I remember standing up at a town hall meeting with Brian Baird after he voted to keep our military forces in Iraq. I said to him, “These wars and the billions, if not trillions of dollars spent in foreign countries will be needed at home to take care our seniors. You will come back in a future meeting and tell us that the government has no money to support Social Security and Medicare.” Maybe he knew what I didn’t, that he would not be our representative and there were more Republicans who supported the war than opposed it.
The people then elected Jaime Herrera Beutler as our 3rd District representative, a Republican who is a proud member of the party that wouldn’t even add the costs of the wars to our national debt. This is the party that is all too willing to sacrifice our fragile social contract with seniors rather than ask people, especially the wealthy, to pay for the cost of ongoing wars.
All tax increases are now off the table by the Republican leadership, including Herrera Beutler. When we say we want to protect our children, remember they get old, too.
Doug Long
Camas
