Represent all citizens

We appreciate the value of a two-party system. We even tolerate a certain amount of partisanship. What the majority of the American people cannot abide is leveraging the foundations of our federal system, its financial security, the health and safety of its citizens, and the jobs of our friends and neighbors, all in the interest of advancing a political agenda.

Congressional leaders and members in Washington, D.C., and representing Eastern Washington, intent on promoting their own politics, shut the government down by refusing to fund its budget. They did it because they saw it as an opportunity to revisit congressional and U.S. Supreme Court approval of the Affordable Care Act. We acknowledge their right to oppose the act, and to work to change the parts they don’t like. But we expect responsibility, and what they did was irresponsible. And it was particularly unsettling hearing them crow about it.

Having passed the budget, they need to start acting like they represent all citizens and in the future check their political arsenals at the door.

Dennis Hession

Spokane