My Thanksgiving Letter to Senator Mike Lee

Senator Lee,

I hope that you and your family are enjoying the holiday weekend. My family and I are enjoying some down time, even as one of my sons is visiting Oahu with his high school band to commemorate the loss of our servicemen at Pearl Harbor 70 years ago.

At a recent town hall meeting at Provo City Hall I watched you stake out some hard principled positions. I have seen your Democrat counterparts do likewise over the years. Between the two positions there is a gulf, a tangible divide. I posed one question at the meeting about how we as a nation can make progress when the two sides stake out such positions across the divide without a hint of bridging it. Your reply indicated that you are willing to support any measure that takes even a small step in the right direction; you’re not holding out for the perfect solution that takes us all the way to where you want to be. I can sympathize with this approach.

However, I am concerned that we are stuck. The recent debt-reduction super-committee reached an impasse. The consequences are not pretty. My understanding is that the Democrats approached the committee in a substantially conciliatory and pragmatic mode and offered some of their important causes in exchange for additional revenue. The Republicans did not budge. I may not have my facts right, but that’s the situation as I understand it. I’m disappointed that the Republicans did not find a way to strike a bargain and to accept some progress on reducing entitlements for the poor in exchange for some progress on reducing entitlements for the rich. As an independent who registers with the major parties opportunistically (due to closed primaries), I cannot support an approach that avoids give and take. I believe a genuine opportunity has been squandered. Furthermore, I believe that you, as my representative, should reach across the aisle and strike a more pragmatic approach.

(As an aside, I do think we are out of control and that the federal government needs to be re-org’ed and that the president and his departments need hiring and firing power in the exec. branch in order make the government leaner and meaner. I also recognize it will take some work to get there.)

Yours,

--Eric Ringger

Provo, Utah