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News-Sentinel.com Your Town. Your Voice.
Opening Arguments

Thrust and parry

Third District Rep. Mark Souder has been running his radio attack ads for weeks now, which are so mean-spirited they seem to be turning off even some staunch Republicans. The spots accuse Democratic opponent Tom Hayhurst of being a millionaire doctor who wants to "retire to Congress" so he can spend all your money, nationalize everything and hand Nancy Pelosi the keys to your children's future. And that's just one of the mild ones.

Now, Hayhurst has started running the first of his TV ads, which ends with the doctor saying this: "If you want to change what goes on in Washington, change the people you send there." At first blush, this sounds like a low-key, "Oh, what a nice man I am" response to Souder's venom. But if you think about it, it's just a much subtler form of attack. Not "This man has all the wrong values and will take them to Washington," as Souder implies. But, "The government is really screwed up, and guess who helped do it?" Same message, different style.

And I think I'd like to disagree with the Doc's contention. Changing the people we send to Washington will not change Washington. We've seen that time after time -- Republican, Democrat, liberal, conservative, most of them just get sucked into the institutional culture, and Congress never changes except to get worse. Just consider Souder -- who got elected as someone who would challenge the status quo, then go home after six terms. After six terms, he is the status quo and has a hundred reasons why he should stay there, no matter what he said.

There is a tendency for us to be co-opted by the institutions we try to change from the inside, yes? That is a classic theme of literature. 

Comments

Jeff Pruitt
Tue, 10/10/2006 - 5:33am

I guess I don't agree w/ you premise that Congress only gets worse no matter what. Voters can only make changes on a microscale. They choose between the better of the two candidates at that moment in time. 12 years later things might need to change. Such is the nature of business, sports, politics, etc.

This country and this district most certainly needs a change at this moment in time. This is why Souder should not be re-elected...

Mike Sylvester
Tue, 10/10/2006 - 6:02am

The real problem is that voters are forced to vote between the "Lesser of two evils" in most elections...

I will be voting for Tom Hayhurst since the Indiana Election Board SHAMEFULLY eliminated several Libertarians from the ballot (Due to a law written in the State legislature just to make it harder for Libertarians to get on the ballot).

I am not really voting for Tom Hayhurst. I am voting against Mark Souder and I am voting for the "lesser of two evils."

Mike Sylvester
Fort Wayne Libertarian

William Larsen
Fri, 10/13/2006 - 3:50pm

Well after seeing Souder lie to my face on TV last night on the Doc's position on immigration, I cannot bring myself to vote for him again. Souder has got to go. He voted to raise my and my kids future taxes while at the same time tells them if they had better save a lot on their own because Social Security will not be there for them. He says it will be means tested. Well Mr. Souder if it is going to be means tested why not do it NOW? Then he votes for Rx drugs. Does he think money grows on trees? Who is paying for this give away, he certianly is not. Anyone under 50 will pay through the nose for this benefit others get while trying to pay for their own families Rx's.

Medicare will exhaust its "trust" fund around 2018, Social Security's trust fund will fall below the 20% trigger point that automatically cust benefits by law around 2037. Two big problems and he adds a third.

My problem is I do not believe the doc has the slightest idea what the problem is with healthcare. He may have been in that field for decades, but he was part of the problem as well.

There is no such thing as a free lunch and the government tends to make things worse rather than better. Medicare cost shifts a tremendous burden onto others. Medicaid shifts costs even more. Insurance companies try and get the same deal as Medicare and the only ones left are those who cannot get a deal and end up paying what the others do not want to pay.

Want to fix healthcare, get government out of it and a provider cannot charge others more or less for the same service. This will stop cost shifting and the true cost of healthcare will be visible.

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