Baumgartner Burnishes His Legacy

Rep. Michael Baumgartner congratulated himself on his vote for the One Big Beautiful Bill-- even as the legislation was being bandied about in the Senate--in a 4-color mailer that saturated 5th District mailboxes.

Included in the piece are several bullets representing--in a binary, absolutist vacuum--how failure to pass the bill would affect Eastern Washington families. Brief mention is made of the Medicaid work requirement with no reference to the infrastructure each state would have to assemble to administer this provision or the economic impact of millions of citizens seeking primary care in hospital emergency departments after losing their benefit.

We are assured that “all tax and spending figures cited in this mailer are from the House Ways and Means Majority Report”-basically, the legislation itself. The Congressional Budget Office, the entity typically looked to for analysis of bills involving our tax dollars, is on the President’s hit list for accurately reporting the $3 trillion-plus the bill would add to the national debt. Hence, Baumgartner avoids referencing the CBO, which happens to be headed by a Republican economist.

The mailer was a waste of money and an insult to our intelligence.

Tom Elstrom, Precinct Committee Officer, Waitsburg Precinct