In order for politicians to prove they are deficit reducing, budget cutting bona fides, they must immediately eliminate the pensions and government-based health care benefits that they themselves now receive. Since seeking elected office is optional, there is no reason that taxpayers should subsidize politicians’ health care or their retirement. Their salaries are ample. They probably should budget more efficiently to plan for their future and their health. The free market should be able to provide a competitively priced health care package for them and their families, even with all of those pre-existing conditions. As the people responsible for this budget crisis,
they
should be the first to sacrifice in order to solve it. When all elected officials sacrifice for their constituents America can once again be exceptional instead of the Third World country we are becoming.
— Catherine Tunney, Chicago
