Our 8th District Rep At Work

This is a real grab-bag of a post, I know, but I'm trying to knock off all of the letters and Patrick Murphy's Guest Opinion today in the Courier Times in one shot.

First, here are the letters...

I am a registered Republican. I voted for Patrick Murphy in 2006.

Congressman Murphy’s recent calling to task fellow members of Congress for their recent pork-barrel spending on the floor of Congress was both admirable and gutsy. It appears that Murphy is keeping his eye on both local and national issues and handling both admirably.

If Murphy keeps up this level of performance, I, a registered voting Republican, will again vote for him in 2008. Why? Because he is looking out for us!

William Oxenford
Upper Southampton

An article by Brian Scheid says that critics are upset with Congressman Patrick Murphy, who supports a measure to include spending of $21 billion to be added to the war funding bill for domestic needs.

So where’s the pork? Billions of our tax dollars have gone to the war effort, and we know how well that has been spent. Remember Halliburton, no-bid contracts, insufficient protection for our military, and the missing millions of war dollars that no one is investigating or, for that matter, even reporting in our newspapers? It seems strange that they do not want to find that money. It makes me wonder: all of this is probably “the real pork.”

Where’s the pork when all of the funding has been cut for silly pork products such as health care, education, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, community development, job training, our own infrastructure, etc. This may be “pork.” Let us not forget the cuts to pork like home agriculture spending, which we should know about, even if it is buried somewhere in our newspapers.

Say nothing of the $2 billion pork budget we spend on renewable energy research.

More than 110 Pennsylvanians have died in a war of lies. How’s that for pork?

I think Congressman Murphy should create some spending so that Americans may have a prosperous life to return to. Attach it anywhere you can, please!

Joe Russo
Bensalem

That was a little strident even for me, I must admit.

Recently I arrived at the Yardley train station to make my daily commute into Center City, and I was very pleasantly surprised to see Congressman Patrick Murphy on the platform greeting commuters. It was a serendipitous meeting, and most fortunate because I was planning to call Congressman Murphy that day about a cause to which I am very dedicated – the fight against Alzheimer’s disease.

I was a windy, cold morning, yet Murphy listened intently to my concerns about funding to support research for a cure, as well as funding for much-needed support for programs and service for people with dementia and their family care partners. When I said my piece and walked away, he followed me to the other end of the platform to continue the conversation. He set up an appointment to meet with me and other advocates personally at his Washington, D.C. office, as I had already planned to be at the capital to participate in the Alzheimer’s Association’s annual Public Policy Forum/Day on the Hill. Following that meeting, the congressman and I planned to keep in touch, at the local level, about the important issues associated with dementia care.

I applaud Murphy. Lots of politicians “stump” for votes at the train stations around the area, but Murphy has returned to the station, post election, to say “thanks” to the voters and to connect with their needs, issues and concerns. I am so pleased to have a legislator who is accessible to his constituents – who listens, follows through, and cares about what is important to so many people in his district.

I hope that in sharing this experience other concerned citizens will be encouraged to reach out to Congressman Murphy too. I believe he is very determined to serve our community in the best possible way.

Danita J. Vetter
Lower Makefield

Thank you, Congressman Patrick Murphy, for your support of the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that protects workers who want to unionize.

A study of the history of American labor and unions provides a fascinating history of the last 150 years. I remember when the great John L. Lewis, head of the Miners Union, came to our town to meet with my Uncle Jimmy. You’d have thought the pope was coming.

I don’t remember getting a glimpse of him, but his picture was often on the front page and adults spoke of him with reverence. Instead of fairy tales, my grandmother told us stories of injustice and death in the mines. She told me about the next-door neighbor who came from Poland and was killed in the mines.

“They came in the Black Maria, the ambulance that rarely went to the hospital, and they dumped him on the dining room floor, and that was that.”

I’ve never been a member of a union, but years ago a woman I worked with began talking about unionizing the company she worked for. She was warned she would be fired if she kept it up. Shortly after, she left the job and the administrator who warned her retired with stocks coming out of her ears. I hear she is a world traveler.

Many people today have little or no contact with unions. America has been privatized. IT began with Ronald Reagan. An example of privatization is the Walter Reed debacle. While mold grew on the walls and rodents and cockroaches flourished, private companies competed for three years for the Army contract.

Finally, in 2006, the contract was awarded to IAP Worldwide Services Inc., a company with powerful political connections. Meanwhile, the men and women home from Iraq lived in rooms that most of us wouldn’t stay in for 10 minutes. Yes, privatization works well – for the well-connected companies.

Oh, yes, there is a dark side to unions. There were thugs and corruption, and there was Jimmy Hoffa. Today, unions are closely scrutinized, sometimes overly so, and their members follow strict guidelines on hiring, organizing and striking.

Historically, religious groups have had a strong influence on the human rights of workers. Recently, Interfaith Worker Justice, a national organization of various religions, supported a strike in Phoenix with its “Thirst For Justice” protest. The strikers are nonunion ironworkers who face racial discrimination, safety concerns, and even lack of water on the job.

Hooray for those faith groups that spend time addressing basic human rights. Hooray for Father Bill. (?) Hooray for unions. Hooray for Congress. Hooray for Patrick Murphy.

Eleanor Guerriero
Bristol Township, PA

Next, here is Patrick's Guest Opinion concerning his budget vote before the congressional break...

I recently broke ranks with my own party leaders and voted against their budget plan. I did not come to this decision lightly. I voted this way because I believe that families in the 8th Congressional district deserve fiscal responsibility.

When my daughter, Maggie, was born last year at Lower Bucks Hospital, her share (and every American’s share) of our national debt was over $29,000.

The Bush administration has taken record budget surpluses and turned them into record debt – totaling nearly $9 trillion in only a few years. We’ve seen budgets seriously cripple our economy while the debt we owe to countries like China and Saudi Arabia continues to climb. President Bush and past Congresses have mortgaged our future with reckless spending. We need to act with a sense of urgency to rein in spending in Washington and protect middle-class tax cuts that are set to expire in 2010.

Those of use elected to serve – whether Democrats, Republicans or Independents – need to be committed to fiscal responsibility. This means being straight with you, the voters, about which tax cuts and spending programs we can and cannot afford. Any politician who promises tax cuts and spending increases to every interest group that comes along is doing the country a great disservice.

In this budget, non-defense discretionary spending increased at an unacceptable rate. Make no mistake, this Democratic budget was far better than the mythical budgets Tom DeLay and President Bush put forth the last few years. Despite the improvements, in my judgment, this budget didn’t do enough to control spending.

To balance the budget, to do right by our veterans and to protect middle-class tax cuts, we need to cut corporate subsidies and government waste, and aggressively pay down the national debt. We can all agree on this: If we pay down the government credit card, we cut the cost of government by nearly 10 percent without having to cut vital programs. Taking these tough steps is necessary – and long overdue.

I applaud the Democratic leaders in their call for the long-overdue increase in the Veterans Administration budget. Their priorities were also in place when they reinstated pay-as-you-go budgeting and drastically reduced the number of earmarks. But I opposed the Democratic budget because it allowed non-defense spending to increase at alarmingly high levels. It also did not articulate a clear enough way forward on the alternative minimum tax and the middle-class tax cuts that are set to expire in 2010.

There are things we can do. Instead of immediately paying hundreds of millions of dollars in interest payments to other countries to pay off our national credit card, we can continue to invest in alternative energy, education and health care. We can fully fix the alternative minimum tax that affects an increasing number of middle class families with an unfair burden. An estimated 837,000 families here in Pennsylvania will be subject to the AMT in 2007 – up from 114,000 in 2004. In order to achieve these goals, we must regain our fiscal discipline.

The budget proposed by President Bush and Vice President Cheney is far worse. There was no true effort made to decrease deficits. There were also painful cuts to Medicare that would have affected the most vulnerable in our community, including senior citizens and reimbursements to doctors and the 11 hospitals in Bucks County.

The president’s budget also fails to permanently fix the AMT and slashes money from small business programs and job training. Further, the president sought to balance the budget on the backs of future generations. This is a burden I will not place on our children.

The families of the 8th district elected me to side with them, not with any political party. There is a middle ground in this debate. I will fight for and vote for cuts in wasteful spending, debt retirement, a dramatic reduction in earmarks, and sensible tax cuts as we bring our budget into balance. This involves making tough decisions, but I believe that’s why you sent me to Washington.

To contact Patrick on the budget or other matters, click here.