Northwest Indiana Discussion

http://nwi.com/articles/2008/05/14/upda ... 795227.txt

Visclosky said he wanted residents in his home state and constituent communities to choose their nominee without any influence from his decision.

"I did feel it was important for people to exercise their own judgment -- make up their own mind," he said.

Despite Hoosiers voting for Hillary, despite LC voting for Hillary except for Gary & EC, and on the heels of Hillary's commanding victory in the working class state of West Virginia your "public servant" U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky shows he doesn't much care what YOU think. No, he'd much rather side with his liberal Dem buddies in Washington.

I think this is kinda how he cooked up the massive West Shore rail link plan. It wasn't because the people he is suppose to represent was calling for it, but because his liberal pals told him that the people just don't know what's good for them. Nevermind that the rail plan is way more expensive than other options. But then maybe he knew his legislative pals had it in mind to oppose new US oil drilling and new refineries on the supposed grounds it's good for the environment?

And where does he stand on the REAL ID Act? But then who really knows why he votes as he does? All I know is it's time for him to go!

Gary or East Chicago population doesn’t equal Hillary’s 2% win margin. Are they also responsible for VanTil? Gary was one of the few areas where they throw out incumbents’ while the rest only gave lip service. Now if they can get the rest of their act together, what will you have to talk about.

Hillary and her supporters need to move on to the issues at hand and lets fix what ails America.

Thinking of that, I just saw a CNET article that Congress is in the process of spending $1 bil on equipment to more easily locate child porn on the internet. And while this would seem to be a worthy goal when you start adding up all the $billions here, $billions there projects it soon becomes apparent why taxes across the board have gone way out of control!

I half remember a recent discussion about some UN project the US was opposed to and that it was refusing to support it, yet the fact that because the US pays $billions a year to the UN essentially we'd wind up paying for it anyway in the end.

If Ron Paul's candidacy for President has shown us anything it's that in many states about 15% of people voting in Republican primaries (give or take) are opposed to US spending policies, especially foreign spending. And while some of these projects may have more merit than others individually the point is that the burden of all this spending, both domestically and abroad, being placed on the wage earner has become more crushing than beneficial.

I have to agree something has to give.

Hear is a news letter from Pete which I agree with.



Dear Silas,

In Northwest Indiana we make the highest quality steel and our steelworkers are among some of the most productive in the world. We need to take solid measures to protect the jobs of American steelworkers and ensure a viable steel industry for generations to come. We need to level the playing field with China and make them compete fairly.

I have introduced H.R. 5935, the American Steel First Act, to advance our steel industry and create steelworker jobs by making our federal government buy only American-made steel. At present, many departments of the government are free to buy imported steel, using the excuse that we don’t have the capability to make the steel they require for their projects. If the American government is going to buy steel with taxpayers’ money, it should be made in America. If we don’t have the capability to produce the steel we need, we should create the capability. Under my bill, all construction projects executed by the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Transportation would be required to use only American steel. The American Steel First Act would increase demand for American steel, create jobs, and bring manufacturing capacity back to the U.S.

Our crippling trade imbalance with China is hurting American steel. The United States ran a $256 billion trade deficit with China last year and imported over 4.5 million net tons of finished Chinese steel products. As the Chairman of the Congressional Steel Caucus, I lead a group of over 100 bipartisan lawmakers in the fight for American steel. Last month, I held a Congressional Steel Caucus hearing on Chinese steel imports in which we considered the incidence of substandard Chinese steel and explored policy options for leveling the playing field with China. My American Steel First Act will help diminish the demand for imported Chinese steel, but we must also reform our trade laws to make them fair. In light of the findings of the Congressional Steel Caucus hearing, I am leading it toward legislative proposals that would hold importers responsible for substandard and defective goods that they import and that would help U.S. Customs collect anti-dumping tariffs more quickly and effectively. We need a trade policy that is fair for all Americans so that our steel makers can compete on a level field with China’s and these common-sense policies would be a big step in the right direction.

As the proud representative of the finest steel makers on earth, and as the Chairman of the Congressional Steel Caucus, I will continue to fight for American steel. We can keep our steel strong if we pass common sense laws that protect steelworker jobs and level the playing field with China and I am committed to doing exactly that.

Sincerely,

Pete Visclosky
Member of Congress

That's odd. It's almost word for word the same letter he sent me! The first name was different though.