My Letter to the President

I said I'd publish it when I wrote it, so here it is. It just went out in today's mail.

President Barack Obama
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500

February 16, 2009

Dear Mr. President,

I am writing this letter to express my frustration and utter outrage at the provisions in your stimulus package and the manner in which you allowed it to be rammed through Congress under the guise of "bipartisanship."

My frustration stems from the fact that as a result of your stimulus package, I will receive a whopping $32.00 extra each month in my paycheck. That, Mr. President, is barely enough to put sufficient gas in my car to keep me moving for a month. And if you allow the price of gas to continue to rise for no apparent reason other than allowing the oil companies to get rich off of the American public, it soon won't be enough to even do that.

Explain to me, please, how such a paltry sum of an extra $32.00 a month is supposed to "stimulate" me and the rest of the American people? Just how in the world is this supposed to help the economy?

My outrage comes from your total disregard of, lack of respect for, and outright dismissal of the sacrifices made by our men and women of the Armed Forces, both past and present. It is because of the sacrifices made by these men and women that you live in a country where you can even be nominated, much less elected, yet you allow your stimulus package to be so drastically cut as to nearly eliminate all funding for the Veteran's Administration. On top of that, you have allowed funding for the regular Armed Forces to be so drastically cut as to make even the most rudimentary of improvements to operations next to impossible.

Just how do you expect our nation to remain free if you treat the protectors of our nation in such a shoddy, disrespectful manner? The next time you, your wife, and your children are sitting around the dinner table in your nice, warm, comfortable and government-provided quarters, think about the men in uniform in Iraq who are sitting in a Hummer eating an MRE, or who are sitting in a foxhole doing the same thing. THEN you tell me that what you did with your stimulus package was right.

My outrage is also fueled by your administration's misuse and twisting of the term "bipartisan" when describing the manner in which your bill was completed. In case you missed it, with the exception of only three - THREE - Republicans, the vote for your bill was exactly along party lines. This is NOT "bipartisanship" in any manner.

The Democratic party - YOUR party - did the exact same thing the Republican party did when your predecessor was in office, and it's just as wrong now as it was then. You ran on a campaign of "change we can believe in;" is THIS your idea of "change?" Doing the exact same thing your predecessors did and running the government in the exact same way? It certainly isn't mine.

Personally, from what I've seen so far, I don't think we can "HOPE" for much of a "CHANGE" at all.

A disgruntled American citizen, Gulf War veteran, and Air Force retiree

I'm sure I'll get a reply; it'll be one of those "thank you for writing the President" form letters signed by some faceless, unknown aide, and it's highly unlikely that Obama will ever see my actual letter or the reply. But I wrote it and voiced my opinions, and that's what counts.

I strongly encourage any of you dear readers who are as disappointed at this BS as I am to do the same thing.

Today.

NOW.

I'll post the reply when it comes.

IHC