To the Editor:

To Rep. Hoyer, Sen. Cardin and Sen. Mikulski: Has it been a whole month since we forgot to publicly thank you for your votes in support of our children’s health? You know, the bill in which the taxes of a single mother making $35,000 and struggling to raise 2 children in, say, southern Maryland or Baltimore will be whisked off to pay for the health care of the children of a family of 5 making $100,000 and currently able to afford their own health insurance in New York or California. Now, thanks to you, that single mother’s taxes will relieve those families of their health insurance premium burdens and will continue to pay those children’s health bills up to the age of 30. Thank you all.

This time we won’t forget to thank you for this week’s passage of the massive pork spending bill. Counting interest payments likely to extend for decades, our children and grandchildren can have the privilege of paying trillions for the economic "stimulus" that will do nothing good. You are all smart, educated people, so you know (along with the more than 70% of Americans who opposed this bill) that never in recorded history has government spending stimulated any countrys economy. You are all smart enough to know, of course, that this is because the government has no money of its own, so must first take every "stimulus" dollar out of the economy in order to then spend it back into the economy. You are all educated enough to know that your own Congressional Budget Office said the spending bill has limited chance of helping in the short run, but WILL weaken our economy for the long run. Then, the payment of the bills for all of the spending will be left to our children and their children, etc. Thank you all.

We also thank you for working literally through the dead of night to come up with the spending bill and breaking your promise to publicly publish it so that we the people wouldn’t have to be bothered with any of the details from your open and transparent government activities. We thank you for your midnight reduction of the tax benefits for first time home buyers and car buyers, the only parts that might have really actually stimulated real economic recovery. We thank you for your inclusion of a national health (rationing) board you know a national version of the Oregon board that last year told a woman they wouldn’t allow her a promising, but expensive cancer-treatment but would support her getting a euthanasia drug. Thank you all.

You three and your Democratic party cohorts have certainly done a lot in a very short time to stimulate the growth of intrusive government and curtail personal liberty in our lives, solidifying the position of your party - at the expense of our individual and national economic health. We thank you, our children thank you, and their children thank you.

Pat Shields

Tall Timbers