Is Anybody Listening?

Speaker Boehner:

I realize that writing to you is an exercise in futility, as you will not respond to my concerns or even deign to consider them. However, I feel compelled to continue expressing my extreme displeasure with your conduct as an elected official. It is quite obvious from your recent comments regarding taxes that you are not listening to the majority of average Americans. Nor can I see how you consider yourself to be a capitalist when everything you are doing goes against the principles espoused by Adam Smith, the father of modern economics and capitalism.

You, and other Republicans and Tea Partiers, have dug in your heels on raising taxes, claiming Americans do not want this. Have you not seen recent surveys of average Americans? The vast majority of those questioned are in favor of increasing taxes on corporations and the wealthiest. Even those who consider themselves to be conservative Republicans favor this. I would wager that, if you asked those who live in your district in Ohio, they would tell you the same thing.

No, Americans do not want to pay more in taxes. We do, however, want everyone to pay their fair share, something Smith considered essential to a sound economy in his definitive work, The Wealth of Nations. Do you not realize that average Americans are paying 28% of their income in taxes while some of corporations and wealthy Americans are paying only one-fourth of that? How can you consider that fair and reasonable, and something all Americans want?

You continue to claim that tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy will spur job growth. As an unemployed Ohioan, I am still waiting for those jobs to appear, knowing full well they will never happen. Granting tax breaks to create jobs is a pipe dream, a fantasy, or an out-and-out lie. To invoke a colloquialism, you’ve beaten that horse to death; it’s time to get off and walk.

It is also clear from your comments and those of others in Congress that you are more interested in removing President Obama from office than fixing the problems of this nation. You must get your priorities in order, sir! As I told you before, this is not about Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, right or left. It is about what is best for America and that is fixing our economy by making certain everyone pays his or her fair share. We did not have these problems prior to the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. We had a balanced budget then; we can have one again – if everyone makes a contribution. Right now, only those who can least afford it are bearing this burden.

This has to stop! You must stop this stonewalling just so “Republicans can beat the Democrats”. That is juvenile; you sound like bullies on the playground. The Congress of the United States of America is no place for one-upmanship and chest-thumping machismo. It is the place to resolve the problems facing this nation in a rational and equitable manner. It is the place to resort to compromise that saves a nation.

For the sake of America, put aside this us versus them mentality. Do what is right for a change and work together to make this country strong again. If you continue down this path you are currently on, you will not defeat the Democrats and the liberals. You will, however, defeat everything America stands for. Is this what you and your colleagues truly want to be remembered for achieving?