Hoekstra: End bailouts, wasteful spending

WASHINGTON, May 1 (UPI) -- Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., said Saturday Republicans are "standing with the American people" by fighting to end bailouts and wasteful spending.

Hours before President Barack Obama spoke at Hoekstra's alma mater, the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, the congressman urged Obama to tour the state to get a close-up look at the toll of the economic downturn.

In the weekly Republican radio and Internet address, Hoekstra, who is running for Michigan governor, laid the blame for high unemployment and the struggling economy squarely on Obama and Democratic lawmakers.

"I join with Michiganders across the state in welcoming President Obama to our home," Hoekstra said. "We also welcome the opportunity to show the president first-hand the painful plight of the people of Michigan. Like countless Americans, they face fewer jobs and fewer opportunities today than when he took office."

Hoekstra noted persistently high unemployment nationwide and in Michigan, where it stands at 14 percent.

"The Democrats have run Congress since 2007, and yet when the residents of Michigan and across America ask themselves are they better off now than they were four years ago, the answer is inevitably 'no.'

He criticized "sprawling government expansion" and Democrats' "partisan, big-government, tax-borrow-and-spend agenda," exemplified, he said, by the federal stimulus, healthcare reform and proposed financial reform. Democrats' financial reform legislation would lead to more government bailouts, he said.

"Republicans are standing with the American people and the people of Michigan by fighting for an end to permanent bailouts, ending wasteful Washington spending and proposing a plan that would address the root causes of the financial crisis," Hoekstra said. "We are standing for real solutions."