-class families. Both Durant and Hoekstra want to raise taxes on the middle class to pay for more breaks for millionaires, end Medicare as we know it, privatize Social Security and end federal student loans for college. They are both far out-of-the-mainstream and that won’t serve them well with Michigan voters in November.”
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 a regressive tax that is actually more devastating to the middle class than Hoekstra’s 23 percent “Fair Tax.” Durant supports Sen. Mike Lee’s 25 percent sales tax. [Durant website, accessed 8/2/12]
Pete Hoekstra and Clark Durant’s tax plans would paint a target on the back of Michigan’s middle-class families and take even more money out of their pockets at the worst possible time.
#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. Hoekstra’s record leaves little doubt as to whom he’d work for if elected to the U.S. Senate. [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. [Sen. Lee, Saving The American Dream Budget, accessed 7/18/12]
- According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a territorial tax system “would be an extremely strong incentive to shift profits and production overseas.” [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 Taking Higher Education Out at the Knees: 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. The Hoekstra/Durant plan to end these efforts 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; Senate Dems, accessed 8/2/12; Detroit News, 6/30/12; National Women’s Law Center, accessed 8/2/12]
- 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 make it illegal for women to use birth control pills. 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]
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