One More For Patrick

I think I’ll be all caught up after this Guest Opinion that appeared in this morning’s Bucks County Courier Times from Bruce Lloyd of Lower Makefield, an engineer with the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs and a retired commander in the Coast Guard Reserve.

I could write a book on why we must send Patrick Murphy to Washington as our next congressman, but there is not the space here.

To start off, as I predicted in an earlier letter, “Sleaze tactics tilted elections; don’t let it happen again,” right on schedule we have a Mike Fitzpatrick news conference in which a few Iraqi war veterans attacked Democrat Patrick Murphy’s war record. Murphy didn’t spend much time on the front lines and is inflating his experience, they said.

That’s great. We have another attempt at “swift boating” a Democratic candidate, just as was done to Sen. John Kerry in 2004. It worked then, it won’t now. The voters here will vote based on the truth and facts, not on nonsense.

Murphy has an extensive multi-page plan for Iraq that makes perfect sense. See it on his web site (www.murphy06.com). I could find no plan on Congressman Fitzpatrick’s web site.

By the way, speaking of Mikey’s web site, I’ve been meaning to mention this. That huge, obnoxious billboard for Veterans For Fitzpatrick at the corner of Route 332 and Stony Hill Road in Lower Makefield advertises a site with the address of “Veterans for Fitzpatrick (no spaces) dot com.” If you enter that address, it takes you to Mikey’s campaign site and the Veterans Issues page. So basically, the Veterans For Fitzpatrick group doesn’t even exist. Nice.

Fitzpatrick and the Republican Party are trying to run from the subject, and hoping the rest of us won’t notice. I was able to find one short paragraph that said in the first sentence: “I had the opportunity to make two trips to Iraq to see firsthand the conditions our troops are facing.” Thank you, Mr. Fitzpatrick.

It is absolutely essential that the Democratic Party take control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Fitzpatrick is in the wrong party, and his votes are wrong. For example, on February 1, 2006, Fitzpatrick voted (216 to 214) to pass HR 653 that, among other things, slashes nearly $13 billion from the proposed increase in the student loan program, and likewise cut proposed increases for programs that help seniors get access to health care and prescription drugs.

In the economy, government deficits are soaring. When the Republican administration took over in 2001, Bill Clinton and his administration turned over a budget surplus of $230 billion, the highest in U.S. history. Now, for 2006, the expected deficit, according to CNN.com, is $260 billion, reflecting the largest six-year deterioration in 50 years.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (www.cbpp.org), we will be looking at deficits totaling $3 trillion over the next decade. That’s assuming the Republican Party tax cuts, which Fitzpatrick voted for, all stay permanent. On May 10th, Fitzpatrick voted with the Republican majority for HR 4297 to continue permanency of these horrific tax cuts.

The government’s interest bill that this Republican administration is forcing on us is estimated, according to the New York Times, to be $220 billion for this year, up from $184 billion in 2005. According to projections by the Congressional Budget Office, the interest bill will grow to $249 billion in 2007 and $270 billion in 2008. That is unless we elect a government that will bring some common sense to the budgeting and management process.

Patrick Murphy will be one vote to do so. Remember, interest is wasted money. (see www. American Progress.org, go to Economy, and then Economic Snapshot. Also on this same site, see Iraq, State of Disaster, and the Violence paragraph for the current update.)

It’s critical that we vote. We must make a change in Washington, and Patrick Murphy will be one vote for us to start bringing this country back to the center.

I totally agree of course, Mr. Lloyd (and once more, to help Patrick, click here).