Political Commentary

Representative Hunter,

It is a great pleasure to hear from you. Don’t take this wrong, but I have recently been wondering what knucklehead is my “representative” in the the House. I am delighted to find out it is you. Of course, you haven’t yet fallen into the category of knucklehead for me, so congratulations!

In all seriousness, I find it unfortunate that you seem to have very little voice in congress, along with all the other serious conservatives there. I am a victim of our stimulus package because I used to work at a defense contractor (SAIC) on a project that was unexpectedly canceled. Next Friday, if nothing comes up before then, I will be unemployed. Since unemployment is so low, I will be taking a 7K per month cut in pay. This is kind of devastating to my financial future, especially with thousands of other defense contractors also being put out of work. Jobs are a little hard to find here. I will probably be forced to move out of California in order to cut my living costs. The really bright spot is the extra $25.00 per week I will be getting from the “stimulus plan". I wonder if you could thank your mates across the isle for their amazing generosity?

On another issue, I am a two time leukemia survivor. I am trying to recover from my second stem cell transplant. I get chemotherapy treatments every three months that cost about 10K. Overall, I believe my medical treatments have cost over 2M dollars, which have been paid for by my insurance company without much problem. My major problems have been with the hospital billing which is remarkably screwed up. My copays and treatments for side effects last year added up to over 12 thousand dollars. I initially had a survival probability of about 18%. When I relapsed after 3 years, my survival probability went down to about 3%. All those probabilities notwithstanding, I am still here after over 6 years. I have ridden in 6 century rides on my bike, helping to raise millions of dollars to fight blood cancers for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. I walked the San Diego Rock and Roll Marathon in 2008 because I figured out I needed to learn how to walk again. I have inspired a lot of people, and am a motivational speaker and a volunteer to help people who are diagnosed with leukemia. I rode for the MS Society to raise money for them, and I have spoken on behalf of the San Diego Blood Bank on Roger Hedgcock’s show, to support Blood and Bone Marrow donations. I believe that my life is worth something, but if I read the Healthcare “Reform” bill correctly, I probably would not be here today if this bill had been in place 6 years ago. I also believe that I have made a significant contribution to this city and nation in the fight against blood cancers, as well as contributing as a retired Navy Captain. It appalls me to hear me and people like me being characterized as “astroturf” or “nazis” or “protesters in Brooks Brother’s suits” or someone who is putting out disinformation. I have fought for this country and sacrificed seeing a great deal of my son’s life for my country, and have served far longer than our President. I resent his implication that I am one of the above. I am a patriot, I was willing to give up my life for this country, and I am not willing to let some snot nosed, communist thug take it away from me. We need health reform, but this aint it! I am getting so mad that I have been thinking of running for Congress. I probably won’t have anything else useful to do.

Now that I have that off my chest, I want to wish you well, and hope you keep fighting these guys off as best you can. We have so many real problems, it is a shame that our government is wasting it’s time trying to pass a national health care system that is clearly stupid. My proposals:

- Eliminate the 14th amendment - no more anchor babies
- Eliminate all benefits for illegal aliens
- Close the border with our Defense Department. That is defense after all.
- Create a viable guest worker program
- Eliminate the Department of Homeland Security
- Eliminate all the extra Intelligence agencies
- Eliminate the Department of Education
- Eliminate the Departments of the Navy, Army and Air Force
- Eliminate all the duplicative federal police agencies
- Eliminate the ridiculous lending laws that got us into this recession in the first place
- Create a Constitutional Amendment making it impossible for the Federal Government to take over or own any part of ANY business
- Create a Constitutional Amendment making it impossible for the Federal Government to have anything to do with dictating my health care choices
- Create a Constitutional Amendment forcing any able bodied person who receives welfare or any other kind of Federal aid to work or not get paid. There are plenty of unskilled infrastructure jobs that could be done by these people if they would just get off their back sides and get moving.
- Create a Constitutional Amendment either eliminating the Social Security ponzi scheme, or make it a trust fund like it should have been from the beginning, that Congress cannot raid, and that the funds given by the taxpayers are not used to fund current recipients. The money that I give to that fund is MY money, not anyone else’s.

I have many other ideas that I would love to discuss with you that I am sure you would not necessarily agree with, but I love a good, honest debate.

Best Regards,
Ted Wilcox