Dear Newly-elected Senator Mike Lee,
I write to you today to respond to what I consider a very ill-concieved victory speech, which you delivered to the people at Republican Headquarters, SLC on the night of November 2nd, 2010. I took issue with several of your remarks, including your remarks about how we need to decrease the size of government, decrease government spending, return to an idyllic period of U.S. exceptionalism, and your efforts to "reach across the table" to democrats while in almost the same breath talking of promoting the republican agenda, and finally your remark that President Obama acts more like a king than a president. These remarks may have fooled many people into supporting, or continuing to support you, but I for one will not support you as senator unless I see a fundamental change in the way you approach the political process of the United States of America.
My first question to you, Senator Lee, is this: how exactly do you expect to decrease the size of government and as a result decrease government spending? I am really quite curious as to how you plan to go about this. I hear this complaint from hard core conservatives all the time, and yet I hear no suggestions for how it should be done. The only way I see that this could be done is to cancel government funded projects like the construction on the I-15 corridor, the construction at the Museum of Natural History, etc, or even the new project that your new conservative compatriot, Orrin Hatch, endorses: the military contract to build the new private sector office buildings in northern Utah. These are government funded projects that cost billions of dollars. But we could do without them, right? I think not. Both the I-15 corridor and the increased funding for the Museum of Natural History directly affect my family. I have one brother in law who works on the I-15 corridor and another who works on the museum project. The museum project is especially important because it means when the contractor who has hired his crew needs them to work, he doesn't have to leave his wife and three girls and travel to Montana or New Mexico for odd jobs. Since you so desperately want to achieve this goal, perhaps we could cut funding for social security, medicare, welfare, and the other social services the U.S. is fortunate enough to be able to provide its citizens. Never mind the elderly who depend on medicare to pay for medication or other medical services. Never mind the widows whose husbands are deceased and who, with no education and no job training, are expected to provide for their children working minimum wage jobs. They are free loaders anyway... Actually, no. My grandfather worked as a teacher for 20 years, and now depends on medicare so he can afford the increasing amount of medical care he requires as a result of the onset of dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Perhaps we could cut funding to educational institutions like elementary schools and high schools. With decreased funding and lower teacher salaries we could decrease the national deficit. Then, as literacy rates decrease along with college enrollment rates, we could cut funding to public universities and save even more money. I hope you can see the utter folly of this route. I have seen the effects decreased funding to public universities produces. The University of Utah, for one, was forced to cut the admissible number of first year medical students from over 100 to less than 90. With the projected increased need for physicians America will experience in the next few years and the already admitted shortage of physicians we now see, this lack of dedication to principles of education has immediate and detrimental effects. Will we cut funding to the FDA, the NSF, the EPA, the BLM, and the myriad of other government institutions that play a crucial role in our society? I hope not. We need these institutions to protect our way of life and to improve it as well. Finally, the government spending is not as completely out of control as you assert. As of 2009, the gross deficit was just under $12 trillion (whitehouse.gov). In comparison, The GDP was just over $14 trillion (bea.gov) for the year of 2009. In 2009, the government spent approximately $1.6 trillion more than the GDP, which is 11% of the GDP by my calculations. According to usgovernmentspending.com, in 1943 the federal government reached 28% of the GDP that year in deficit spending. Following the initial prosperity of the post WWII years, this figure has been around 3% (at the end of Clinton's administration we actually saw a couple surplus years). The years where the economy did not do as well this percentage was higher. While it has not been as high as it is now in the last 55 years, the trend has stayed the same: in years where the economy did well the figure was low, and in years where the economy did worse (relatively) the figure was higher. My point is that things are not as bad as the apocalyptic preachers of the right wing have made it out to be. 11% is not 28 %. We are in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. We need to work to improve the economy and then government spending will take care of itself. Please stop using fear-based rhetoric to further your political goals. Instead, be pragmatic in your approach and speech.
In response to your statement that we need to return to the period of U.S. exceptionalism, I state that there never was a such a period. That idea of U.S. exceptionalism is rooted in the doctrine of Imperialism. Following the age of exploration, European powers established economic ties to various regions of the world, and this led in many cases to the formation of colonies and political systems of rule by the foreign Europeans over native peoples. This occurred for the most part in Africa and Asia (I leave the Americas out of this because we were an independent nation by the time the U.S. "Exceptionalist" critique of imperialism became prominent). European powers became like the great empires of old: the Roman, the Persian, the Ethiopian, the Mongol, etc. The U.S. was left out of this game until the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when we liberated Cuba from the Spanish and told the Europeans to stay out of the western hemisphere (the Monroe Doctrine) and took the Philippines away as well. U.S. occupation of the Philippines falls under the category of imperialism, not to mention our conquest of Hawaii or even of the entire United States as we know it, which were first "colonized" by settlers and then conquered by the U.S. when those settlers directly or indirectly infringed on the Native American way of life. We in America are buoyed by a lofty set of ideals, but in reality, we are guilty of the same crimes as the Europeans of old were, sometimes to a greater degree. We may have had more "noble" intentions (at least we assume so, ideologically) like the spreading of democracy, civilization, etc., but mostly we were motivated by economic gain. In the end, the result was the same as many of the European powers: we denied the Filipinos the right to self government until the situation got out of control and we had to give in, and we left Native Americans unable to support themselves and diminished their sovereignty until they were but a shadow of what they once were. But, as the "Exceptionalists" argued, because we were somehow an exception from the trend of imperialism none of this is actually applies to the U.S. This is a blatant lie. Senator Lee, exceptionalism is a myth that has been debunked time and again by reputable historians and I urge you to stop perpetuating these lies.
The final two points I wish to discuss are related. You talked about your effort to "reach across the table" to democrats and work together, and then within five minutes you implied that President Obama was acting more like a king than a president, and then you continued on to denounce "Obamacare" and instead promoted what to me was the ominous sounding "republican agenda." Senator Lee, I am a democrat. I am more liberal than conservative. However, I see the need for compromise and I denounce you for using such charged rhetoric and such politically inflammatory statements as those previously mentioned. If you truly want to facilitate cooperation in Washington and here at home in Utah, you need to work on not alienating the other large part of the population that does not agree with your views. Promote unity, not fear. And in defense of President Obama, he is much more accountable for his actions that the previous two presidents, one a democrat, the other a republican. President Clinton made a mockery of our justice system when he most obviously was guilty of plagiarism during his impeachment, and while it can be debated whether his personal affairs (in this case sexual) affect his ability to preside over this country, yet he did not act accountable for his actions. Neither did the former President George W. Bush. He justified the war in Iraq by falsifying reports about weapons of mass destruction, ran prisons for terrorists like torture chambers that spit in the face of American ideals, and helped push through congress the Patriot Act, which at the most fundamental level allows the government to deny citizens of rights guaranteed them under the constitution. Obama has, with the help of congress, passed a bailout bill following Keynsian economic principles, as well as a bill that aims at improving the health care situation in the U.S. We can debate the merits and mistakes of both these bills but the fact is, Obama is acting more like the leader of one of the greatest democratic nations in the world than his two predecessors. Your talk of Obama as king, and then referring to the health care bill as "Obamacare" is low class and solves nothing. It may help you to win elections in predominantly conservative states, but it will not solve the monolithic problems that face our nation, nor will it earn you the respect of your constituents across the political spectrum.
I therefore urge you to cease your propaganda, your historically false, and your otherwise inflammatory speech and focus more on understanding the issues, as well as the many possible solutions to the problems we face. The republican way is not the only way to improve our nation, neither is the democrat way. There must be compromise and unity for progress. There must be freedom. Please remember this as you serve in the U.S. senate and you will earn the respect of your constituents. Until then you will only serve as a hindrance to the progress of this nation.
Well said.
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