Sequester is dangerous

Washington’s 5th District Rep. 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 across the board cuts to all government programs, no matter their importance. (There are a few exceptions, such as pay for Congress.)

In a recent address to the GOP, Ms. McMorris 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 will come in the form of furloughing 2,600 workers at the nation’s largest Superfund cleanup site, the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Today, Hanford is the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States and the focus of the nation’s largest environmental cleanup. The U.S. government spends $2 billion each year on cleanup at Hanford (one-third of the national nuclear cleanup 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 McMorris Rodgers at all. She just wants us to remember she deeply cares about the people of Eastern Washington.

Patricia Bates

Clarkston