A fellow Democratic activist sent me
this Washington Post article. It was nothing new, really, but one word jumped out at me:
Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) implored Republicans late last week to drop plans to take up permanent repeal of the estate tax soon after Congress returns to work. "With thousands presumed dead after Hurricane Katrina and families uprooted all along the Gulf Coast, giving tax breaks to millionaires should be the last thing on the Senate's agenda," Reid said.
I dashed off an e-mail to Senator Reid, with copies to my own two Senators, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, and this is what it said:
GOP Agenda in Congress May Be at Risk
Katrina's Costs, High Fuel Prices Working Against More Tax Cuts
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 4, 2005; Page A02
Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) implored Republicans late last week to drop plans to take up permanent repeal of the estate tax soon after Congress returns to work. "With thousands presumed dead after Hurricane Katrina and families uprooted all along the Gulf Coast, giving tax breaks to millionaires should be the last thing on the Senate's agenda," Reid said.
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Dear Senator Reid:
I am not your constituent, but whereas this same message is going to Senators Murray and Cantwell, and whereas you are the Democratic leader in the Senate, and whereas Weisman characterizes your position, for better or worse, as having "implored" the Republicans, I say this to you:
No imploring. None it it, I say. You tell them you will filibuster all this stuff to death. Then you tell every Democrat in the caucus that it is time to stand up and be counted. We, the people will take care of the vacillators for you.
The Republican war policies, tax policies, and budget priorities helped cause the conditions that led to the flooding and human misery in Louisiana, and they should be made to pay for it -- through the nose.
Louisiana is the home state of Huey P. Long. Ask yourself: "What would Huey do?" I think you know the answer.
We are done with imploring. Give 'em hell, Harry. Thank you, and thank the hapless staffer who has had to read this.
Huey P. Long, for those who don't know this factoid, carried on, solo, a 15-hour filibuster in the Senate in 1935, described here, on the Senate's own Web site.
Say what you like about Huey. Whatever else he did in his life, he advocated for poor people. Can you imagine the situation in Louisiana if Huey was alive today? New Orleans would have had the best damn levees money could buy, and woe to anyone who would have denied the money to build them.
My message to the U.S. Senate: Now is the time to "be like Huey." And now is the time that we demand that our Senators defeat the Bush tax policies.