To the attention of:
Barack Obama, US President;
David Paterson, Governor of New York;
US Senators from New York: Charles E. Schumer, Kirsten E. Gillibrand;
US Representatives from New York: Anthony D. Weiner, Brian Higgins, Carolyn McCarthy, Carolyn B. Maloney, Charles B. Rangel, Christopher John Lee, Daniel B. Maffei, Edolphus Towns, Eliot L. Engel, Gary L. Ackerman, Gregory W. Meeks, Jerrold Nadler, John J. Hall, José E. Serrano, Joseph Crowley, Louise McIntosh Slaughter, Maurice D. Hinchey, Michael A. Arcuri, Michael E. McMahon, Nita M. Lowey, Nydia M. Velázquez, Paul Tonko, Peter T. King, Scott Murphy, Steve Israel, Timothy H. Bishop, William L. Owens, Yvette D. Clarke;
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I am writing on behalf of myself and the people of AIDPAGE. While we may seem to be a small percentage of the population, we represent the majority of the people who pay your salary. We are the people who were promised the American Dream: a warm place to call home, food on our tables, earning a living wage, access to health care, celebrating the holidays with friends and family. Instead, we were given the American Nightmare: foreclosed homes, utility shut-offs, social services denials, wages that cannot begin to pay our bills, vehicles repossessed, no healthcare, and no holidays.
Organizations that promised to assist us in our time of need, are turning us away due to lack of funds, but their CEOs are earning six figures. Social services which were put in place to prevent these catastrophes deny applicants for being $2 over the income guidelines. Subsidized housing is packed to capacity with criminals living among impoverished families and seniors living in substandard conditions. Rental assistance is non-existent.
Unemployment is at an all time high. While statistics show it has decreased over the past year, it does not take into account the number of people that are under-employed or have completely fallen off the radar due to a lack of benefits.
The people of this country are angry at big government for taking so much and giving so little in return. We have sacrificed our children for your war. We have sacrificed our privacy for your fear. We have sacrificed our livelihood for the sake of what used to be our country. What have we received in return- A mediocre health care plan that will take a decade or more to fully implement?
Our children have become products of their polluted environment. Parents who are forced to work, sometimes 2 jobs, to earn a livable wage have no alternative but to leave their children in state funded and resourced day care; watched over by minimally paid and unsupervised workers. Now that the funding has dried up, where will they go?
Our elderly are no better off. They are drugged and warehoused are “cared” for by unsupervised and unskilled workers as well. Some with criminal backgrounds who abuse and violate the very people they are paid to care for.
We, the American public know the longer the situation continues, the more precarious our lives become.
This country was founded on the principle people are entitled to basic human rights. Our forefathers came here to be freed from persecution, to ensure everyone was entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Our government was to be ruled by the people, not for the people to be ruled by their government. When forced to live by another’s rules, our country revolted and formed their own Declaration. If you recall, it states:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
While this document, entrenched in history, may not be fully applicable today, it holds the basic tenets of our country to be true. We are the people whom that document protects and provides for. Our government has denied the majority of our people their basic human rights as set by our Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, and Constitution.
I would also like to point out Section 15 of the Bill of Rights
That no free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.
I need to know, which signifies moderation and frugality?
· $13 TRILLION debt
· Senators pay at $190,000+
Research shows there are 261 members of Congress whom are millionaires. How many do you think could live on only Social Security and Medicare? (approximately $1,609.00 gross per month) or minimum wage (approximately $1,160.00 gross per month) with no health care. There are many who live well below that income level.
Each day, these brave souls face the world praying for a sliver of hope, that one day soon, their situation will improve. The single parents pray their children will get an education and achieve more than they have. The elderly pray they will not freeze another night, or have enough money to pay for their medication and food. Parents pray their children will come home from a war, intact. Children pray their mom and dad will stop crying and worrying about how to take care of them.
I only ask one thing of each of you – answer their prayers.
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