Invitation-only forums lack courage

It is ironic that Tuesday, March 30, the same day that the Daily Herald published Mr. Wiley Edmondson's opinion in the Fence Post, in which he praised the "courage" of Congressman Bill Foster for voting for the Democrats' one-party version of comprehensive health care reform, that the Daily Herald would also report that Congressman Foster and Congresswoman Bean plan to host invitation only health care forums where they will attempt to sell, but only before prescreened audiences of partisans, their rationalizations for voting for a bill that the majority of Americans opposed.

These elected officials lack the courage to publicly confront critics who correctly maintain that the positive reforms that are contained within the comprehensive legislation (such as assuring medical insurance coverage for more citizens, and providing coverage for pre-existing medical conditions) could have been obtained by passage of legislation incrementally, but without the comprehensive bill's expansion of federal power over 16 percent of the country's economy, without its reduction of Medicare coverage, without its increase to taxes and insurance premiums and an actual increase to federal deficits, without its detrimental effects to hiring by private employers, without the eventual shortage in health care providers, without using bribery in the political process, without its unconstitutional forcing of citizens to buy health insurance, and without its empowerment of the IRS to enforce this unconstitutional mandate.

We are all less free as a result of the passage of this bill. So, I wonder, what courage? These health care forums are clearly and obviously staged re-election propaganda forums, financed by taxpayer monies budgeted for the general operating expenses of Congress. Will any of the invitees at the forums have the courage to ask?

Greg Guckenberger

Batavia