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| John Boehner & Eric Cantor |
Below is my email to Boehner that I sent today.
Speaker Boehner,
I've voted in every election since I became eligible to vote, that's over 35 years ago. Members of the U.S. Congress do not represent only their districts but the well being of the entire country. As Speaker of the House, you are responsible to all of us; the people are the government.
I am dismayed at the continual efforts of your party to support tax breaks for the wealthiest 2% in this country. I am insulted that your party continues to try and persuade the voters that this is in their best interests. The theory of trickle-down economics has not worked in spite of efforts to insist that it will benefit the people of this country. The haves continue to gain more and the have-nots continue to have less. This policy has not been shown to create more jobs.
Our country is in debt and the revenues from letting the tax breaks for the wealthy expire would add considerable monies to our coffers. The justifications offered for not allowing the tax breaks to expire are ludicrous. The loopholes that allow major corporations to avoid paying taxes are ludicrous. Your party's refusal to listen to the will of the people is ludicrous.
Your party's position is that we have a spending problem and not a revenue problem. This is beyond ludicrous. We have a deficit problem. When your expenditures exceed your revenues, it is certainly appropriate to make cuts where possible but it is also prudent to engage in methods to secure additional revenues. To put it simply, if my expenditures exceed my budget, I cut back on spending. However, I don't also refuse to take steps to increase my income.
I can't say that I will no longer vote for your party; I never have and most likely never will. I will say that the destruction that you sow if you continue with this shortsighted policy will affect generations to come, and you and your party will earn the dubious distinction of having sunk the American economy.
Speaker Boehner, work with the President, not against him.
It's time to tell these elected officials that we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it any more. Give the President your support. He cannot stop the Republicans simply because he says so. He's the President, not a dictator. To those of you still insisting that he caved on the extension of the tax rates, get off that ride. He did not have the votes to end the tax breaks for the wealthy. If he had vetoed the bill that extended those cuts, his veto would have been overridden. Yes the Democrats were in control but all Democrats were not loyal. Instead of taking a symbolic stand that would have resulted in failure any way, the President used it as an opportunity to ensure the continuation of elements of the tax code such as the earned income tax credit (EITC) that directly benefit low wealth families.
If you want to do something now, if you want to fight the good fight, then make Congress hear that we will not accept the extension of the tax cuts for the wealthy. Making a few phone calls and/or writing an email will take you all of 15 to 20 minutes. Stop talking and start doing. I can't guarantee success but if we all do nothing, I can guarantee failure.
Find and contact your senators.
Find and contact your representatives.
So it is written, so it shal be done.
ReplyDeleteI've written to Rooney Tunes, my congressman so often I'm sure he has a spam file with my name on it, but it's time to write his boss. It's time to pay the bills rather than making magic incantations about magic recoveries.
I like to imagine that there is a file with my name on it at the FBI that contains all of my letters to elected officials.
ReplyDeleteNice try, but unless you walk into Boehner's office from "K" street with a briefcase full of campaign contributions, your e-mail was likely deleted after reading the first two sentences by some college kid summer volunteer from Yale.
ReplyDeleteSheria, I agree, something needs to be done collectively. But Robert also has a point; individual efforts are all to easy to dismiss. You might want to check out avaaz.ca, a Canadian e-petitioning site that would make a good model for US advocacy, especially if a large volume of signatories could be attracted...
ReplyDeleteSheria,
ReplyDeleteMany thanks for your fine letter. I used it almost 'as is' with minor changes to reflect differences in age and species orientation. Unfortunately, the zip code finder revealed that my local representative is Bill Posey, a GOP proto-fascist. Good luck with that.
The next great civil rights struggle is to extend the voting franchise to other life forms including small cephalopods, reptiles, birds and mammals; and most importantly to restore human beings to their proper place in the food chain (which should be close to the bottom). Only then will we be able to balance the budget and restore the natural balance.
Excellent post and in light of Robert's observation, might I suggest writing this missive and emailing it to Boehner and also copy the email to other Dem reps either from your district or one that sits on one of the committees - copy to as many people as seems appropriate. One of them is bound to read it and so the message will get out there.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate all the fine comments; however, I'm not a political neophyte. I've worked as a lobbyist for six years and a legislative analyst for five in my state legislature. Believe it or not, legislative staff reads and catalogs all communications, including the negative ones.
ReplyDeleteWhen I worked as a lobbyist on behalf of low wealth public school students and their parents, one of the most effective campaigns that I organized was a grassrooots lobbying effort that consisted of 1,000 letters written to legislators by school age students asking them to protect their futures by funding education adequately. The letters were followed up by a visit to the state legislature of 100 students and their parents The students passed out packs of lifesavers with a note attached that read, "Save a life; fund education." The year was 2001 and we got the funding that was needed.
There are lots of grassroots groups that lobby at the state and federal level. The folks who have successfully gotten DOMA legislation passed at the state level show up, write letters and emails and get what they want. Amazingly, for the most part when I speak with liberal groups, they are always certain that such efforts will be fruitless. We've allowed the Right to control access to elected officials. They do a good job of it. They rally often, standing on the grounds of the state legislatures demanding that they be heard. They mount huge letter writing campaigns, they Tweet and they email. Such efforts don't always produce results but doing nothing is guaranteed to produce no results.
My letter was sent to Boehner via email before I posted it here. I also wrote letters to my U.S. Congress persons. As Speaker of the House, Boehner has a website specifically for non-constituents to send him emails in his capacity as Speaker.
There are some things that we could learn from the Right, not a whole lot of substantive stuff but we could pick up a few tricks when it comes to persistence and grassroots efforts.
Sheria,
ReplyDeleteI think they just have a file on me at the Smithsonian, organized under "urban myths: living dinosaurs."
Why do I get the sinking feeling that to certain elements within the Republican Party, the "unthinkable" is entirely doable? Apparently, those elements never think at all. Maybe that's it. I know almost everyone is supposing that the debt ceiling issue will get sorted out, but I'm not so sure now: the president (and Speaker Boehner, I suppose -- I think he at least realizes the stakes here) is dealing with people who may not be capable of doing the grown-up thing, or even the sane thing.
Most people understand what happens when you just decide that you're no longer going to meet your credit card's minimum monthly payment. But not THESE people.