Frank Lipus’ Ravalli Republic’s Letter to the Editor, Feb. 14th, would
like our county voters to “stick with principals (sic), not political
parties when making a decision that affects our way of life.” I couldn’t
agree more. We could have avoided much of the damaging embarrassment
that is our current county commission if only people had not just
robotically “Voted R” during the last election.
Sadly, Mr. Lipus’s letter rapidly decays into the blindly partisan
perspective that contributes to the very problem he appears to dislike.
More importantly, the analysis he puts forth recycles so many falsehoods
as to merit a reasoned response. I will address a few of these
misconceptions by sharing the truth, fact-checked from non-partisan
sites such as factcheck.org, media matters.org, and politifact.com:
1. Did President Obama “lie” about our ability to keep insurance plans?
No. As he stated in 2009, if your insurance plan is grandfathered in and
if you like it, “you can keep it.” What he should have added last year
was, “If you want to keep your overpriced, poor quality insurance plan,
then you can.”
2. Are people losing insurance because of the ACA (Obamacare)? No.
Insurance companies gamble on your health, so of course they will try to
drop sick patients. The ACA helps prevent this. People are not “losing”
plans, they are either switching to better plans or their insurance
companies are canceling their policies. These cancellations don’t need
to mean a loss of coverage. If people are still stuck with horrible
plans it is because they are not comparing ACA plans and their superior
pricing. Look into the deception behind the misleading representation of
what happened with Bette in Spokane. Check it out.
3. Is the ACA costing jobs? The CBO clearly says “no.” Check it out.
4. Were Democrats silent on expanded NSA spying? Nope. The spying first
came to light in December 2005. Remember, many NSA powers were expanded
under Bush, not Obama. And how did the Democrats react back in 2005?
Many argued vehemently that Bush was making an illegal move. Check it out.
5. Did the IRS disproportionately target conservative groups? No. It is
the DOJ’s job to maintain scrutiny on any and all 501(c)(4)s. The DOJ
followed the law and actually investigated more progressive groups than
conservative groups. No right wing non-profits were denied their
tax-exempt status. Check it out.
6. Did Democrats create our national debt equally with the Republicans
and then solely ask to raise the debt limit? Ha! Federal debt stems in
large part from many pre-existing policies, not Obama’s. Half of our
debt is due to Bush’s tax cuts, the unpaid wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
and the prescription donut hole made for the sake of wealthy
pharmaceutical companies. Imagine what our debt would be without them.
Check it out.
If only we would better follow Mr. Lipus’s core sentiment and “stick
with principals (sic), not political parties” when casting votes.
Perhaps breaking the habit of simply selecting the “R” when we vote
could have prevented the debacle we now face with the Ravalli County
Commission. Where do we start? We educate ourselves beyond the neatly
gift-wrapped, partisan non-sense that can only be reinforced by
countless misspent hours immersed in one-sided manipulation from foreign
owned sources such as Fox “News.”
Becky Peters
Hamilton