Senator Hatch,
I came to your town hall on April 7th, 2010. I confess, I almost decided not to come, because despite the fact that I’m a hardworking, taxpaying mother and veteran who takes care of her family and her civic obligations, I have watched with growing consternation the actions of the “tea party” when it comes to dealing with people who do not march in lockstep with their opinions and had no wish to subject myself or my family to the possibility of violence by someone who questioned my “patriotism”. However, I refuse to be cowed by people who want nothing more than to continue stifling discussion in this country; if I give in, they win. Thus, there I was in an uncomfortable metal folding chair at 6:45 PM, waiting for you to speak, hoping for an open and honest dialogue with my senator.
What I got, however, was a flag-draped Tea Party Talking Points extravaganza, underscoring the fact that even among our elected representatives, true political dialogue has been abandoned in favor of emotional rhetoric and factless-but-snappy one-liners that fit easily on protest signs.
In your email announcing the town hall, you mentioned a “government takeover of health care”. I don’t recall there being a public option included in the current law, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t miss it being added. The current law is not a government takeover of health care … and I couldn’t help but notice that most of your constituents who were muttering such things are of the age to be on Medicare. Medicare is provided by the government, whether or not they choose to admit it, and I would like to know why these people feel they deserve government-funded health care, but my family and my children don’t deserve even a subsidy to be able to afford the horrendously overpriced private insurance to which we are currently restricted.
“High taxes” have been mentioned repeatedly in the health care discussion. The only “high tax” is a measly .9% (that’s ZERO POINT NINE PERCENT, sir) on people who make $200,000 a year or over. Rounding up, that’s $2000 a year, and that is a RIDICULOUSLY low tax, Senator. If I made that much money, I’d be willing to pay it just so other parents don’t have to go through what I go through now – sitting and HOPING that a sick child doesn’t get worse, and that all those homegrown remedies work, because doctor’s visits are economically impossible. I would pay that much in taxes NOW, and I make nowhere near $200,000 a year. Senator, I doubt there were five people in your audience of 500 who make more than that a year. These “taxes” you and your colleagues keep talking about will not affect the majority of the people who came to your town hall yelling about high taxes, but you and your colleagues refuse to dispel that notion, because doing so isn’t good TV and isn’t good “tea party” politics.
You say you want to repeal this law because “it takes away your freedom”. What you are effectively saying is that you want insurance companies to have the right to take money from customers for years, and then drop them when the customer attempts to use the insurance. You want insurance companies to have the right to deny children health care based on “pre-existing” conditions. Tell me, Senator, how can a newborn baby have a pre-existing condition? You are saying that you want small businesses to continue to not be able to afford to give their employees health insurance, since this new law gives small businesses a tax CREDIT for purchasing insurance. Are you and your colleagues, who are campaigning on repealing this law, going to tell me to my face that I am less worthy to have health insurance than the insurance companies are to continue fleecing Americans? A country is only as good as her ability to take care of her citizens, and I would like to think that the American people – the people I served for eight years in the Marine Corps, the people I willingly deployed to Iraq for – are the kind of people who understand that our greatest duty (one imparted by Christ, no less) is to take care of “the least of these”, those less fortunate than we … not to jealously clutch our money and yell, “I got mine, get away from me.”
You say you want to repeal this law because it will “cost us too much money”. Right now, Senator, our current wars have cost this country over $900 billion. Iraq, on its own, has cost over $700 billion. Parceled out to the states, that’s $5 billion from Utah taxpayers alone. $5 billion, for something that has garnered us nothing but the loss of life on both sides and acrimony from the international community! The “huge deficit” you like to speak of (that President Bush somehow had NO hand in, now that Barack Obama is president) was mostly created by these two wars (only one of which has turned out to be justifiable at all) and by the Medicare Part D vote. None of these things had funding, but they were voted for anyway. If I recall correctly, Senator, you yourself voted for both Iraq and Afghanistan … although you voted AGAINST extended time between deployments, or for troop drawdowns in Iraq, or for congressional oversight of where Iraq money was going, which I find interesting. It’s very hard to paint yourself as a fiscal conservative when you vote for two unfunded wars, and against PAYGO and against a bipartisan commission on reducing the debt, sir.
At the town hall, you complained vociferously about the “government bailout of banks”. Senator, that was the TARP. I would like to remind you that you voted FOR the TARP. If you don’t recall this vote, you can find it on http://www.votesmart.org – your entire voting record is there. Why was voting for the TARP in 2008 okay … but now, in 2010, the TARP is terrible? Oh, that’s right, it’s because the people you want to woo don’t like it … so now you don’t like it. Those are some very fluid principles you have there.
Also, sir, a question: you and your colleagues have been everywhere on the airwaves, talking about how the federal government can’t be trusted, how the federal government doesn’t have the people’s best interests in mind, how the federal government can do nothing right. Sir, you WORK for the federal government, and have done so for THIRTY-FOUR YEARS. Are you and your colleagues telling us that we can’t trust YOU to do your job correctly? I know, I know, it’s all politics to pander to the people who want to do nothing more than yell and scream, but Senator? If the tea party gets what they want – a complete overthrow of the current government – are you going to resign your post and commit treason with them? Because you know if you don’t, they will turn on you.
Perhaps moderates like myself should take to the streets, screaming about how we have “no representation” since the Republican party has gone so far to the right and has thrown so far in with the irrational that we are now ashamed to call ourselves Republicans in public. After all, the only way to be heard in this country anymore is to wave signs around, complain about taxes (and our taxes are INCREDIBLY low – perhaps we SHOULD go back to “the good old days” of the 1950s), ignore facts that don’t fit with a pre-decided worldview, misuse words like “fascism”, “socialism”, and “communism”, and condone violence and racism.
All we want is honesty. We don’t want left-wing OR right-wing bias. We don’t want to see this country devolve into violence. But that is partially dependent on knowing that we can trust our representatives to do what’s best for US, not for who happens to be giving them campaign money (and yes, Senator, I certainly did notice that your largest donors are from the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries). Too many Americans have been snowed into voting against their interests. Too many Americans are apathetic or lazy and only get bare snippets of news from one source … and unscrupulous politicians are always standing by ready to take advantage of such ignorance. Until I went to your town hall, I was sincerely hoping that this wouldn’t happen in the great state of Utah, a state known for its volunteerism, its industry, and its charity and unselfishness. I was hoping that we could be an example to the rest of the Republican Party, showing that we ARE willing to put aside petty ideological differences in order to work for the betterment of the country as a whole. I was hoping we could be a voice of reason. I was hoping we could be a leader, not a follower.
Senator, I know you will ignore this letter, because it doesn’t fit with YOUR pre-decided worldview. That was made apparent when you told a dissident at your town hall that “without Republicans you wouldn’t have anything,” a statement breathtaking in its naïveté, ignorance, and arrogance. I know you won’t care that you no longer have my vote, because you know you have enough riled-up people who WILL vote for you, even if it’s just because, “Well, he’s been our senator for however long, so I may as well vote for him.” However, it is my duty as an American to not merely sit by and watch as one of our political parties is thrown to the dogs, for silence is just as much of an enemy as those who would see this country embroiled in another civil war.
Thank you, Senator, for continuing to fight the good fight for me to remain priced out of the insurance market, for me to get charged more for my insurance (if I can ever afford it) because I had a miscarriage, and for corporations to continue to be able to do what they want at the expense of Americans. Thank you for making your stand on the backs of those least able to fight back. Thank you for continuing to see how far you can go politically by repeating half-truths and total falsehoods. Thank you for finally confirming that I, and those like me, really do not have any representation in our state.
Yours in political frustration,
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