MY VIEW: Our Congressman's Votes Hurt Poor, Children, Environment

I want to wish Rep. Frank LoBiondo a Happy Thanksgiving. There has been nothing in the paper about his recent votes, so I thought he should get credit where credit is due. Last week, the House of Representatives quietly voted itself a $3,100 salary raise, increasing their income to about $165,200. At the same time, Mr. LoBiondo voted for the Labor/Human Services/Education Appropriations Act, which among other things would have made $900 million in health care cuts to programs such as the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and rural health care. It would have eliminated $8 billion to prepare for a potential future pandemic. 22 truly moderate Republicans joined in with the Democrats to defeat this shameful spending bill, Mr. LoBiondo’s name not among them. Sadly, the House did pass the Deficit Reduction Act, which slashes funding over the next five years to anti-poverty programs, Medicaid, higher education, and child support collection programs. This bill passed with a margin of 217 to 215. Mr. LoBiondo’s “Yes” amounted to the pivotal vote. This Act approved $6.2 billion of increased costs to employers’ pension insurance premiums at a time when companies need little incentive to outsource jobs overseas, and at a time when employees are losing their pensions after corporations discharge their obligations through bankruptcies. Recently, Chip Gerrity, president of the NJ IBEW, praised Mr. LoBiondo for protecting workers in the Gulf Coast region. But what will be the impact on middle class workers when their pensions and jobs are in jeopardy, when their parents cannot qualify for nursing home care under the new $10 billion in Medicaid cuts, when single parents have fewer resources to collect child support payments and lose their food stamps, when their children find they cannot afford to go to college because of cuts to lending programs? In another sleeper provision of the Deficit Reduction Act, private companies and individuals will be able to buy large tracts of federal land, a boon to real estate developers who may use the claims to assemble large land parcels, to plunder open spaces in Wyoming and Montana for drilling for oil and gas, and to reduce public access to traditional hunting and fishing areas. Where was our “environmental” Representative when he voted for this bill? After Mr. LoBiondo’s relaxing Thanksgiving holiday, he will return in December when Congress takes up proposals to extend tax breaks for the wealthy but which offer no protection to the middle class. Will the Congressman give our affluent citizens a Christmas present at the expense of the poor and ever shrinking middle class? Themes of Christmas past and Scrooge come to mind. We will be watching.

JANET L. FAYTER

Egg Harbor Township

Op-Ed piece published in the Daily Journal, November 26, 2005

http://thedailyjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051126/OPINION02/511260331/1014/OPINION