Congress’s priorities

To the Editor;
One of the few advantages of old age is the chance to while away the hours with C-Span’s live coverage of Congress. Yesterday I noticed (U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah’s) comments on why Congress has not yet renewed the Children’s Health Insurance Program. It’s a program that provides health insurance to about nine million children of low income families. It expired 60 days ago. According to U.S. Sen. Hatch, “the reason CHIP is having trouble is because we don’t have money anymore.” “I have a rough time wanting to spend billions and billions and trillions of dollars to help people who won’t help themselves, won’t lift a finger and expect the federal government to do everything.”

Damn lazy, free loading nine million kids!

I’m having a hard time understanding why Congress is rushing through tax cuts that will cost $100 billion each year (benefiting few if any of my neighbors here), while denying $800 per year to each of nine million poor kids (many of whom are probably children of my neighbors here). I am stunned at the hypocrisy of it all. Millions for rich people, but not one cent for poor kids.

What kind of people do we send to Congress? I am reminded of Matthew, Chapter 23 – “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.” And “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.”

We wonder why Congress is such a cesspool – yet we keep sending people to represent us who support such deceit.

Chris Maas
Dover-Foxcroft