Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Gotcha!

Did you catch Rachel last night? Rachel asks, "why, if you're a Democratic member of Congress, you would want to fight tooth and nail against your own party on the biggest issue facing the country right now." She calls Rep. Mike Ross of Arkansas "the poster child for Democrats blocking their own party's efforts to reform health care." Now why would he oppose health care reform with a strong public health insurance option when most of his constituents are in favor of it?

According to the report on MSNBC.com,
The group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington questioned in a complaint whether the $420,000 that USA Drug paid Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., for his family-owned Holly's Health Mart in Prescott was a fair price. The deal was first reported this week by the Web site ProPublica.

Documents show that, after the sale, the Nevada County assessor valued the property at $263,700. An appraiser hired by ProPublica valued it recently at $198,000.

In his response, Rep. Ross has this to say:
This style of gotcha politics is why many folks are fed up with Washington and it is a shame serious debate on reform has, once again, fallen off course. Instead of having civil dialogue over true and substantive disagreements about reforming our broken health care system, outside groups are trying to taint a completely legal and respected small business that my wife and I worked hard for 14 years to establish.
Actually, Rep. Ross, it is your style of bought-and-paid-for politics that has many of us folks fed up with Washington. Do you really think that calling it "gotcha politics" will somehow justify your shady dealings with the drug industry?

Serious reform is threatened by our elected officials being more beholden to their corporate masters than to their flesh-and-blood constituents. Your whining at being called out sickens me. How is holding our elected officials accountable not "civil dialogue"?

We'll match your contempt and raise you one.

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