Open letter to Congress

Saturday morning of Labor Day weekend and Robert Reich, economist and former U.S. Secretary of Labor, is writing about the worst employment and wage numbers since the Great Depression. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/the-real-news-about-jobs_b_278098.html


Which is why I question opposition to a public option for health care.

I understand the fear of average citizens and their reactionary response. When media sources conflate fear and feed the public lies, they’re going to strike out at the biggest bogeyman they can find – government.

But your cowardice astounds and frustrates me. Where is your leadership? America is about to careen off a cliff, and you’re still playing politics!

The true measure of Washington cravenness is your inability to read the signs our entire economy is about to collapse. Instead, you let corporate executives push to keep their overblown salaries and fight regulation, actions doomed to send them crashing into the abyss, too. Their consumer market is shrinking. Who will buy their crap now? (And the last year has proven it’s crap!)

Members of Congress, particularly Republicans and conservative Blue Dog Dems, saw on the same old ideological platitudes while Rome burns. Meanwhile, corporate media looks the other way because they live in gated communities where everyone is still “doing OK.” Or they’re too dumb to understand the subjects they report on. (Witness Maria Bartiromo interviewing Rep. Ron Weiner about Medicare.)

Congress needs to study American history. When our economy has been at its worst, more government intervention (not less) has been required to stimulate growth and turn things around. This means deficit spending. And it has been government programs like Social Security, the Works Progress Administration, the GI Bill and Medicare that have stabilized the economy and allowed citizens to pursue new business ventures.

Right now, the American business sector is shrinking. This is largely due to rising health care costs. And only a government or public option will be large enough to ensure the competition to drive costs down.

But most disturbing to me is the loyalty of duly elected Congress men and women to the insurance and health care sectors instead of to the American people. Voters on all sides ought to be angry, and instead of shouting at each other, we ought to be taking names. Instead of letting Congress people like Charles Grassley scare the pants off us with comments about “pulling the plug on Grandma,” we should be asking him why he took more than $2 million from health insurers and providers.

You’re supposed to be working for us, and we need help – desperately.