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Sen. Ken Salazar should be recalled

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Contributed by: Francis Miller on 5/22/2006

First, let it be said that I voted for the guy, and I am a pretty conservative guy. My friends said he was a sheep in wolf's clothing, but I really thought he might go to Washington, D.C., and represent us faithfully. Boy, was I wrong. What is making me so upset?

A week ago, Salazar participated in a strict party line vote to put S.1955 on the back burner. This bill, which has already passed the House eight times and always been blocked by the Senate, was once again derailed. My objection is not that Salazar voted for or against the bill, that is his prerogative, and I respect his right to call them as he sees them, but that he participated in the bottom-feeding process of preventing an up-or-down vote. This has been par for the course for the obstructionists in the Senate who resort to pulling a knife when they think they can't win a fight with their fists.

S. 1955 is all-important to the small business community because it would allow trade associations and cooperatives to sponsor health insurance plans on a level playing field with the labor unions and larger self-insured employers. It is cosponsored by seven senators, including Wayne Allard. This legislation has been sought for nearly 15 years, a period during which small business health insurance premiums have quadrupled and the number of uninsured has grown to nearly 50 million people. I will leave debating the particular merits of the bill to a later time, because my objection to Salazar's spineless betrayal of small business is the matter of his participating in a conspiracy to prevent an up-or-down vote.

Small business and the self employed have to sit back and watch the Senate support liberalization of immigration, trade laws which flood the country with goods manufactured elsewhere, tax cuts that benefit a narrow slice of the population and other legislation. I for one am tired of their failure to operate as our loyal agents and get the job done. I am becoming convinced that special interests that range from the group health insurance companies to the chiropractors and every other pig that feeds at the trough has co-opted the system.

The alternative to giving the consumer and employer more options and abilities is to let the health care system fail. A meltdown would cause all of us to throw up our hands in frustration and run into the arms of government who would then put us in a single-payer system and soothe our concerns with admonitions about how the market doesn't work for public goods such as health care.

I am willing to debate, under formal rules of debate, anyone, anytime, anywhere about the health care matter as it relates to small business. I have reached my personal tipping point and no longer am willing to give people such as Ken Salazar the benefit of the doubt. This is what we get when we allow lawyers to hijack our republic and insert their will for ours. I say recall Salazar and indict him for betrayal of a public trust.

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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Francis Miller

Parker , CO

Francis Miller has posted 699 stories and 9 comments since joining on 11/17/2005. Francis Miller's average story rating is 4.2.

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