My first thought after Tuesday night was Barbara Comstock (www.dailykos.com/...). She’s the remaining Republican Representative in Northern Virginia, an area squarely under attack in the Republican tax bill, which eliminates the mortgage interest deduction above $500,000 (the median mortgage must be at least $600,000) and the state and local tax deduction (Virginia has state taxes).
The Post had the same thought in a story in its Metro section on her today: www.washingtonpost.com/…. In it they present her as the walking dead she is.
I called her yesterday (202-225-5136) and got the very encouraging vibe of a flinching staffer. I stated that I wanted to offer my opinion on “Congress’s” tax bill and allowed for a pregnant pause before asking, “Want to guess what I think about it?”….”Uh, you’re not very happy about it?”.
So they know. Comstock is a fixture and a fixer in the Republican Party. Some of you may remember her as a shill for the defense in the Plame investigation. If I were giving her political advice I’d tell it to suck it up, be a good soldier, and vote for the damn bill regardless of the wishes of probably eighty percent of her district. Since she knows she’s going down anyway in 2018, I think this is the real danger.
So I hope we can offer loud and public condemnation of her; the Post’s article is an encouraging sign that she is under the microscope. I’m actually not in her district, but next door in a safe, Democratic Arlington one (Rep. Beyer). She represents McLean, one of the richest localities in the country, but one that is demographically and geographically divided between middle and upper middle class suburbs and the opulent mansions along the wildly scenic corridor of Georgetown Pike, parallel to the Potomac and adjacent to the region’s spectacular Great Falls (where I have by now spent a substantial portion of my life). This is the national headquarters of the Republican establishment and its donor class, complete with the Madeira girls’ school and horse pastures.
Posing as one of her constituents, I let her staffer know that I don’t want my taxes raised for the benefit of those people up the road. Anyone out there in her district: call her, write her and do the same to your realtor. Comstock knows damn well she’s the epicenter of this kleptocratic bill.