Can't we all just get along?

Please can I have some health insurance?

Representative Jim Ramstad gave us a good chuckle this morning in his Strib op-ed piece, “Too much at stake for continued partisan warfare.”

He rattles off a litany of the nation’s problems: social security, hungry children, crisis in public schools, out of control health care costs, national security, dependence on foreign oil, etc, and calls for a bipartisan effort to solve them. He goes on to say, “I’m not talking about singing “Kumbaya,” holding hands on the Capitol steps.”

Well, Jim, that’s exactly what you are talking about. In case you haven’t noticed, your party now controls both houses of congress and the White House. If your party were really in power for the good of the people as you see it, they could do all these things.

For example, they could raise the retirement age a squeak and eliminate the limit on the amount of income that is taxed for Social Security benefits. They could add to, rather than cut, poverty programs, especially for children. The party of Lincoln could establish a reasonable basic health care system for all Americans that would make our businesses more, not less, competitive internationally. You could put a tax on gasoline that would raise the price to somewhere near what the rest of the world pays, and use the income from that tax to repair roads and bridges and build a mass transit system that would use less gas. While you are at it, you could put a huge tax on gas guzzlers and require car manufacturers to increase their fleet mileage. You could pay for increased security measures where we really need it–around our ports and chemical plants–instead of sending seven times as much money per capita for increased security measures to Wyoming (home of Dick Cheney) than you do to New York.

I could go on, but you get the point, Jim. It’s your party, firmly in the control of the DeLay wing, which is against all those things you say the country needs. They are the ones who want to cut taxes at the same time we’re at war in order to starve the government enough to effectively repeal the New Deal.

Jim, if you really think these things need doing, you need to round up the few remaining moderates in your party and get together with some of the same from the Democratic side and get to work to wrest the power from those who simply want to destroy government.

Writing a polyannaish letter to the Strib ain’t gonna cut it.