[Peace-discuss] Rep. johnson's votes

[C. G. ESTABROOK]

[I've sent the appended letter to the News-Gazette. I ran against Tim Johnson as 
a Green in 2002 and railed against the upcoming invasion of Iraq (as well as the 
ongoing invasion of Afghanistan). After the election I met with Johnson and his 
brains trust to explain why he should vote against Bush's attack. So I've been 
interested in the evolution of his politics for some time. --CGE]


To the editor of the News-Gazette:

The two most important things the federal government does is kill people and 
transfer wealth from the majority to the rich.

The Obama administration has proved itself even more brutal and efficient at 
those tasks than its predecessor. It has expanded six wars in the Mideast and 
has conducted a good-cop/bad-cop charade on government spending with the 
Republicans to attack social supports. And the beneficiaries of Obama's policies 
are the tiny American economic elite, whose wealth has increased at an 
accelerating rate, even after the financial crisis of 2007-2009.

Our local member of Congress, Timothy Johnson, after voting for the invasions of 
Afghanistan and Iraq, has announced publicly that he was wrong - and now votes 
consistently against any more money for war in the Mideast. And he has now 
commendably voted against Obama's mendacious debt deal.

Unfortunately, Johnson seems often to do the right deed for the wrong reason. He 
has for example repeated the debt and deficit malarkey peddled by both parties. 
The deficit is a chimera used to scare Americans into accepting the government's 
austerity program. Wealth is so concentrated in America that an emergency tax of 
15% on investible assets over $1 million would make the deficit disappear  - and 
99% of American would not be subject to the tax.

Nevertheless Johnson has voted correctly - against both the wars and the debt 
deal.  He should be supported for re-election against opponents who would not 
clearly do the same.

Sincerely,

C. G. Estabrook