Letters for May 25

Baumgartner supports dangerous budget

Rep. Michael Baumgartner’s vote for the current federal budget is a direct attack on the people of Eastern Washington. By supporting deep cuts to Medicaid in exchange for more tax breaks for the ultrawealthy, he’s turning his back on the working families, seniors, veterans and children who depend on basic health care to survive.

I’m one of them. I rely on NEW Health clinics for care – clinics that are largely funded through Medicaid. If this budget bill stands, NEW Health may be forced to close one or more of its locations. That means I, and thousands like me across Ferry, Stevens and Pend Oreille counties, could lose access to essential care. That’s not just inconvenient – it’s dangerous.

This budget doesn’t save money. It shifts costs. When people lose coverage, they don’t stop needing care – they end up in emergency rooms, in worse health, costing all of us more in the long run. And our already strained rural hospitals will bear the brunt.

Rep. Baumgartner didn’t stand up for his district – he voted to protect the wealthiest at the expense of the most vulnerable. We see it clearly, and we won’t forget it next November.

Elisanne McCutchen

Springdale, Wash.

Administration simply doesn’t care

Reading the May 17 article that the EPA is yanking Gonzaga’s Climate Grant funding, which would have protected hundreds of Spokane’s most vulnerable from extreme heat and from wildfire smoke, I thought of Mandy Bergstrom’s well-written guest opinion about her son Max and how he’d have died were it not for Medicaid. (“Keep Medicaid whole; Keep families whole,” May 11).

The common theme in both pieces is the shared assumption that one, civilized humans care about one another, and therefore, two, our elected officials should care about their constituents, all the way up to and including our president.

But what will it take to make people see that our current administration cares nothing about us, or about anyone but themselves? Trump promised to help working families, yet he clearly cares only for the “oligarchs.”

If Bergstrom’s baby were still a fetus, or if the Gonzaga grant were going to benefit Spokane’s billionaires (a clear oxymoron), why then, Baumgartner and his fellow Representatives in Idaho would be allowed to speak out. But they are in thrall to their Republican leaders and must “toe the party line.”

A tragic time, for us all.

Dian Allison

Fürth, Germany

Money alone would pave streets

Complainer Jenny Payne (Letters, May 21) thinks people should make noise to the city about dirt streets in the city.

One phone call to the engineering department and she would know that the abutting property owners have to agree to an assessment to have the street improved.

Complaining does nothing. Money will get them paved.

Sherry Lindsey

Spokane

Fear rules in Trump’s America

I wake up every morning checking state laws, not out of curiosity, but survival. I scan the news, tracking Trump and those he’s empowered. My safety depends on it.

America was founded on freedom, but Trump’s resurgence feels like a countdown. His anti-trans rhetoric fuels a wave of hate from people who don’t understand. They just parrot his cruelty.

And I wonder: How long before they come for me?

It’s not just trans people anymore. Even cis-women are targeted for not fitting a narrow version of “femininity.” It’s all about ugly, violent control.

I’ve never wanted attention. I don’t consider myself political. I’m not an activist or influencer.

I’m a woman. I always have been. No matter how loudly they deny it, that doesn’t make them right.

Millions of trans Americans wake up asking: Is today the day that someone decides my existence is a threat? Living like this is torment – constant scanning, measuring safety, watching every interaction. It’s not paranoia. It’s experience.

Maybe that’s the goal: to exhaust us. To keep us scared, quiet, small. But I see through it now. This isn’t strategy. It’s cruelty.

So yes, maybe the answer really is calling state officials. Reminding them why we elected them: to protect the vulnerable, not pander to the powerful.

Because we’re not enemies, we’re your neighbors. We’re human. And we deserve to live like it.

Kimberly Carter

Spokane