Immediately following her election, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Camas, became a target of the Democratic Party for defeat. Evidence of this appears in the “Our Readers’ View” pages. Instead of thoughtful analysis and individual expression, readers use focus group-tested phrases attempting to sound original. In an Oct. 5 letter, “Listening? To which constituents?,” Larry Dorr provided another example. In trying to discredit Herrera Beutler’s voting record, he used the phrases “gut Social Security, gut Medicare, gut federal programs,” and “lower taxes even more for rich people and big corporations” (as if we haven’t heard those before).
If Dorr and others actually read the bills that our representative supported with her vote, they’d see quickly no “guts” would be spilled with their passage. On the contrary, they’d see someone who finally is showing some “guts.” This was the case with her vote for a budget that took some first steps toward actually doing something to insure the viability of vital programs such as Social Security and Medicare, without adversely affecting current recipients.
Our district has a broad-based and diverse constituency. We don’t share the same views on issues, but we still share the same representative, and this voter wishes we had more like her, with her character, intellect and resolve.
Jim Borden
Vancouver
