S 1716 Emergency Healthcare Relief Act of 2005

September 30

Dear Lindsey,

I write you today with a request that you carefully consider cosponsoring S. 1716 Emergency Health Care Relief Act of 2005, which would assist the survivors of Hurricane Katrina and the state who have taken them in after the storm. I feel that a part of you responsibility as a United States Senator is to support important legislation like the Emergency Health Care Relief Act.

S. 1716 was the compromise worked out in the Finance Committee by Sen. Grassley and Sen. Baucus that would grant the survivors of Katrina 5 months of assistance and only the president has the authority to extend these benefits.

It would be a wonderful help to these folks if this legislation could pass. There are a number of Katrina survivors in IL. I know of at least two that are at DePaul University and one that I met through local political activity with Chicago's 44th Ward Republican Organization. Through talking to this displaced New Orleans resident I had confirmed that anything we spend to rebuild needs to be accounted for in a painstaking way because of the rampant corruption. I basically learned Louisiana politics 101 and it was interesting.

These people are a joy to be around and really deserve the assistance because they have been through more than we could ever imagine.

I also know that you visited the center that i caring for the evacuees when you were back home recently so you have actually looked into their eyes and you also praised the center. The next step is supporting and cosponsoring S 1716 so our neighbors from the gulf coast can have health care and our states can have relief from the budget pinch that caring for these wonderful neighbors of ours from the affected area.

Dear Lindsey,

I wrote to you earlier todayt requesting that you cosponsor S. 1716 Emergency Healthcare Relief Act of 2005. Then later I read via CNN that you are a member in a group that was blocking this legislation. This act disappoints and saddens me becasue we have taken the Katrina survivors into our hearts, homes, churches, schools, and civic organizations which will have a profoiund effect of state budgets that are already pressed for money.

I understand that our federal budget is also in a deficit situation and I have already stated my opposition to borrowing the money, but how can we not help our fellow Americans from the gulf coast get back on their feet. Your decision to block the legislation also troubles me because you visted and praised the community center in columbia for the survivors. I would think that actually looking into the eyes and faces of these people would make you decide differently.

I also want to cut spending, but I think our first targets need to be the pork-laden transportation and energy legislation. I beleive that the I-73 project should not be cut out of the transportation legislation becasue it does not fit the definition of pork. We need to examine the earmarks closely and take out that bridge to nowhere in Alaska. Some of the earmarks that come to Illinois are troublesome to me. For example, the federal goverment should not be paying for streetscapes in Chicago or any of its suburbs because this is a purely local matter. I know if you look you will find more. I digress.

Illinois has 4500 survivors within her borders and a budget that is currently out of commission. That is a problem we will work on, but our budget cannot absorb the cost of the 4500 new residents without some federal assistance. We also are having a housing problem because of corruption in the city, promises being broken, and orders being disobeyed.

The survivors will have a very difficult time if they cannot get the necessary healthcare then nothing else will matter to them. Health is the number one priority. Without this what good does it do to spend all the money on empowerment programs for that area.

Please lighten my heavy heart and heal this nation's broken heart. Our hearts ache for theses surviors. Please, pretty please, stop blocking S. 1716 and persuade your fellow group members to do the same. Please get assistance to the survivors and the staes this I feel is you highest calling as an elected official.

Thank you.