Hoekstra is currently touring the district on his annual "Remember when this got me elected? I'm just like you!" bike tour titled "Agriculture: Helping to Drive the West Michigan Economy". But this past Thursday (Aug. 2) Pete was a no vote on H.R. 3161: Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2008, joined by fellow hack Michigan republicans Walberg, Knollenberg, Miller and McCotter. But wait! In a recent interview about the bike tour he proclaims:
“Agriculture has historically played a significant role in supporting the economy and shaping the character of West Michigan," Hoekstra said. "The health of the local industry greatly impacts the ability of our region to compete and succeed in the dynamic new free market economy.”
It gets even better! The bill contains $750,000 for research on combating Phytophthora capsici, a non-native fungal-like pathogen that lives in soil and causes plants to rot.(Read as: "health of the local industry") Of that amount, Michigan State University will receive $495,000 for research to combat the pathogen. In a press release on the bill Pete says:
"Phytophthora poses a threat to one of the biggest drivers of the West Michigan economy. It is capable of ruining a crop year or infecting an entire farm, rendering it useless."
In the same press release Roger Victory, president of the Ottawa County Farm Bureau says:
“We need to build upon the significant advances in disease management to develop measures that will help to eradicate it before it ruins more growing seasons.”
So if you are a farmer, and see him on his media stunt, you might want to ask him that if he's so concerned about your industry, why can't he vote to support you? Or at least show up.
10 comments:
Hoekstra loves to say one thing and then vote a different way. He must think people will take him at face value and never actually check his voting record.
Unfortunately, for the most part, he'd be right in assuming that no one actually checks his voting record.
He's gone 14 years and no one has checked his record... He probably thinks, why would they start now?
He even brags about its passage on his web site, even though he voted against it!
Well of course he brags about the passage of the bill, thus implying that he had contributed to its passage by actually voting in favor of the bill...
Pete Hoekstra is a hypocrite and you can't expect anything but hypocrisy from a hypocrite.
Make sure to click the text links, I do my research like a good blogger should.
In fact Mark he didn't bother to vote at all.
Probably too busy riding his tricycle.
This is wonderful...someone is watching Pete Crookstra...he has been selling his "bill of goods" to the 2nd congressional district for a lot of years. It's time for him to go back to selling cars. While I don't agree with everything in the new Agriculture bill, there are things in it that are moving in the right direction. In my estimation, the right direction is toward local food that is raised in an environmentally friendly way. I highly recommend "The Ominovore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan if you want to understand modern industrial agriculture in the US today. From that you'll see why small farmers are going out of business daily...the structure of government subsidies is pushing them out and this new bill makes a small step to move away from that model. I'll pass on the link to your blog.
Just set up a google account so there is a way to get in touch with me.
Karel
Thanks Karel.
He sold furniture, but I digress.
I don't agree with everything in the bill either but it does more good than bad. We have been keeping close tabs on Hoek for about 2 years now. Shadow Pete blog did a pretty good job exposing some things. But that blog stopped after Kimon Kotos lost the last election. I m picking up where he left off and hope to inform the people. Thanks for visiting and passing the link.
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