An Open Letter to Elizabeth Emken

Ms. Emken, as near as I can tell, you’re no different than just about any other candidate for office.  You offer empty promises devoid of detail and contradictory statements that make no sense.  In today’s Elk Grove Citizen, you are featured in an article.  It begins with your call for “smaller government.”  Oddly enough, with one unfortunately misplaced exception, there are no specifics in the article about how you would actually bring about smaller government. 

Before I go further, let me address a few points.  First, I realize part of the problem may be with the media and how your interview, or positions, were reported in the Elk Grove Citizen.  Maybe you provided more details and they just didn’t report them.  Or maybe not.  I looked at your website and here’s your answer to the question of what agencies you would eliminate:

“My approach is different. I want a top to bottom review of every agency, requiring metrics that measure results and value for invested tax dollars. Those programs that aren`t producing need to be made to produce. And those that have no possibility of returning value for invested tax dollars should be discontinued. As a cost efficiency expert, I spent a good portion of my career implementing these practices in the private sector.”

Hmmm … still no specifics there, on your website that is unfiltered through the media lens.

Second, I desperately want to be able to vote for a Republican.  I am a lifelong Democrat who has rarely voted for a Republican, but I would vote for a Republican in a heart beat if they could give me a reason to.  I am also a government employee who agrees that there is waste and fat that could be cut, as well as departments and agencies that could and should be eliminated.

Sadly, the article in the Elk Grove Citizen demonstrates why you won’t be getting my vote.  Why?  Let’s start here.

The article quotes you as stating, “I’m for a smaller, less intrusive, less regulatory government.  I believe in limited government.”  The very next paragraph quotes you further stating, “I’m just like a traffic cop.  Government should be the traffic cop making sure that we don’t have crooks and shysters taking advantage of consumers.”  I am just blown away at the fundamental inconsistency here.  On the one hand you want a less regulatory government, but then you state that what government is supposed to do is make sure that the “crooks and shysters” don’t take advantage of us poor saps.  Do you realize that that is exactly what a regulatory government is?  So, which is it?  Do you want a less intrusive, less regulatory government?  Or do you want government to serve as the traffic cop?  You actually can’t have it both ways.

You dig your hole even deeper by completely mischaracterizing Obamacare as this massive government intrusion in a way that provides the third stool of the contradictory positions you state.  Ms. Emken, do you actually realize what the Affordable Care Act does and how it works?  It preserves the existing free market in health care by requiring individuals to purchase health insurance from private insurance providers.  It doesn’t insert government into the system any more than it already is except in this way.  To serve as the traffic cop, a role you believe government should play.  You see, what the ACA does is require everybody to purchase health care – from insurance companies – or pay a penalty.  In exchange for people purchasing insurance, the government has imposed requirements to ensure that they aren’t taken advantage of the “crooks and shysters” you seem so concerned about.  You know, like requiring that there be a minimum level of benefits provided, by requiring that the various insurance plans provide full disclosure of the benefits, by providing ratings for the various plans, and various other tools to ensure, as much as possible, that consumers in this new world aren’t taken advantage of.

If the Affordable Care Act was really what you describe it as, it would be a single payer system.  But, it wasn’t.  Instead, it’s an individual mandate that continues to rely on private insurance companies, private health care providers, and the marketplace  – an idea Republicans favored until Obama adopted it as his plan – with government regulation in place to protect the individuals.  That certainly seems consistent with your view of government in the roll of traffic cop.

Other than eliminating the Affordable Care Act, you provide no other concrete examples of how you would downsize government.  Why not?  With all of the information out there about government programs and what they do and how much they cost, you haven’t been able to identify anything else that you would eliminate?  Given the range of your experience, you haven't come across government programs that you know are worthy and should be saved or programs that need to be cut or eliminated.  Really?  Come on, you’re like those politicians who run on the promise that they’ll get rid of government waste, without actually saying how.  They just promise that there’s billions of dollars of waste and they’ll uncover it.  It’s an empty promise with no value.  

Everything you said in the interview, everything you have on your website is just as empty and geared towards the votes of people who probably will be voting for you anyway.

By the way, here’s another contradiction you should know about – while you oppose the sequestration because it was an amputation when surgery was needed, you favor an across-the-board freeze on all new “job killing regulations and taxes of the past four years.”  Wouldn’t that be pretty much the same thing as an amputation when surgery was needed?

I’ll say it again … I’m a Democrat looking for a reason to vote for a Republican.  Instead of trotting out the same old tired lines riddled with contradictions and half truths and completely lacking in specifics, how about you break the mold and give me a reason to vote for you?