Question answered on Orrin Hatch

Today, a member of my meetup group said she didn’t feel I had done my homework on Orrin Hatch, and wondered why I felt he wasn’t standing up for our Constitution.  I respect her right to disagree, and wrote this quick email back.  Then I decided to just make it public.  I know he has many votes and he believes we are “cherry-picking” but these few votes, put in context of our current situation show a lack of understanding for the free-market, self-government, Federalism, and our Constitution. 

I’ve included a few photos to corroborate my story.

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For the benefit of the group, I will be happy to share my personal and political experiences with Orrin Hatch.  I have met with Orrin personally now on 4 or 5 occasions over lunch or breakfast.  As you know, he came to Coalville a year ago and did a town hall that I set up for him.  He has called me personally from his cell phone in DC as well, to talk “about things,” and I have flown to DC and met him there as well.   I have expressed to him my frustration, only to be told, “I didn’t understand.”  This is nothing more than DC arrogance, and I’m done with it.  These guys work for us.  This is not second-hand information but direct votes and my personal experience.

If you don’t know much about me, I am a very self-educated individual and consider myself an avid student of government, history, and human nature.

• I was frustrated over TARP in 2008. HATCH VOTED YES!  I believed that vote under Bush (and I am a Republican) could eventually create the downfall of our economic system.  I was trading the stock market that day and AIG was getting the $80 Billion bailout.  I knew this was a direct violation of free-market principles, and I also understood history.  Anytime a government tries to artificially manipulate the free-market system it either creates a deeper recession or depression, or complete collapse of an economy.  It rarely if ever turns out good.  That was a Pandora’s Box.
• I began looking into Hatch’s record.  There is a website where you can see many of his votes that have been in direct violation with smaller government, or the constitution in and of itself.  www.hatchrecord.com This is a page with accurate information.
• Medicare Part D was THE BIGGEST entitlement before Obamacare occurred in this country.
• NDAA 2012 is another huge violation of our civil liberties. (See post)
• SCHIP — bad legislation
• In May he voted against an amendment put forward by Senator Rand Paul that would STOP allowing the FDA to do armed raids against people who drink raw milk, and sell goat cheese without a warrant.  Mike Lee, Rand Paul, and Mike Crapo (the guy who will be the finance chair from Idaho if Hatch does not return.) all voted in favor of this amendment.  This amendment would have put back in place our 4th amendment rights that we are not to be improperly searched or seized without a written warrant from a judge.
• He has voted to raise the debt ceiling $7.6 Trillion dollars (almost 1/2 of our current national debt)
• He has been in office longer than a dictator. 
• He is using the same tactics that got us into the mess to try to get us out.  It won’t work.
• His son works as a lobbyist for a pharmaceutical company and much of his donation money comes from that industry.
• I’ve heard him publicly say the FDA deserves more money and more power.
• He approved Cass Sunstein as regulatory czar.
• He approved Ruth Bader Ginsberg to the supreme court.
• The Senate Finance Chair should not be someone who has been fiscally irresponsible over the last 36 years.
• Dan Liljenquist worked at Bain Capitol (Mitt Romney‘s company) and I’m sure he’ll get along just fine if he is the president.
• Hill AFB is not in danger.  BRAC determines which bases close and which don’t.  Hill is getting tons of money dumped into it right now, and we are building the NSA right here in Utah, so it will need close defense of that BILLION dollar building.
• Voted for the Federal Department of Education (and took away the ability for states to have control over education)

I hope all of you will do your own homework.  This is just a short list of my reasons. 

(I haven’t blogged in a long time … sorry)