Pete Hoekstra

I believe with the P5+1 talks we relaxed sanctions.

I am skeptical of the soft-power efforts. I really would agree that the most effective tool would be strong economic sanctions.

The world is looking for America to speak with a single strong and unified voice.

One of the tools and the most effective tools that Iran has used in the past, is negotiating for more time.

Yes, my preference would have been to maintain the sanctions in place.

The sanctions become much more effective the larger the group of people who are actually working to implement the sanctions.

I applaud the bipartisan effort and the work of this committee and the direction that they have been going.

But the bottom line is it's a symptom, it's a symptom of the confusion on the other side, the sloppiness with which they brought this bill to the floor. I am glad that they have taken this lousy amendment and they are going to trash it…

I thank my colleague for that clarification because I think that is probably the bigger untold story here of how much and how many insights we might have had into al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula and how we failed to act on that…

This amendment is intended to get more information to the American people, more information to the families. I do hope that over the coming days that the Director of the CIA, that the people in the intelligence community decide to give the…

I thank my colleague, Congressman Akin. This is a time where we've got the great State of Michigan, the great State of Missouri, the Show-Me State. It's now time for this Congress to show the people of Missouri, to show the people of…

Washington, D.C., as an institution has become tone deaf. And you've got solutions. You know what the solutions are. You can fix the problem in Michigan, you can fix the problem in Missouri. It's as simple as what JFK did, what Ronald…

Just like the gentleman demonstrated in Massachusetts, the people are not tone deaf. They think we are. And they know Washington is.

You and I paid it and our constituents paid it. All right. And it is gone. It comes to this place here. We then decide what we are going to do with it. Now, if our people in our communities or our States want to get the money back, a lot…

And what you will see again is the States becoming incubators of ideas. Missouri or Michigan, we will compete, and you will get some great ideas, we will get some great ideas. You will have some bad ideas and we will have some bad ideas…

It is kind of like Charlie Brown. How many times are you going to pull the football away?

I can tell you, we worked with the NEA, the National Education Association. We worked with them, Barney Frank and I. Barney Frank, one of my colleagues from the other side of the aisle, we fought this issue, and he came at it from a very…

These are three very, very different communities with very different needs and challenges right now. Why are we trying to put them all into one straitjacket? Don't we really trust the local officials? And, more importantly, are you telling…

Over 600. We counted them. Across the government, there were over, I think, 650 different education programs, and you say, Why?

It is a huge amount for a State budget. But it happens every program. You know, we promise health care for all. No child left behind. No worker left behind. Everybody has a job. We put a little bit of money into the pot and then we pass it…

You are exactly right, and this is where Governors need to stand up and say no. I think with the health care bill, I think wasn't there a movement in like 29 States or something where State legislators were saying, No, we don't want it…

That's a scary thing, and that is exactly the type of process that people don't like. And they don't like the fact that when the President comes out and says during a campaign, when we get to the health care negotiations, it is going to be…

It's about making it more efficient. You and I know that with No Child Left Behind, when the taxpayer from Michigan, the taxpayer from Lansing, the taxpayer from Detroit, the taxpayer from Holland and the taxpayer from Sault Sainte Marie…

The Louisiana purchase. Then we have the deal for Nebraska which says even though you're, as a State, you're pretty healthy--you only have an unemployment rate of under 5 percent--but you don't have to pick up this unfunded mandate that…

Then they give us a 2,000-page health care bill, and it gets over to the Senate and they give the Senator from Louisiana $300 million.