Recently, you penned an open letter to President Obama, appealing to the history of our great nation and calling for an end to the budget brinksmanship. Indeed, our Democratic Republic has not always functioned smoothly. She has survived reorganization, insurrection, sedition, expansion, economic collapse, epidemic, famine and war. She has - under the guiding principles outlined by our Founding Fathers - endured these intervening centuries. More, she has thrived, seeming to come back from each disaster stronger than she started.
Through strict adherence to orthodox principles of republican government and democratic egalitarianism, the system America devised has guaranteed that the rights of the individual can not be trampled by the masses, but neither can any individual grind the masses into dust for his or her own advantage.
As a congressman, you are part of this system which is designed, above all else, to govern. You would be right to take this obligation seriously. It is part of the problem with our great nation's form of government that so much time must be spent not in doing the work of the people, not in crafting policy to form a more perfect union or provide for the general welfare, but in campaigning. We loud and long lament the incessant fundraising, but should we not also denounce using the floor of the House of Representatives as a campaign stop?
A sense of fairness demands I take umbrage with your talk of a "no negotiation" policy. Since April, Senate Democrats have asked nineteen times to go to conference and reconcile a budget, and nineteen times your Republican colleagues in the Senate blocked them. Since April, Speaker Boehner has refused to appoint conference delegates and reconcile the budget. Since April, you have chased every phony scandal imaginable while hiding from the budget that your caucus asked for. The protestations from the right over the lack of a budget sound like little more than a high-pitched whine in light of that same group’s refusals to observe regular order and actually negotiate one. That, Congressman, is the Republican Party's refusal to accept the responsibility to negotiate, not the Senate Majority Leader's nor the President's.
Thankfully Arizona's redistricting is handled by an independent commission, and so you personally cannot be accused of running in a gerrymandered district. However, in the House, your party lost seats and lost the popular vote. This does not jibe with the outcome of a Republican majority House. I understand that you personally may not have an explanation for the following question, but please ask your colleagues from Pennsylvania how Obama took the state with 52% of the electorate, yet Republicans took 13 of 18 House seats in that state. Please pose the same question to your colleagues from Michigan and Wisconsin. In the Senate, your party again lost seats, so no mandate to repeal the ACA can be claimed there. Ultimately, however, if Americans wanted Obamacare repealed, they would not have re-elected its signature supporter, Mr. Obama.
I do find it necessary to correct this "Congress will get exemptions from Obamacare" blather. The exemption you refer to is the Grassley Amendment - one of over 190 Republican initiated changes to the Affordable Care Act. The Grassley Amendment forces members of Congress, like yourself, to purchase insurance on the exchange. This can hardly be considered an exemption, and the fact that it is named for the prominent Republican leader that sponsored it flies in the face of your talking point that your party had no input on Obamacare. The Republican Party has also introduced the Vitter Amendment, which stipulates that Congresspersons and Congressional staff not only must buy insurance on the exchange, but cannot receive subsidies to do so. Congresspersons would not receive subsidies under the Grassley Amendment- your salary is far too high. To insist upon throwing Congressional staff off their employer-based system and then strip them of the ACA subsidies in the name of "fairness" is breathtakingly dishonest and cruel. You are sacrificing middle class Americans to your ideology by doing this, in the form of each and every member of the entire Congressional staff, your own included. Perhaps you should ask them how they feel about this.
Now, as to Democrats refusing to negotiate: The Republican Party put forth the Ryan budget many moons ago as their plan to deal with the deficit. Congressional Democrats essentially adopted the Ryan budget. There is nothing left for us to negotiate. Republicans aren’t even able to suggest more things to cut to get the rest of the way to the Ryan budget as was evidenced with the THUD Bill. You've gotten your way on spending.Now, rather than take yes for an answer and claim victory, you want to cry tyranny because Democrats want to give you what you want all at once instead of in pieces? Preposterous.
I could roll tape of all the Tea Party Republicans running on the promise of a shutdown, or point out that the original signers of the letter to Speaker Boehner demanding a shutdown represent some 22% of the nation. But perhaps the most disturbing glimpse into your party's strategy on the shutdown came from your fellow Arizona delegation member, Representative David Schweikert. In an interview with NPR, Schweikert said he approved of the tactics used, approved of the way this has been handled, and that there had not been enough attention paid to Obamacare. He then called the shutdown his idea of fun.
Message to House Republicans: This isn't fun. 800,000 government workers are furloughed. NIH is not carrying out life-saving research. The VA is not processing the benefits backlog of 600,000+ paper claims. Head Start is being kept alive on philanthropy. All of this is happening while the House Republicans hold government spending hostage to get their way on an issue they and their Presidential candidate lost on in 2012.
Leadership is hard. It requires a willingness to step forward and do what is right when it is not what you want to do. Congressman Salmon, it is time to stop campaigning and start governing.The American people are counting on you to govern and to protect the full faith and credit of the United States.
President George W. Bush said, "No nation can negotiate with terrorists." He's right. You have taken the budget hostage, and are demanding the nation negotiate with you on policy. As we have seen before, America will not yield to terrorists. Release the hostage. End this now.