Letter to Editor - Press & Dakotan

From Yankton Press & Dakotan Letters to the Editor --

Compassionate Conservatives?
By Leo Hallan, Yankton
Published: Wednesday, August 6, 2008 9:57 PM CDT

“Compassionate Conservative.” A good phrase I don’t think I heard it until GWB’s run for president. I thought ‘Yeah, that pretty well describes me’ and had hoped to see it happen.Man, have I been disappointed. No conservative in a national political office should use this term again because they’d be lying.

On Monday, July 28, the Senate voted to not bring up a vote on a package of 34 of the 90 bills being held up by Sen. Coburn from Oklahoma. Yes, a vote to stop a vote. One senator said these bills could wait. He obviously has not spent a day in a wheelchair or has a loved one dying from ALS or cancer. To us, time is our enemy and has a whole different meaning.One was the Christopher Dana Reeve Paralysis Act, hence my interest. Also bills to establish an ALS registry to help researchers, the Conquer Childhood Cancer Act of 2007, the Prenatally and Postnatally Diagnosed Conditions Awareness Act, Runaway and Homeless Youth Protection Act, Comprehensive Tuberculosis Elimination Act — please look up the rest.There were two or three of these 34 maybe not that important. However, a group of conservative Republicans threw the baby out with the bath water. They are giving conservatism a very bad name and reputation. The total package, if funded, would have cost approximately $10 billion for American concerns, yet within two weeks we will have spent more than that to rebuild Iraq. We spend $14 billion a year caring for those that are paralyzed and researchers have treatments ready for us. A compassionate conservative came down and shut my sprinkler off because I couldn’t, another checked my van over because I couldn’t — I could go on and on.

Our Sen. Thune voted along with Sen. Coburn, and my health can’t take much more of their kind of compassion. After Monday’s vote, all respect for Sen. Thune I had is gone. I know we are just pawns in his political games.