Like locking the Titanic's steerage passengers belowdecks while she sank ...

by: Al Stanley

Thu Jan 29, 2009 at 11:53 PM CST

( - promoted by Matt Glazer)

Following is the text of a fax I just sent to the office of my Congressman, Michael McCaul:

January 29, 2009
BY FAX: 202-225-5955
Congressman Mike McCaul
United States House of Representatives
131 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC
Dear Congressman McCaul,
As constituents and voters, we are expressing our dissatisfaction with your vote against the economic stimulus package. Making the unanimous Republican vote obviously partisan is the ludicrous proposal by the House Republicans of trying to stimulate the economy with nothing but tax cuts.
Speaking as a business owner and successful investor and as a family who has paid ample local, state and federal taxes, being over-taxed is not the problem. People are losing their jobs. People are losing their investments and their homes. People are losing their capital that in better times might be invested with a certain amount of tax incentive. This is not such a time.
Stop playing partisan games while the country is going down the drain. Your actions and your fellow partisans' actions are outrageous and disgraceful.

Joining me in signing are my wife and son. All of us are registered voters in District 10.

I faxed it because if you go to Michael McCaul's House web page to try to email him, it routes you to something called "Write Your Representative" where you have to go through a pulldown menu and type in your zip code so the system can figure out that your represented by McCaul. Hey, Mike, I'm on your website already. Believe me, I wouldn't be writing you if you weren't forced on me by redistricting! Don't make me go back through the House email system to write my representative when I'm already on your page!

Austin representatives Doggett and Smith allow you to email directly from their House web pages (albeit Smith confronts you with a captcha--appropriate, since some 60% of Austin was "captchaed" by him and McCaul).

I'm sure that by making it more cumbersome to send him an email, McCaul receives fewer emails from Austin constituents telling him what they think of the job he's doing. I'm fed up. Four years ago, I was swallowed up by the reconfigured 10th Congressional District, created by the partisan Congressional gerrymander of a district well represented by Lloyd Doggett, Jake Pickle and LBJ. I have not let McCaul know often enough what I think about the "quality" of representation I've been receiving.

Wherever you live, if you are represented in the U. S. House by a Republican, please let him or her know that proposing tax cuts as an alternative to the stimulus package doesn't even qualify as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic; it's more like locking the steerage passengers down below so that the first-class passengers have first dibs on the life boats!

Tags: Michael McCaul, Economic Stimulus, US Congress, (All Tags)

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Like locking the Titanic's steerage passengers belowdecks while she sank ... | 3 comments

Amen, brother... (0.00 / 0)

I'm represented by "Club for Growth/Blue Dog" Democrat Henry Cuellar, who at least voted for the stimulus. But I did jump all over Cornyn and Hutchison letting them know how I feel about the tax cut crap. The more the merrier so lets all get on those folks about their votes.

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -- John Kenneth Galbraith

by: Blue_in_Guadalupe @ Fri Jan 30, 2009 at 22:28:31 PM CST

by: you @ soon

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Stimulus (0.00 / 0)

That is one letter trumped by hundreds praising common sense. Just looking at the specifics of the bill anyone can see it is not stimulus but pork.

Last time we tried to get out of economic crisis by spending it deepened to depression. Last time we were in an economic crisis as bad as we are in now we reduced taxes across the board and had a major expansion. Simple but history does teach if we can keep emotion in check.

RE the Titanic . . . trying to spend our way out is steering the same course and expecting not to hit the iceberg.

by: sdhook @ Sat Jan 31, 2009 at 07:29:58 AM CST

by: you @ soon

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I have to agree with the critics (0.00 / 0)

There is little stimulus in the bill; it is a spending bill masquerading as an emergency measure. The harm it can do, by not actually stimulating the economy, is incalculable. Even if it were a stimulus bill, the track record for such legislation is poor.

What worries me most in the current economy is the massive layoffs taking place in most sectors. Massive joblessness is more dangerous than anything -- not only economically, but socially as well. In the Weimar Republic it created the conditions that led to the Third Reich. In 1930s America similar dangers were in play, but World War II came along to end the 20% unemployment rate. Many believe we would be a communist country today had the war not "saved" us.

I am not siding with the knee-jerk tax cutters, but I do think the best way to spend our country's increasingly limited resources is to channel them into job preservation. That might mean tax credits (not cuts) for employers who hold onto employees. Spending hundreds of billions of dollars will mostly line the pockets of the business owners, not their much needier ex-employees.

by: Dale Napier @ Sat Jan 31, 2009 at 18:06:19 PM CST

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