Saying it won't make it so!

A dear , conservative friend sends me this sort of thing frequently, and I usually let it go, but this is so egregiously off the wall I had to do the work, and respond: It should be noted that both I and my friend are military retirees, so the several referencs to "we" "I." "You" and "Us" are in that context.

Here's the original letter with the forward exactly as it was sent to my friend:

This is right on, the truth!!!

 http://freedomoutpost.com/a-dying-military-veterans-bill-schoonover-letter-that-blasts-congressional-representatives/

  

This is a letter from a Democrat to his two Democrat Senators.  My belief is that it applies to virtually all Senators of both parties and probably the House also.  Caution this is political but also bipartisan.

 This is really a great letter.  I am most impressed by the fact the gentleman that wrote it signed his name and address to it.   Snopes.Com confirmed this letter to be true.

 This came from a democrat much to my surprise! I read it and it certainly hits the nail where it would hurt. Google has the letter posted on their web site.This is well written.......and should be read by everyone in these United States!  It will be well worth the three minutes it requires to read this. It is quite impressive. You can be Republican, Democrat, Liberal, Conservative, Independent or Libertarian and I bet this will hit a nerve. Our country is in real trouble. This gentleman is obviously quite smarter (sic) than the two senators he sent it to. All I can say is amen to everything he said. A very articulate letter sent to the two U.S. Senators from Washington State.

Senator Patty Murray

Senator Maria Cantwell

Washington, DC , 20510

Dear Senators:

I have tried to live by the rules my entire life. My father was a Command Sergeant Major, U.S. Army, who died of combat related stresses shortly after his retirement. It was he who instilled in me those virtues he felt important - honesty, duty, patriotism and obeying the laws of God and of our various governments. I have served my country, paid my taxes, worked hard, volunteered and donated my fair share of money, time and artifacts.

 Today, as I approach my 79th birthday, I am heart-broken when I look at my country and my government. I shall only point out a very few things abysmally wrong which you can multiply by a thousand fold.

 I  have calculated that all the money I have paid in income taxes my entire life cannot even keep the Senate barbershop open for one year! Only Heaven and a few tight-lipped actuarial types know what the Senate dining room costs the taxpayers. So please, enjoy your haircuts and meals on us.

 Last year, the president spent an estimated $1.4 billion on himself and his family. The vice president spends $ millions on hotels. They have had 8 vacations so far this year! And our House of Representatives and Senate have become America's answer to the Saudi royal family. You have become the "perfumed princes and princesses" of our country.

In the middle of the night, you voted in the Affordable Health Care Act, a.k.a. "Obamacare," a bill which no more than a handful of senators or representatives read more than several paragraphs, crammed it down our throats, and then promptly exempted yourselves from it substituting your own taxpayer-subsidized golden health care insurance.

You live exceedingly well, eat and drink as well as the "one percenters," consistently vote yourselves perks and pay raises while making 3.5 times the average U.S. individual income, and give up nothing while you (as well as the president and veep) ask us to sacrifice due to sequestration (for which, of course, you plan to blame the Republicans, anyway).

You understand very well the only two rules you need to know - (1) How to get elected, and (2) How to get re-elected. And you do this with the aid of an eagerly willing and partisan press, speeches permeated with a certain economy of truth, and by buying the votes of the greedy, the ill-informed and under-educated citizens (and non-citizens, too, many of whom do vote) who are looking for a handout rather than a job. Your so-called "safety net" has become a hammock for the lazy. And, what is it now, about 49 or 50 million on food stamps - pretty much all Democrat voters - and the program is absolutely rife with fraud and absolutely no congressional oversight?

I would offer that you are not entirely to blame. What changed you is the seductive environment of power in which you have immersed yourselves. It is the nature of both houses of Congress which requires you to subordinate your virtue in order to get anything done until you have achieved a leadership role. To paraphrase President Reagan, it appears that the second oldest profession (politics), bears a remarkably strong resemblance to the oldest.

As the hirsute (me: Who gives a shit about a 19th centiry baron's hair?) first Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton (1834 - 1902), English historian and moralist, so aptly and accurately stated, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." I'm only guessing that this applies to the female sex as well. Tell me, is there a more corrupt entity in this country than Congress?

While we middle class people continue to struggle, our government becomes less and less transparent, more and more bureaucratic, and ever so much more dictatorial, using Czars and Secretaries to tell us (just to mention a very few) what kind of light bulbs we must purchase, how much soda or hamburgers we can eat, what cars we can drive, gasoline to use, and what health care we must buy. Countless thousands of pages of regulations strangle our businesses costing the consumer more and more every day.

 As I face my final year, or so, with cancer, my president and my government tell me "You'll just have to take a pill," while you, Senator, your colleagues, the president, and other exulted government officials and their families will get the best possible health care on our tax dollars until you are called home by your Creator while also enjoying a retirement beyond my wildest dreams, which of course, you voted for yourselves and we pay for.

 The chances of you reading this letter are practically zero as your staff will not pass it on, but with a little luck, a form letter response might be generated by them with an auto signature applied, hoping we will believe that you, our senator or representative, has heard us and actually cares. This letter will, however, go on line where many others will have the chance to read one person's opinion, rightly or wrongly, about this government, its administration and its senators and representatives. I only hope that occasionally you might quietly thank the taxpayer for all the generous entitlements which you have voted yourselves, for which, by law, we must pay, unless, of course, it just goes on the $19 trillion national debt for which your children and ours, and your grandchildren and ours, ad infinitum, must eventually try to pick up the tab.

My final thoughts are that it must take a person who has either lost his or her soul, or conscience, or both, to seek re-election and continue to destroy the country that I deeply love. You have put it so far in debt that we will never pay it off while your lot improves by the minute, because of your power.

 For you, Senator, will never stand up to the rascals in your House who constantly deceive the American people. And that, my dear Senator, is how power has corrupted you and the entire Congress. The only answer to clean up this cesspool is term limits. This, of course, will kill the goose that lays your golden eggs.  And woe be to him (or her) who would dare to bring it up.

Sincerely,

 Bill Schoonover

1096 Angela Lane

Oak Harbor, WA

So much wrong here that one scarcely knows where to start; but first, allow me to state that I also think Congress is doing a lousy job, in many cases, but not because of the (mis) information contained herein.

Let's take this gentleman's misinformation one paragraph at a time:

" I have calculated that all the money I have paid in income taxes my entire life cannot even keep the Senate barbershop open for one year! Only Heaven and a few tight-lipped actuarial types know what the Senate dining room costs the taxpayers. So please, enjoy your haircuts and meals on us."

In fact costs of both are public record, took me about 15 seconds. Operating cost of the Senate  barber shop is high, but this current group of senators has had zero to do with it, and, in fact, in 2014 began to move toward total privatization of it, so this old fart is just plain wrong! It is open to the public, as well.  It isn't the Senators driving the price up, since they pay $20 per cut,  but the government employee barbers who average about twice what a DC barber elsewhere makes annually, plus retirement and health benefits for the staff. The barbershop has been around in some form or other since the 19th century, and in current form since 1937. Again. blaming his two Senators is ludicrous.  Regarding the restaurant, it ain't free food. Whether it's run efficiently by the management (government employees) or not, Senators pay to eat there as do civilians who care to. A quick look around the capitol area would reveal a pretty long walk if Senators went out to lunch, and again, it has been in existence since the 1800s, so why get pissed at his current senators?

This guy makes it look like we buy free food for Senators and give them free haircuts, neither of which is remotely true, so no he definitely isn't  "quite smarter than the two senators he sent it to"  and by the way "quite smarter" borders on illiterate , sort of like "much gooder" which tells us a lot about the sender of this e-mail.

"Last year, the president spent an estimated $1.4 billion on himself and his family. The vice president spends $ millions on hotels. They have had 8 vacations so far this year! And our House of Representatives and Senate have become America's answer to the Saudi royal family. You have become the "perfumed princes and princesses" of our country."

Bush - 533 vacation days, Obama - 140, again why wasn't this guy irate at "W?"  The $1.4 billion is the entire cost of living and maintaining the Office of the President. The "spent on himself and family (as in vacations )" is over the span of 2009-2015  actually $70 million, still a lot, but less than three of his four predecessors.  It is also 1/20th of what this guy cites. Again. WTF?   He just throws out "millions" for Biden, as if saying it makes it true. The rest is just garbage, compared to the waste fraud and abuse of Congressmen circa 1890, but this historical illiterate couldn't possibly know that because he's ignorant and apparently content to remain so.

"In the middle of the night, you voted in the Affordable Health Care Act, a.k.a. "Obamacare," a bill which no more than a handful of senators or representatives read more than several paragraphs, crammed it down our throats, and then promptly exempted yourselves from it substituting your own taxpayer-subsidized golden health care insurance."

If you truly believe that 17 million previously uninsured or uninsurable Americans, now covered  is a bad thing, then agree with this moron, but know this. Every single member of Congress has exactly the same insurance requirement as anyone else, and they are absolutely bound to the same standards as the rest of us. They don't have any more "taxpayer subsidized" health care than you or I, in fact, ours is better because I don't pay for Tri-care. Congresspersons and their staff may choose to participate in a group plan, like any other large group, but there are no "subsidies" or sweetheart deal rates. This has been debunked years ago, yet this dope repeats it as if he knew something.

You live exceedingly well, eat and drink as well as the "one percenters," consistently vote yourselves perks and pay raises while making 3.5 times the average U.S. individual income, and give up nothing while you (as well as the president and veep) ask us to sacrifice due to sequestration (for which, of course, you plan to blame the Republicans, anyway). You understand very well the only two rules you need to know - (1) How to get elected, and (2) How to get re-elected. And you do this with the aid of an eagerly willing and partisan press, speeches permeated with a certain economy of truth, and by buying the votes of the greedy, the ill-informed and under-educated citizens (and non-citizens, too, many of whom do vote) who are looking for a handout rather than a job. Your so-called "safety net" has become a hammock for the lazy. And, what is it now, about 49 or 50 million on food stamps - pretty much all Democrat voters - and the program is absolutely rife with fraud and absolutely no congressional oversight?

Again, where to start? Eat and drink well? OK, so frigging what?  So do I.  Consistently vote pay raises? For the previous 7 years, Congress has voluntarily frozen their own pay, refusing even COLAs, Had they taken just the COLAS, their pay would be about 11% higher than it is now. It is likely that, in 2017, Congress may actually give themselves a $ 2,800  increase, which weighed against the Consumer Price Index is still retrograde.  So he isn't just wrong, he's way the hell wrong! Of course  a Congressman makes more than the US Average, so what? Compare Congressional salary to a any CEO with comparable responsibility (not to mention million dollar golden parachutes), to see how unreasonable this statement is! Partisan Press? Really. The most partisan so called "news" organization in the Free world is Faux News.  This guy is a lying son of a bitch if he says he's a Democrat, but it makes for fun reading, right?  Buying votes? Can you say Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson? Citizens United?

 "Under educated?"..... "I love the undereducated!" Democrats? Naah, Trump said that.  Without going into statistical analysis on voter fraud, every study shows it to be miniscule. A much easier data set is available for food stamps. For both welfare (for which non citizens are NOT eligible) and for SNAP (food stamps) the significant majority of recipients for each program are Caucasian . Read it again. Still think those are all Obama votes?

"I would offer that you are not entirely to blame. What changed you is the seductive environment of power in which you have immersed yourselves. It is the nature of both houses of Congress which requires you to subordinate your virtue in order to get anything done until you have achieved a leadership role. To paraphrase President Reagan, it appears that the second oldest profession (politics), bears a remarkably strong resemblance to the oldest."

 There's no real statement here and even fewer facts, but quoting Reagan again tells me this isn't a Democrat, but a Tea Partier in Democrat's clothing. Besides Reagan never had an original thought, so credit the speechwriter. Getting tired of typing, so I'll just address phrases instead of the entire pile of dung.  

"......what kind of light bulbs we must purchase, how much soda or hamburgers we can eat, what cars we can drive, gasoline to use, and what health care we must buy. Countless thousands of pages of regulations strangle our businesses costing the consumer more and more every day."

How dare the elected government attempt to care for the environment or conserve energy? (light bulbs) When was the last time anyone told you that you couldn't have a burger or soda, or what to drive? Never happens. No one has ever told you what kind of health care you had to buy either, just that you should have it. Why? So you pick up at least a part of the cost of your own well being. Damn that government!

 "As I face my final year, or so, with cancer, my president and my government tell me "You'll just have to take a pill," while you, Senator, your colleagues, the president, and other exulted  (the appropriate word here is actually exalted, but he's a moron, remember?) government officials and their families will get the best possible health care on our tax dollars until you are called home by your Creator while also enjoying a retirement beyond my wildest dreams, which of course, you voted for yourselves and we pay for."

First: as already discussed, members of Congress, if they use the government employees group plan,   have exactly the same  coverage as a patent office clerk. Like the clerk, they can also BUY a different group plan. In either case, they pay for their and their family's Health care just like everyone else. Wishing it was different so you can hate them won't change that.  As far as the "pill" he mentions, It costs what it costs because the Bush administration in two separate pieces of legislation , one in 2003 and the other in 2006, promised big Pharma that Medicare would never negotiate drug costs (like every other developed country does),  so the Gov pays about 10 times as much on average for the same meds.

Second, in 2006, a new law specified than there would be no FDA approved drugs (this was aimed in general at new cancer treatments), regardless of cost,  which were not available to Medicaid or Medicare patients. So whatever pill he's getting it's the best available.

   Regarding retirement, perhaps he should have worked harder, saved more, been smarter, who knows?  Moreover, if he's the "hero" implied in the intro, why doesn't he go to the VA? (Pssst! it's free!) What I do know is that any medium sized or larger  company  20 year CEO will earn far more for getting fired than a 20 year congressman,  who can receive, at age 55, a $52, 451 pension. (A two term Rep. will get nothing, he must do at least 5 years to be eligible.) That's essentially  comparable  to many professions with lesser responsibilities.

 Consider another 20 year government employee :  A  20 year 0-6 military retiree will be paid (AT AGE 44 or so)  $59, 082 (plus health care for life worth at least another $10 grand annually).  Add the years between 44 and 55 and the retired 0-6 makes  over  $3/4 million before the congressman gets a nickel. Even an E-9 retiring on 26 years earns more than the 20 year congressman when Tri-care is considered! This is a bitter and under informed man.  The fact that he wrote it means nothing except he has access to a word processor. It actually reads more like he simply recorded and transcribed any random Glenn Beck broadcast.