Letters

Again

Washington’s fifth district “representative” Cathy McMorris Rodgers is at it again. While smiling and telling the people of Eastern Washington she’s here to serve us, she supports a sequester that will slash $85 billion in 2013. She sees no problem with mandatory, across the board cuts to all government programs, no matter their importance. (There are a few exceptions, like Social Security, Medicade, refund tax credits to individuals, Children’s Nutrition Program and of course, pay for Congress.)

In a recent address to the GOP Ms. Rodgers stated, “We’ve done the work and shown that these choices can be made in a responsible, thoughtful, way.”

One of her “thoughtful, responsible” choices for our district will come in the form of furloughing 2600 workers at the nation’s largest Superfund cleanup site, the Handford Nuclear Reservation. Today Hanford is the most contaminated nuclear site in the US and the focus of the nation’s largest environmental cleanup. The US government spends $2 billion each year on cleanup at Hanford. (1/3 of the national nuclear clean up budget).

Fifty-plus years of contamination to the air, soil and water, and the most recent announcement that six tanks are leaking doesn’t seem to bother Ms. Rodgers at all. She just wants us to remember she deeply cares about the people of Eastern Washington.

Patricia Bates,

Clarkston