Rep Wittman: Morality and economics demand you vote NO!

I write today to appeal to the Congressman’s better angels. As an educated man with respect for scientific analysis, the Congressman knows that the “One Big Beautiful Bill” is an economic and moral disaster. As an adoptee, the Congressman knows how vital it is that each of us support others in our communities so they can reach the very limits of their potential. As a legislator, he fully understands how investments in the American people and industry have created the greatest economy and nation on Earth. The Bill is a magnificent failure in each of these regards. Its cuts to Medicaid are purportedly aimed at eliminating fraud, waste, and abuse but will have the inevitable effect of reducing access to healthcare across our communities among those who are eligible for it. Its cuts to food and nutrition programs directly impact our most vulnerable residents, including children and the elderly. The Bill reduces investments in R&D while exploding expenditures on immigration enforcement. This makes no scientific or economic sense for long-term prosperity. No amount of immigration enforcement will replace the breakthroughs, innovations, and patents that will never be discovered. As a scientist, the Congressman knows this. Meanwhile, the majority of Virginians are against the immigration enforcement measures taken by the administration. We do not want our productive, peace-seeking, and law-abiding neighbors to be harassed, arrested, and threatened with deportation. We fear the effects of expanded funding for ICE because their apparently rogue operations are unAmerican and destructive to our communities. Replacing research with guns for ICE is immoral and economically idiotic. Worst still, the Bill's tax cuts for upper-income and higher-wealth individuals and families are an abject failure in economic analysis and national strategy. No tax cut in history has ever created as much long-term prosperity as investments in the American people as a whole. The Bill will increase household expenses for Virginians, and hand a few Americans thousands of dollars per year to do with as they wish. And even WORSE: the Bill does all this while raising the national debt by over $3.3 TRILLION. We cannot “grow ourselves out of debt” through tax cuts — as President Trump proved with his 2017 tax cuts, for which we have already incurred ever-increasing debt. The Bill makes no moral or economic sense. It is a travesty of policymaking. The Congressman must vote NO on this Bill. Any vote in favor of the Bill is a vote for economic insanity, moral peril, and their inevitable consequences. The Congressman must understand that we, the constituents of the First District, are watching his votes and hearing his rhetoric at this, the most consequential time of our nation’s modern history. He has the opportunity to do the clearly correct thing. He must vote NO on the Bill.