Posted on 06/29/2005 8:27:09 AM PDT by Dan from Michigan
Hoogendyk runs for governor
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
He's traveled from Bad Ax to White Pigeon, forging an iron stomach at sloppy-joe lunches and iron-clad responses on unemployment and gay marriage.
State Rep. Jack Hoogendyk wants the GOP nomination for governor in 2006, and he's not afraid to say it in his speeches at Lincoln Day dinners and small-town diners, he told the Kalamazoo Gazette editorial board Monday.
Michigan's unemployment rate of 7.1 is two points higher than the national average because its tax policies and regulations are the worst for business in the country, the 49-year-old Texas Township Republican said.
The Department of Environmental Quality is being especially onerous in pressuring business, he said. For example, Hoogendyk said, the state is making it difficult to log poplars in the Upper Peninsula, even though it is a fast-growth tree, forcing the paper mills in the Escanaba area to truck in logs from Canada.
He is opposed to the possibility that the DEQ will require a permit from any entity pumping more than 100,000 gallons of water a day. The requirement would hurt manufacturing, which requires a lot of water, he said, and is "ridiculous" since 100,000 gallons only reduces a water table by one inch per year, "which is nothing."
Hoogendyk was director of the Crisis Pregnancy Center in Kalamazoo, which offers women an alternative to having abortions, and a Kalamazoo County commissioner before he ran for state representative. He said he believes in protecting the environment, but he wonders if government has gone too far.
"Are we going beyond what we need to protect the environment?" he asked.
To spur job growth, Hoogendyk advocates eliminating the Single Business Tax.
To boost the college-enrollment rate of Michigan students and to address the yearly higher-education funding conundrum, he advocates moving toward equal funding of the state's public universities.
Students who graduate from Michigan high schools could be offered state foundation grants to go to the universities or technical schools of their choice, as long as it was within the state, he said. The money would be given to schools in the students' names.
"Let them decide where they want to take that dollar, and that introduces a market-driven aspect," he said.
Hoogendyk also promotes moving Michigan toward spending 65 cents on every educational dollar within the classroom, including salaries of teachers and other people who directly deal with students, as well as books and supplies. Michigan now spends under 60 cents, and it ranks 48th in the country in its proportion of spending on actual classroom expenses.
Students should be able to leave high school when they are at the end of their sophomore year and enroll in junior college, he said. That would save the students money and put them into a working, tax-paying mode sooner, he said.
His daughter Kaitlin, 18, did so two years ago and has now been accepted to Western Michigan University, he said.
He mentioned pro-gun groups and pro-life groups as two good sources of contributions so far.
"I won't go into debt" to get nominated, he said. "I don't believe in that."
So far we have Dick DeVos, Hoogendyk, and Nancy Cassis running to replace Granholm. Granholm may actually be beaten as she's not nearly as popular as she was 3 years ago. We're still hurting here with our economy.
All three of these Republican candidates have odd names, and the one with the least odd name may therefore be nominated. Uninformed voters distrust those with strange names.
A primary will be good for these untested or little known candidates, both in terms of free publicity and momentum from a primary win. How much time between the primary and the general?
It hasn't sounded good so far.
It is my understanding that a significant number of Michigan voters are named Grzkowiak.
Hoogendyk?
Dutch name. West Michigan is heavily Dutch.
I was lamely trying to make a little play on words: who Gendyk?
I do seem to recall the Dutch influence in western Michigan. Would Hoekstra be another example?
What happened to the man who ran against Granholm in 2002 (Posthumus, or something like that)? If you look at a 2004 voting map of Michigan, it is quite red. But, good ol'Detroit area/Wayne County and a few other big cities carried the state for the Dems. NOthing changes in Michigan for the better, and the people keep getting screwed taxwise with little to show for it. Why can't anything good happen to my Michigan???? It can't all be the Unions, can it?
The problems are the city of Detroit, and to a lesser extent the college towns(Ann Arbor, East Lansing, Kalamazoo, and to a lesser extent, Mt. Pleasant) and small/midsize union cities like Flint, Pontiax, Saginaw, Bay City, Lansing, and Muskegon.
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