Rockbridge Advocate Editorial, August 2024
Support for hard-working …
Rockbridge County last month was awarded a pair of grants that will enable Brightspeed and BARC to seriously expand their ability to provide high-speed internet services here. In all, nearly 2,000 underserved households and business here will finally be able to have what is now an essential utility. And the county it trying again to get another grant that will finally bring high-speed internet to about 100 locations in the Vesuvius area. In order to obtain those grants, all told the county committed nearly $3.4 million. The money came from the federal government. Our Congressman, Ben Cline, voted against the bill that provided the funds.
Buena Vista of late has spent more than $1 million on badly needed upgrades and improvements to Glen Maury Park, and plans to spend another $500,000 or so renovating the pool there before the Health Department shuts it down. It’s spent more than $700,000 on badly needed equipment for the public works department, where things got so bad a few years ago that the city didn’t have a functioning snowplow.
The money to do those things — the city didn’t have it — came from the federal government. Our Congressman, Ben Cline, voted against the bill that provided those funds.
About 25 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway, one of the major tourist draws to our area, has been crumbling for years. That stretch of the Parkway is going to get fixed at a cost of about $75 million. Our Congressman, Ben Cline, voted against the bill that provided those funds.
Ben Cline has said over and over during his years as a career politician that he’s fighting for “the hard-working men and women” of his district.
If that’s so, he — and the hard-working men and women — have little to show for it. With the election coming up in November, it might be worth asking ourselves what we expect from our elected officials, including our Congressman.
Do we expect them to put party first and constituents second?
Do we expect them pay lip service to working families that are struggling to get by while voting against measures to help them?
Do we expect them to gin up lies about stolen elections when their candidate loses, or to demonstrate the good sportsmanship we expect from our children? Do we want them to support law and order so long as the law doesn’t ensnare their friends, or to support the rule of law and our jury system no matter how the chips may fall?
Do we want them to throw our allies to the wind and support a brutal dictator with ambitions to conquer and subjugate a good chunk of Europe?
Do we want them to control women’s bodies, or to support women’s rights?
Do we want them to be culture warriors or serious legislators?
Do we want them to support tax cuts for big corporations and the wealthy even as they add to the deficit, or to support a fair tax system that will help bring the nation’s huge deficit down?
Do we want them to spend their time looking for scapegoats for serious, complex problems such as the crisis at the border, or to try to find reasonable solutions?
Do we want them to try to repeal an act that has helped make health care affordable for thousands of their constituents, or to work to make it more affordable?
Do we want them to stick up for energy hogging appliances and light bulbs, or to admit that man-made climate change is a serious threat that needs to be addressed?
Do we want them to be lifetime politicians, or to have serious real world experience?
Do we want them to be extremists representing and encouraging the fringes, or to be moderate and thoughtful and do their best to represent all of their constituents?
This year in our district, there’s a pretty clear choice. We have a sitting Republican Congressman with a half-a-million dollar campaign war chest who in all his years — first in the General Assembly and now in Congress — has done virtually nothing to help the people of this district.
And we have an old-fashioned Valley moderate Democrat who unlike the incumbent actually served in the military for 24 years, including six years in the White House, ran a construction company that helped renovate the infrastructure at Monticello, and has a little farm in Rockingham County.
He says he’s running because he “sees a need in this district to have someone who represents all the people, not just the far right.” And too many times, he says, rural Virginia has been left behind.
He wants each of his policies to be judged by some pretty basic things. “Does it rest on respect for every person’s rights, dignity, privacy, and bodily autonomy? Are large corporations and Wall Street traders bearing their share of the costs to run their business – roads, power grids, bridges, broadband, etc. – and paying to clean up their messes? Does it give local agriculture and Main Street businesses what they need to grow, innovate, and support their workers? Are workers given a place at the table to negotiate for their needs? Are we investing in families and our children?”
Ben Cline has had plenty of time to show that he’s capable of accomplishing something to improve the lives of those who live in his district. He’s failed. So it’s time to give someone else a chance. And Ken Mitchell has the real life experience, thoughtfulness, and character that we should expect from our Congressman.