Marilyn Musgrave and the Establishment

This must make fiscal conservatism proud!

Most conservatives who are serious about earmark reforms, including yours truly, support Jeff Flake to fill the vacant spot on the Appropriations Committee.

However, a reliable source tells me Rep. Marilyn Musgrave has been "encouraged" to run in order to prevent the House Republican Steering Committee from having to pick Flake.

The hope is that Musgrave will be viewed as sufficiently conservative enough to serve as a consolation prize.

This, of course, is merely a ploy. Real conservatives who care about fiscal discipline should settle for nothing less than Jeff Flake on the Appropriations Committee.

Musgrave ill-serves us

Musgrave ill-serves us

A second attempt by the House of Representatives to override the President's veto of a bipartisan bill to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program failed by 15 votes. As with the first attempt, Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave sided with the president.

From the beginning, Musgrave's dissent experienced a hailstorm of criticism in our district. Considered the most vulnerable to re-election, the House Republican leadership provided her cover by giving her sponsorship of an alternative expansion bill. Its framework replicated a position paper published about the same time by the strongly-conservative Heritage Foundation. Musgrave pretended authorship and broad support (49 Republican co-sponsors) to her constituents. Then, prior to Congressional recess last December, she joined the majority to merely renew SCHIP for another year.

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SCHIP renewal may have given Colorado security in providing health-care services to presently-qualified, low income children for the next two years. However, the absence of additional revenue via expansion through the failed, bipartisan bill is a significant reason our state legislature will table health-care reform this year.

A Blue Ribbon Commission, formed by Republican Gov. Owens in 2006, recently published carefully considered recommendations to dramatically bring health-care costs under control, as well as cover 85 percent of 180,000 Coloradans presently uninsured. In stark contrast to Musgrave's own bill - dormant since being filed - its provisions include SCHIP expansion and subsidization up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level income scale to purchase private insurance.

Congresswoman Musgrave's ruse has ill-served the people of Colorado.

C.J. Black,

Fort Collins

Hatred is unjustified

A local letter to the editor addressing two of Marilyn Musgrave's delusional, rageful, and hoarse-throated supporters.

Hatred is unjustified

Hardly a week goes by without Tom or Mary Bender damning the liberals for all the problems in America. Who are these liberals that wield so much power that they are destroying the Benders' "Right Wing Utopia?" Every extremist group seems to need a "whipping boy" to justify their agenda.

Liberals were not responsible for turning a budget surplus into the largest budget deficit in U.S. history. They also were not responsible for a barrel oil costing $100, health insurance premiums increasing by 70 percent, a Medicare drug program written by pharmaceutical lobbyists, millions of manufacturing and high-tech jobs exported to China and India and a war responsible for 4,000 American lives and 13,000 critically injured. They also were not responsible for the discriminatory EEOC rule that allows corporations to cancel health insurance for retirees over 65.

The Benders regularly heap praise on Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave. Now that she does photo-ops at gas pumps and soup kitchens, we are supposed to believe she truly represents her constituents. Try scheduling a meeting with her to discuss health care or pension reforms and see how far you get. Her staff has built an impenetrable wall that protects her from any controversial meetings. The average person would have more chance of scaling Mount Everest than breaching that wall.

The Benders should recognize there is room for dissenting opinions in America. No matter how much they hate liberals, they have a constitutional right to an equal say in America's future. That is the foundation of a true democracy.

John Kotson,

Fort Collins