Dem Gary Peters Puts Terri Lynn Land On The Defensive Over Bailout Opposition

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Dem Gary Peters Puts Terri Lynn Land On The Defensive Over Bailout Opposition

March 3, 2014 4:40 PM

 

Terri Lynn Land

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DAVID EGGERT, Associated Press

LANSING (AP) — Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Gary Peters sought to put his Republican opponent, Terri Land, on the defensive Monday by highlighting her 2012 opposition to the federal auto bailout, which is credited with saving the industry and is popular with Michigan voters.

The third-term congressman and other Democrats drew attention to statements Land made at a Republican National Convention event two years ago in which she backed GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s anti-bailout position. Asked about Romney and the bailout, she said “I’m with him on that” and noted that Ford survived without the rescue package that went to General Motors and Chrysler.

“Michiganders deserve to know the truth — that when the rest of the country and plenty of politicians wanted to turn their back on us and let our auto industry and our middle class fail, Ms. Terri Lynn Land sided with them instead of standing up for us,” Peters said in a news release. He also played up Land’s opposition to the bailout at a campaign event with the United Auto Workers in Sterling Heights on Monday.

After writing a 2008 newspaper column with the fateful “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” headline, Romney, who supported a “managed bankruptcy,” struggled to gain a footing in the industrial Midwest where auto manufacturing is crucial. In Michigan, which has more auto industry-related jobs than any other state, Democrats are hoping Land pays a similar price in the tight race to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Carl Levin — a contest that will factor into which party controls the Senate.

The comments by Land, a former Michigan secretary of state, flew under the radar until now.

Land spokeswoman Heather Swift said Monday that she knows how important the auto industry is to Michigan.

“Terri has always believed that something needed to be done to address the auto crisis, but was not convinced on the specific plan that was proposed,” Swift said. “Thanks to the resiliency of the American worker and a stronger global economy, our autos are back.”

In her 2012 comments, Land said Ford’s executive chairman, Bill Ford, “got a loan … so people know that could have been done,” adding that GM was known as “Government Motors.” President Barack Obama and others have said Romney’s approach would never have worked because no private capital was available to keep GM and Chrysler afloat.

Michigan Rep. Sander Levin said Land’s comment should disqualify her as a candidate and added that Ford got a loan before the financial crisis.
“This was a matter, a moment, of supreme importance for this state,” he said. “She said this a few years after the survival of the state in terms of its economy.”
Five years have passed since the bailout was authorized under both the Bush and Obama administrations during the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009. But Levin said voters’ memories won’t fade about a “basic economic issue” that saved jobs.

Republicans and the conservative group Americans for Prosperity have relentlessly blamed Peters for his support of the federal health care law, which resulted in the cancellation of policies for people whose plans didn’t meet the law’s standards. Peters decided to more actively confront Land himself and hinted he’ll do it again on other issues soon.

According to a survey of 600 likely Michigan voters conducted Feb. 5-11 by EPIC-MRA, 41 percent of respondents supported Land, 38 percent backed Peters and 21 percent were undecided. The poll had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

In an exit poll conducted for The Associated Press and television networks in 2012, about three in five Michigan voters approved of the Obama administration’s aid to the U.S. auto industry, and they overwhelmingly backed the president.

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

No Cuts to Snap: Food Stamp Program Restored

Thank you for sharing your concerns about provisions affecting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, also known as food stamps) in the 2014 Farm Bill. I hope this letter will clear up any questions you might have.

I care deeply about protecting nutrition assistance programs, and I am very proud that the final version of the Farm Bill ensures that  no one  will be removed from SNAP and that all families will get 100 percent of the assistance they are intended to receive under the current program. In fact, the 2014 Farm Bill saves the program from the devastating $133 billion in cuts in the budget passed by the House of Representatives and the $40 billion in cuts passed in the House Farm Bill.

During our negotiations on a final bill, every time House members offered amendments to gut food assistance or kick families off of SNAP, I led the charge and beat them back. I know that for struggling families, food assistance is a lifeline. Nearly half of those who receive these benefits are children!

And that ' s why it ' s so important to me that we defend the integrity of the system. In order to protect benefits for 46 million families, our Farm Bill tackles fraud and misuse to make sure every dollar goes to families who truly need it.

For example, you may have heard about lottery winners in Michigan who stayed on food assistance after collecting substantial cash prizes. Obviously the program was not intended to provide benefits to someone with a million dollars in the bank.

Sometimes states also misuse the program. SNAP benefits are based on a family ' s income and expenses. A handful of states have been providing $1 or less per year in home heating assistance to people who may not even have a heating bill, so that they can qualify for a standard utility deduction and additional food assistance above and beyond the benefits they are intended to receive.

While I understand the desire to provide additional food help, by misusing the SNAP connection to the heating assistance program these states are undermining the SNAP benefits as a whole and jeopardizing heating assistance for people who have the greatest need. This only gives ammunition to those who oppose the food assistance program entirely. In fact,  The Washington Post  wrote that this loophole "... looks like a political gift to SNAP's perennial opponents. "

The reality is we stopped tens of   billions in cuts and, instead, achieved $8 billion in savings by eliminating fraud and misuse without changing any standard benefits or eligibility for anyone on food assistance.   In this challenging economy, we should be increasing food help not cutting it!

I'm proud we were able to pass a bipartisan Farm Bill that substantially cuts big farm subsidies for the first time in decades, makes conservation programs more effective, strengthens access to healthy local foods, and confronts misuse in food assistance programs while protecting critical food assistance for families in need.

Thank you again for contacting me. Please don't hesitate to do so again if my office can be of assistance.

Sincerely,

Debbie Stabenow
United States Senator 

Bill Schuette Is From The Government. And He’s Not Here To Help

Bill Schuette Is From The Government. And He’s Not Here To Help

This post was written by AG for US

Who is Bill Schuette?

He’s the 53^rd attorney general of Michigan, elected during the Republican wave of 2010. With a warm smile and looks that would make him a natural for the role of “Politician #1” in any movie, Bill Schuette might be mistaken for being a harmless, mild-mannered bureaucrat.

Don’t be fooled.

The attorney general is supposed to be the lawyer for all 10 million citizens of Michigan. But Bill Schuette doesn’t see things that way. He’s a lifelong Republican born into the Dow Chemical fortune.

The AG makes $112,000 a year, but his 2012 income was padded by $518,000 from investments. And Schuette, who’s only 59, has $38,000 in pension income. Being a career politician pays off. The average Detroit city retiree has a $20,000 annual pension, and probably will lose it with Detroit’s bankruptcy.

Schuette was elected by cozying up to the far-right Tea Party, which has just shut down the federal government and delayed the Medicaid expansion in Michigan so 470,000 people can get health care coverage. Gov. Rick Snyder is a Republican, but his administration admits the delay is costing the state $630 million. But Schuette still opposes the Medicaid expansion, even though Michigan taxpayers are losing more than a half-billion dollars.

Bill Schuette has been the most partisan attorney general in the history of Michigan. Here’s how:

• Schuette wants to know what you’re doing in the bedroom. The AG has decided that the state has an interest in “regulating sexual relationships,” which sounds like something out of a bad sci-fi show. Schuette made that intrusive argument in a brief he filed in September defending Michigan’s ban on gay marriage.
• Schuette continued futile lawsuits against the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), wasting thousands of taxpayer dollars. In June 2012, the conservative U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law.
• Schuette has joined the War on Women. Even after Obamacare was upheld, he signed on to another lawsuit to fight part of the law that requires employers to cover certain preventative health care services for women. Even though 90% of Americans support contraception, Schuette wants to block women’s choices.
• Schuette has been a one-man wrecking crew against Michigan’s medical marijuana act, which passed in 2008 with the support of 63% of voters. Schuette led the campaign against the MMA to jump start his AG bid, even though he admitted to using marijuana himself. He’s since used the power of his office once to shut down dispensaries and go after patients and caregivers.
• Schuette has used taxpayer dollars to stop workers from organizing at the University of Michigan. Even though only 300 of 2,000 graduate research assistants didn’t want to be in a union, Schuette didn’t believe in majority rule – the basic principle of democracy. As AG, he successfully fought to keep the grad assistants from forming a union.

And that’s just for starters.
Bill Schuette is running for re-election next year, even though he doesn’t do his job very well. But don’t expect him to stop there. It’s no secret that he wants to be governor. Many Republicans expect him to run for president.
Those of us in Michigan know who Bill Schuette really is. It’s up to us to spread the word.

Beware of false prophets

Beware of false prophets

 

No corporate money. Defend working families and power progress in Michigan

 

 

After getting trounced at the polls in 2013, Republicans commissioned an autopsy report to figure out why and recommend strategies that could help lead them out of the political wilderness. As you’d expect, the report recommended expanding the Republican Party’s tent by “softening” their stance on immigration reform and supporting LGBT rights.

Almost a year later and the Republican Party’s tent isn’t any bigger – and it’s not for lack of opportunities. Last year, Dave Agema – one of Michigan’s two Republican National Committeemen – made headlines when he claimed LGBT individuals lead a “filthy” lifestyle and account for more than half the murders in large cities.

While the public outcry was swift, Gov. Snyder and Michigan Republicans refused to call for Dave Agema’s resignation, insisting his views didn’t represent the Republican Party. A few weeks later, Dave Agema’s amendment to define marriage as between one man and one woman was overwhelmingly approved by the Republican National Committee, thereby making it party policy. Just this week, Dave Agema praised Russia’s anti-LGBT propaganda law, calling it “common sense.”

And if defining marriage as between one man and one woman isn’t clear enough, former State Rep. Jack Hoogendyk lambasted the unfair persecution of Dave Agema, calling him “a prophet.”

A prophet? You’d think conservatives who justify their bigoted opposition to marriage equality by citing the Bible would be more well versed in the Good Book, but these are the same folks who think Jesus would support cutting food-stamps.

If Republicans want to emerge from the political wilderness anytime soon, then they’d better remove folks like Dave Agema from leadership positions. But don’t take our word for it, the Book of Matthew (King James Version) verse 7:15-20 says it best:

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

Dave Camp's (R-Mich.) Rise to Power

Washington Post

Politics

Dave Camp (R-Mich.)

U.S. Representative (since January 1991)

Why He Matters

In nearly two decades in the House, Camp has quietly but steadily risen in the GOP ranks. In December 2008, he beat back a spirited campaign by Rep. Wally Herger (R-Calif.) to become the ranking Republican on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. In the GOP-led 112th Congress, Camp was appointed as chairman.

As the panel's senior GOP lawmaker, Camp played a prominent role in the 2010 health-care debate, sponsoring the lead Republican alternative. Though he built a conservative record in Congress, he occupied what Congressional Quarterly termed a "one-man Republican faction" as the only member of both the conservative Republican Steering Committee and the moderate Main Street Partnership.

Camp was first elected to his seat in central Michigan in 1990. He is known for keeping a close connection to his constituents and boasts of personally signing more than 30,000 pieces of constituent mail each year.

Camp ranked as a rising star in the Republican Party early in his tenure and was influential in drafting the welfare reform bill that President Bill Clinton eventually signed in 1996.

In Their Own Words

"A government plan would eliminate the current coverage for 120 million Americans who get it from their employers,” Camp said of a potential government-provided health-care plan. “I am sure most Americans get their health care this way, and taking that away from you is unacceptable."



 

• Career History: Michigan representative(1988-1990); Aide to Rep. Bill Schuette (R-Mich.) (1984-1987); Michigan Assistant state attorney general (1980-1984)
• Birthday: July 9, 1953
• Hometown: Midland, Mich.
• Alma Mater: Albion College, B.A. 1975; University of San Diego, J.D. 1978
• Spouse: Nancy Camp
• Religion: Catholic

• Committees: Chairman, House Ways and Means Committee (since January 2011)
• DC Office: 137 Cannon House Office BuildingWashington, DC 20515(202) 225-3561
• District Office: Midland, 989-631-2552; Traverse City, 231-929-4711
• Email
• Website

 

Born in 1953, Camp grew up in Midland, a central Michigan industrial town where he and his wife and three children still reside. He attended local schools before graduating from Michigan's Albion College in 1975.

After earning his law degree from the University of San Diego in 1978, Camp returned to Michigan to practice law and later served as a special assistant to the Michigan attorney general during the early 1980s. He became active in local Republican politics and managed the winning congressional campaign of his boyhood friend Bill Schuette in 1984. Camp then worked as an aide to Schuette for four years before beginning his own electoral career with a successful run for a seat in the Michigan House in 1988.

 

Though he has kept one foot in the moderate bloc through his participation in the Main Street Partnership, Camp has generally voted as a conservative and along party lines in the House. He sided with Republicans 93.7 percent of the time during the 111th Congress.

The American Conservative Union gives him a lifetime rating of 89 percent,though his score with the Club for Growth is considerably lower.

"I'm a conservative on fiscal policy, but I'm a moderate on some other issues," he told Congressional Quarterly in 2006, though he told National Review the following year that he feels "more at home" with the conservative Republican Steering Committee.

Camp opposes abortion rights and same-sex marriage. He voted twice for President George W. Bush's tax cuts, and he supports their full extension. He has pushed for private accounts for Social Security and supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

On foreign policy, Camp supported the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he backed - with some reservations - President Bush's decision to send more troops to Iraq in earlier 2007.

The Economy

Camp supported the $700 billion Wall Street bailout in the fall of 2008, a position that drew criticism from Andy Concannon, his Democratic opponent for reelection. "This is not something that anyone really wanted to do, but it was something that had to be done because the risk of (doing) nothing was far too great," Camp said in defending his vote. "This is a stop-gap measure. It is not going to fix all our economic problems."

Camp's post as ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee earned him a spot on the House-Senate conference committee that reconciled the $787 billion economic stimulus bill in February 2009. But the invitation to the negotiating table didn't change his opposition to the package. Camp said the legislation contained "far too much spending, and the tax relief is the not right kind of tax relief to create jobs."

He also complained that Republicans were "frozen out" of the process by the Congressional Democratic leadership. He helped draft a GOP alternative stimulus package that focused heavily on tax cuts and aid to small businesses, homeowners, and the unemployed.

While Camp has praised President Obama for reaching out to Republicans, he broadly criticized his 2010 budget for excessive spending and taxation. Its spending and borrowing, he said, would make the current generation of Americans the first to fail to improve the nation's prosperity.

Health Care

Camp played a leading Republican role in the debate over a health-care overhaul at the center of President Obama's domestic agenda.

In November 2009, Camp introduced the chief Republican alternative to the Democrats' bill called the "Common Sense Health Care Reform and Accountability Act," which Republicans said would lower costs by allowing people to buy insurance across state lines, permit small businesses access to combine and form pools; and prevent insurance companies from denying insurance to those with preexisting conditions.

The chief obstacle to a consensus, Camp suggested, was the push by many Democrats for the creation of a public-health plan to compete with private insurers.

"A government plan would eliminate the current coverage for 120 million Americans who get it from their employers," the congressman said in a statement prior to a Ways and Means Committee hearing on health care in April. "I am sure most Americans get their health care this way, and taking that away from you is unacceptable."

The public plan option, he has said, is a "bright line" dividing Democrats and Republicans who are open to reform.

Camp strongly opposed the ultimate legislation, enacted in March 2010, arguing that it implemented a variety of new tax increases and didn't comply with "pay-as-you-go" budget rules.

Over the years Camp has spoken out on other areas of the health-care debate. In 2003, he championed a provision in the Medicare prescription-drug bill that would protect nurse training programs, warning that to scrap the initiative would exacerbate a nationwide nursing shortage. He also pushed legislation expanding coverage of cholesterol screenings and aid for patients with kidney disease.

At the same time, Camp steadfastly opposed legislation to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP. He called the bill, which was enacted under President Obama after vetoes by President Bush, "woefully flawed" and said it inappropriately covers children of families with high incomes.

Trade

A longtime supporter of free trade, Camp voted for both the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Central American Free Trade Agreement.
In February 2009, he hailed a bipartisan agreement to expand the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, praising the new inclusion of service workers in the initiative and calling it "a coherent, rational, accountable, and cost-effective system for training trade-affected workers and putting them back to work quickly and at better jobs."

Welfare Reform

Camp's first real brush with the Washington spotlight came in 1996 during the intense negotiations on a bill to overhaul the nation's welfare system. Camp partnered with then-Rep. John Ensign (R-Nev.) to lobby a reluctant GOP leadership to strip out provisions making significant changes to Medicaid, the inclusion of which was sure to draw a veto from President Clinton.

The move quickly garnered support from the Republican rank-and-file in the House, and it was later cited as the "decisive breakthrough" in the bill that Clinton eventually signed.

 

Camp was an early supporter of Mitt Romney 's campaign for president in 2008, serving as a congressional liaison for the former Massachusetts governor. He would be a natural ally for Romney as he stays in the national limelight in advance of a potential second run for the White House in 2012.

Camp was also a top supporter of former House speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), managing the Republican's campaign for that post in 1998.

Read more

 

1. Camp House web site
2. Wayne, Alex, "Health Care Factions Loom on Hill," Congressional Quarterly Today, March 13, 2009.
3. American Conservative Union
4. Barber, Barrie, "Camp: No to Stimulus Push," The Saginaw News, Jan. 28, 2009.
5. Camp House web site
6. Camp House web site
7. Church, George J., "Ripping Up Welfare," Time Magazine, Aug. 12, 1996.
8. Miller, John J., "Republican from Michigan - Dave Camp is a Quiet But Effective Congressman," National Review, Dec. 3, 2007.
9. Camp House web site
10. Barber, Barrie, "Candidates: Economy No. 1," The Saginaw News, Oct. 12, 2008.
11. Eversley, Melanie, "Camp Working to Make Hastert Speaker," Detroit Free Press, Dec. 21, 1998.
12. Ota, Alan K., "House Republican is Moderate Today, Conservative Tomorrow," Congressional Quarterly Today, March 10, 2006.
13. Camp press release, November 2009
14. Struglinski, Suzanne, "Romney Recruits 3 House Members as Eyes, Ears," Deseret Morning News, Jan. 21, 2007.
15. Washington Post Votes Database
16. Camp House web site
17. Almanac of American Politics, 2008 edition.
18. Camp House web site
19. Camp press release, March 24, 2010
20. David Camp's official biography
21. Club for Growth scorecard

Debbie Stabenow Pledges To Oppose Monsanto Protection Act Extension Without Full Debate

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ryan@huffingtonpost.com

 

Debbie Stabenow Pledges To Oppose Monsanto Protection Act Extension Without Full Debate

Posted: 06/06/2013 11:41 am EDT  |  Updated: 06/06/2013 5:52 pm EDT

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WASHINGTON -- Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), the chairwoman of the Agriculture Committee, pledged to oppose the extension of the so-called the Monsanto Protection Act, a victory for advocates who have been pressing for its repeal.

Stabenow made her pledge in a conversation with Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), who has been pushing the Senate to vote on an amendment to the farm bill that would repeal the provision. That vote was blocked by Republicans and on Thursday morning the Senate voted to end debate and move to final passage.
When two senators have a pre-arranged public conversation on the Senate floor, it's known as a colloquy and is typically the bow that ties up a deal struck beforehand. While Merkley was unable to get a repeal vote, the colloquy is a significant win for him, with Stabenow promising she will oppose any attempt to extend the Monsanto Protection Act in backroom negotiations.

Monsanto is a global seed and herbicide company that specializes in genetically modified crops. The MPA prevents judges from enforcing injunctions on genetically modified seeds even if they are deemed unsafe. Monsanto has argued that it is unfair to single the company out in the nickname for the law, which is technically known as the Farmer Assurance Provision, when other major agribusiness players also support it.

The measure was originally enacted into law by being inserted into an unrelated spending bill and is set to expire later this year. "The Monsanto Protection Act refers to a policy rider the House slipped into the recently passed continuing resolution and sent over to the Senate," Merkley noted on the floor. "Because of the time-urgent consideration of this must-pass legislation -- necessary to avert a government shutdown -- this policy rider slipped through without examination or debate."

"I wish to assure my friend that I think it would be inappropriate for that language to be adopted in a conference committee or otherwise adopted in a manner designed to bypass open debate in the relevant committees and this chamber," Stabenow told Merkley. "I will do my best to oppose any effort to add this kind of extension in the conference committee on this farm bill or to otherwise extend it without appropriate legislative examination."

In an interview with The Huffington Post, Sen Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) made the case for the MPA, arguing that the measure aimed to protect farmers who had already purchased seeds that were later deemed unsafe. "I was raised -- my mom and dad were dairy farmers -- once you've made a decision to plant a crop for that year, you can't go back and undo that decision," he said. Requiring Monsanto or other seed companies to compensate the farmer for lost income wasn't a viable strategy, he said, if the seeds had previously been okayed before the court ruling. "You can't sue them for selling a crop that the federal government said is okay to plant," he said.

The measure enables the secretary of the Department of Agriculture to block a judicial injunction and allow the planting of a seed. The USDA, he said, called the provision redundant. "All that did was repeat authority that the secretary in a hearing the other day ... said he already had," Blunt said. "And it didn't require the secretary to do anything that the secretary thought was the wrong thing to do. Which is one of the reasons I thought it was fine."

US Senator Sabenow on GM Foods

Dear [Bear Market Economics] ,  Thank you for contacting me with your concerns regarding genetically modified (GM) food. I understand your concerns about the need for a robust, secure supply of a range of foods, including organics.    Agriculture is Michigan's second largest industry, employing one out of four people in our state, and that is due in large part to the strength of family farms. Our farms have the most crop diversity in the country, beside California, and provide healthy, affordable food to our communities. As the Chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, I am mindful that we have almost seven billion mouths to feed around the globe and that we need American leadership, innovation, and increased efficiency to feed the world. To foster that innovation, we need a regulatory system that is science-based and efficient. I support increased research on the safety and effectiveness of GM crops, and I will continue to monitor this issue and will make sure that the regulation of GM foods is based on sound science.     Thank you again for contacting me. Please continue to keep me informed about issues of concern to you and your family. Sincerely, Debbie Stabenow United States Senator

U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow The United States Senate • Washington, DC 20510 stabenow.senate.gov