Please find below the letter I wrote to Rep. Rehberg (R)MT, concerning his tea party stance on the debt ceiling negotiations. It required an addendum since our President acquiesced on every tea-party demand...serious ouch there, because President Obama weakened all of the progressives points, but there may be a silver lining, the tea party, I believe, now owns the economy, perhaps that was the 11th dimension plan.
Honorable Rep. Rehberg:
You were elected to the house of representatives which is tasked with spending Americas money. Why is it you need an amendment to the Constitution to make you do your job well? Patriotism should suffice.
Your party was in the majority in all but four years of your ten years as a legislator, [2007-20011 saw Democratic control], and yet your record is abysmal.
It is an indisputable fact that you, Rep.Rehberg, have been in office in a position to influence policy during the worst economic collapse since the great depression, during the start of at least two unfunded wars, during the creation of the unfunded Medicare Part D, and during the squandering of opportunities to correct our policy and remedy the malaise caused by these boondoggles.
You came into a government in 2000, a year that had an operative surplus of 236 billion dollars. Because of your party's policies, you have presided over a fiscal decline and deficit for every single year or your terms, culminating in a 2011 fiscal deficit of over 1.4 trillion dollars. This was on your watch.
Now you tell us that we should default on our commitments to the investors in this great Nation if we do not have 1] a balanced budget amendment to our constitution, 2] a painful retraction to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, and 3] protections for the richest Americans tax loop holes. You seem to want to stiff the investors who lent the money for your policy largesse!
My question to you, Rep. Dennis Rehberg, is this: What is your vision for America? Your actions would lead an observer to conclude that you want a country with a fractured economy and a dysfunctional government that lords over and impoverishes the masses and caters to kings. You want a country where money is God and greed is the creed, where "me first" is moral and having more is Holy, and where deception is divine and "do as I say not as I do" is the law.
What you and your Tea Party supporters wish to create is possible in America, yet is far from the ideals upon which this country was founded. The visionary founders believed that enlightened and educated people could govern themselves in such a manner that would create a just and ultimately civil society with opportunity for all.
Which leads to my next question, Rep Rehberg: If your goals for this country are so worthy, great and grand, why must you resort to blackmail to achieve them? Your willingness to hold the full faith and credit of the United States in jeopardy to gain legislative advantage is tantamount to saying, "Hand over the Constitution and the Treasury or I will shoot Lady Liberty." You seem to believe that this country must be torn down in order to rebuild it to your ideals. You seem to lend no credence to the collective wisdom of the hundreds of millions who created what you so fervently wish to dismantle.
The fact of the matter is that a large majority of Americans do not agree with your goals or your tactics. In fact, your Tea Party is a minority within your own Republican Party. You are a minority within a minority and, as such, your agenda cannot be allowed to dominate within a democracy where a majority rules. Your desire to shrink government access by the people, end regulations that protect the people, and only allow the "well to do" access to our courts is an anathema to the American Ideal. Your 85-member Tea Party caucus claim to know THE way to create a new America that is better than the America already created by the hundreds of millions of citizens who built the greatest Nation in the history of the World
It is my belief that when the people of the great state of Montana are made aware of your myopic vision of America, your legislative agenda will force you into an early retirement from a government that you so obviously despise.
As I submit this letter there is news that an agreement has been reached between the President, Leaders in the Senate, and Rep.Boehner, Rep.Pelosi is unsure if she can support this "compromise" which grants all of the tea party wishes. Because the tea party got everything it wanted, you Rep. Rehberg now own the results, which I am certain will be economic disaster, but we shall see if tax-cuts and spending cuts will create the jobs that you tea party elitists claim. We shall see if retracting the economy by 10% will cause it to grow. I predict a 10% recession.
The President has agreed to do it your way Rep. Rehberg, and now the onus is upon you to deliver the jobs and the robust economic recovery. Good Luck with that one. You have 1.33 years to deliver, there are no excuses, and no passing the buck!