"I, Wayne Kuipers, hereby pledge to the people of my district (MI-02) upon my election to the U.S. House of Representatives, to sponsor and support legislation to repeal any federal health care takeover passed in 2010, and replace it with real reforms that lower health care costs without growing government."

But this is not the first pledge Wayne Kuipers has made to the tax payers of Michigan. Several years ago, Wayne Kuipers signed Americans for Tax Reform's, "Taxpayer Protection Pledge", in which he pledged to the taxpayers of his district "and all the people of this state that I [Kuipers] will oppose and vote against any and all efforts to increase taxes." Sen. Kuipers is listed as a signatory to ATR's Taxpayer Protection Pledge on the ATR website.

Unfortunately, in 2004 Kuipers either forgot his pledge, or hoped that the taxpayers would. He voted to raise taxes three different times, and earned himself inclusion into ATR's Taxpayers' "Hall of Shame".

When Sen. Kuipers joined with his colleague, Rep. Bill Huizenga, and voted to replace the SBT with the job killing Michigan Business Tax in 2007, he did so knowing he would once again break his promise to the people of Michigan. Add to this Sen. Kuipers' vote to raise the sales tax on services through out the state, and his later vote to replace this punitive tax on services with the 21.99% MBT surcharge, and a clear pattern develops.

It is because of this pattern of breaking his word and raising taxes on Michigan families and businesses that I read with some interest in the Kalamazoo News, that Sen. Wayne Kuipers will be a panelist at an upcoming health care town hall hosted by the Southwest Michigan Tea Party Patriots and Citizens for Common Sense.

Concerned citizens and Tea Party Patriots should be aware not only of Senator Kuipers' history of raising taxes and expanding state government, but that pledges made for the sake of expediency-- rather than for principle--are easily broken.

Fool us once, Sen. Kuipers, shame on you. Fool us twice--shame on us.