Perry Deane Young - PDY May 4, 2005 Blog - NEVER UNDER-ESTIMATE THE POWER OF A LETTER

PDY blog for May 4, 2005

NEVER UNDER-ESTIMATE THE POWER OF A LETTER

    In my last blog, I included the following:
    Perry:For too long, we Democrats in North Carolina have been electing candidates who get to Washington and vote with the Republicans. After reading that Rep. David Price was one of 73 Democrats who sided with the Republicans on the disgraceful bankruptcy bill, I sent the following letter to Price and our local newspapers. It was published in the Raleigh News & Observer and the Chapel Hill Herald.

    Dear Editor: As a progressive Democrat in a like-minded district, I have held my nose and voted for David Price for the last time. Price has aligned himself with the Republicans whose only purpose in life seems to be to rob poor working people and reward their lazy rich friends and supporters. Price’s vote in favor of the disgraceful bankruptcy law was the last straw. It is high time for him to do the honorable thing and announce he will not run again—so that a progressive candidate like Chapel Hill mayor Kevin Foy can get elected and represent us the way we deserve to be represented.

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    Well, that solicited some very interesting responses. Our dynamic young mayor himself responded that he’d love to have the chance to serve in Washington and help make some of the changes we so desperately need in our country right now.

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     And here’s what another letter writer had to say in the News & Observer:

For a bolder Price

    I agree with an April 19 letter-writer concerning Democratic U.S. Rep. David Price. Price's equivocating position on President Bush's war in Iraq has been nothing short of exasperating. But his vote in favor of the bankruptcy bill is simply over the top. We deserve a more courageous voice for one of the more liberal voting districts in the country. Price is in an ideal position to speak out boldly on progressive issues. Why doesn't he?

Alan Dehmer
Chapel Hill

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    The most interesting response of all came from Rep. David Price himself. A two-page form letter addressed to me from his office described Price’s vote on the bankruptcy bill, concluding with this explanation:

    “Bankruptcy filings have increased by 400 percent in the past two decades, resulting in increased credit costs for all of us. Filings continued to grow even during most of the period of high economic growth in the 1990s. I supported S. 256 because I am concerned about protecting the bankruptcy system against abuse, which imposes higher credit costs on all of us, and I believe we should restore the system to its original role: providing a clean slate for consumers in legitimate and serious financial trouble, while easing the transition of others to financial solvency and enabling them to fulfill their obligations when they can.”

    Under this, Price added this handwritten note: “I regret we differ on this, but confess that I don’t know what additional instances of alignment w/ ‘regressive Republicans’ you have in mind (having voted against them on the Schiavo case, Tom Delay’s ethics, parental notification on abortion, estate tax repeal, ANWR oil drilling, fuel-efficiency standards, etc. etc. in the last few weeks alone!) I hope this letter gives an understandable account of the bankruptcy reform bill’s plusses & minuses, & will be glad to talk w/ you about it if you like.”

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Of course, he made no mention at all of his “equivocating position on Bush’s war in Iraq,” an issue that has come to overwhelm all others in our time….as did a similar debacle in Vietnam….

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