My Congressional Representative

I just got a letter from my Congressman.

Imagine Snoopy dancing in front of his dog house as the Peanuts music is playing ...

I would like to point out (and discuss) a couple of things that were in this letter. Here we go.

"I pressed leadership in my party to slow down the rush to push a bill through Congress prior to the August recess, as I would prefer to get healthcare reform right rather than just get it done. "

Hmmm. Okay.

"I know that, at the end of the day, I work for you, and every two years you decide whether you would like to renew my employment contract. I do my best to work diligently and honestly to represent all 650,000 of my constituents, my employers, to the utmost best of my ability."

Okay, hold it right there. Mr. Congressman, you claim that you are representing all your constituents. Do you understand what this means? Let me help you. This does not mean that you make deals in order to get legislation done. It is not in the best interest of your constituents to spend tax money bribing other legislators to get a particular piece of legislation done. Consider this: if one representative gets some kind of incentive (BRIBE!) to vote a particular way, then all of the others are going to want some kind of incentive to vote a particular way. How is this in the best interest of your constituents? The best thing for your constituents is to govern in a way that will benefit them without having to spend hard earned tax money on earmarks (bribes)!

Let's be clear: it is not in the best interest of any constituent to have legislation passed by bribing some of the legislators.

Tell me something: why is it that we have to bribe legislators to vote for a particular piece of legislation? Isn't this the thing that most Americans wanted changed about Washington? Isn't this the real problem with government? Isn't this why most Americans think the government is corrupt? Well, why wouldn't they? Is there anyway to spin the deal making as something other than broken (if not corrupt) government? Doesn't the answer seem obvious? The change we really needed was not to change the names of the people in Washington that were making all of these deals. The change the American people really wanted was to stop making these kinds of deals.

And, to my Congressman, who I voted for in the last election: You are not representing me in the manner that I expected. I expected you to vote against any legislation, where some other legislator has made some kind of deal, that will end up with my taxes being higher because you voted with your party. I expect my representative to have the integrity to speak out against this form of government.

News Flash!

If you wanted to get healthcare reform right, you failed!

And, I am not even going to go into the amount of money "we the people" are paying for you to just vote with your party. If you truly are representing your constituents, you will not go along with the party and all the deals; you will do the right thing.

This is not change I can believe in ...