Letters to the editor, Oct. 1, 2009

We must minimize pollution

There is no gain in arguing about the fact that human beings have been rough on this earth. “Climate change” or what ever you want to call it, our own healthy air and water depend on “cleaning up our act”. As the richest nation on earth we can demonstrate a good life style is possible with “green” technology. As a bonus some new jobs can be created.

Please let us all work cooperatively on developing ways to live with minimizing pollution.

Sandy Diaz, Barstow

McKeon not representing public on health care

I woke early and made the 125-mile journey to Rep. “Buck” McKeon’s home turf of Santa Clarita to attend his town hall meeting focusing on health care reform last Saturday, and I’ve come away from it with a few observations. First being the location. McKeon served on a school board and as mayor of Santa Clarita before entering Congress, so it is there he panders to his base. Lone Pine would have been more central and perhaps neutral.

It seemed the evenly split audience was mostly respectful, and people were permitted to ramble a bit when addressing McKeon. There were perhaps a couple exceptions, but as a rule he endeavored to allow people to vent before moving on.

In truth the event was more of a venting opportunity than a Q&A session, as McKeon’s responses amounted to essentially an agreement with those expressing opposition to the Democrats HR 3200 and a somewhat dismissive response to those in favor of health care reform. In a couple instances, when McKeon seemed to avoid questions favoring language in the bill on the public option by an evasive response, there were screams in rebuke, “Answer the question!”

“What question?” he asked. “The question just asked!” was the response. It was, “Why don’t you support single-payer or a public-option?” and finally when pressed McKeon’s response was “I don’t want a government takeover.”

Personally, I think his response was a bit disheartening and even disingenuous. I can appreciate a claimed concern over cost from both the conservative right and the liberal left, but for a guy who enjoys the ability to access top notch medical care extended to all members of Congress by a government run system, we should simply observe what is good enough for Congress ought to be an option for the rest of us.

Perhaps more telling was his final comment to the dozen or more constituents remaining an hour or so beyond the scheduled end of the event, when he said words to the effect of “Look, Pelosi doesn’t care what you say. I do. But even if over half the people here said ‘if you don’t vote for 3200 I won’t vote for you’ I’d still vote against it. And then I’d retire.”  

I would argue Buck McKeon does not represent the will of the people in our district so much as the will of his political party bosses, and hardly ever has. According to the Washington Post, McKeon has voted along party lines just over 90 percent of the time during this current 111th Congress. He’s no maverick. But worse yet, Buck has been in office since January 1993, and over his career that number is probably closer to 95 percent. Also the GovTrack.us website observes of the 81 bills he has sponsored only 9 have passed. That’s a success rate of roughly one bill passed out of five attempts per two-year term or a failure rate of about 89 percent. Not exactly the best bang for your buck.

Joe Orawczyk, Yermo