The LTE that I submitted to the News Journal yesterday:
With his vote against the Stimulus Package (and against the largest middle class tax cut in history), Congressman Mike Castle definitively demonstrates that his allegiances are no longer with the citizens of Delaware he was elected to represent. Mr. Castle was quick to support every facet of President Bush’s agenda that increased both the deficit and the debt: tax cuts that took us from historic surpluses to historic deficits; voted for Patriot Act provisions that increased spending on multiple fronts, including unneeded surveillance of Americans; an unnecessary war in Iraq that adds to our debt burden every day; and Medicare Part D, which made sure that the government would not be able to negotiate preferred pricing of prescriptions paid for by taxpayers.
In addition, he supported the massive winding back (and just plain ignoring) of the regulatory environment that kept the banking and credit institutions from taking on excessive risk; and supported every bit of conservative cant and legislation that led us to this broken economy. And now that his party has thoroughly broken the US economy, he feels no obligation to help fix it. Based upon this vote, his only obligation seems to be only to his party, meaning that Delawareans now have 2 years to live with a Congressional Representative who thinks it is his job to represent Washington Republicans. We know that Washington Republicans simply do not care that real people are losing their jobs, their homes and their health care – their interests are only in the next election and in partisan politics. Every once in awhile, Americans face a crisis that should transcend the usual party politics and demand that our elected officials work together to craft a solution to that crisis. This massive recession that is now more than a year old, with many more months (perhaps another year) of contraction left is one of those crises. I know that many citizens of Delaware are very disappointed that Mr. Castle has abdicated his responsibilities to us, and call on him to remember that while both Democrats and Republicans have returned him to office year after year, now is the time to begin thinking about sending someone to Congress who will unfailingly put the interests of the people of Delaware first.
They won’t publish it (I think it is too long), but it is time to be heard on this. And time to be heard often. Write your LTE expressing your thoughts on Castle’s vote and submit it to the NJ here. Make your entry short, and to the point. You do have to leave your name and phone number and if they decide to print your letter, they will call you to verify that beforehand.
Keep a copy of what you sent in, and post it in the comments if you like — only here you can do that anonymously. If you don’t want to post your masterpiece, just let us know you sent one.