We know what's important. Our families are important. Our communities are important. Our future is important. Washington has lost sight of what's important. There, it's Wall Street, Big Oil and billionaires. It's time to change that.
In 2010, voters sent new representatives to Washington who preached jobs and fiscal responsibility. Over the past 20 months, many have failed to live up to their promises -- including our own congressman, U.S. Rep. Chip Cravaack. He has been pushing a budget that slashes taxes for the wealthiest Americans and pays for it on the backs of middle-class families and seniors already facing tough times.
Congressman Cravaack's vote last April to end Medicare as we know it made my decision to run for Congress an easy one. Medicare is something seniors earned, and, as an advocate and former attorney for seniors, I know just how important it is.
The plan he not only voted for but is actively promoting would end Medicare and force seniors with already tight budgets to pay, on average, $6,000 more for health care each year. Seniors earned Medicare and deserve to retire in dignity; and, as I have heard countless times, many seniors would be left destitute without it.
Unfortunately, we've found out firsthand how damaging Congressman Cravaack's budget plans are. His repeated votes against funding for disaster relief, including a vote against grants to help homeowners, proved shortsighted when we were inundated by flooding this June. As a legislative leader, I worked on bipartisan disaster-relief efforts. I know with the right leaders, Congress can do this again, too.
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While voting to slash resources our seniors and communities count on, our congressman has voted to keep rewarding companies that outsource our jobs. For our families and communities to thrive, we need jobs. Jobs are my top priority. I've spent the last 18 months working as co-chairwoman of a national jobs initiative, building on my work as a legislative leader. Instead of subsidizing companies that outsource our neighbors' jobs, we should create jobs here improving our transportation and communication infrastructure while helping local manufacturers retool. This is how we create good 21st-century jobs.
When it comes to women and our young families, the actions in Washington have been shameful: Threatening women's access to preventative health services and birth control, forcing families in rural areas to travel further to receive basic health care, preventing renewal of the Violence Against Women Act that helps protect vulnerable women and girls for a decade and a half, and even trying to change the definition of rape to make it harder to prosecute offenders.
I've spent 25 years working with and advocating on behalf of people across Northeastern and central Minnesota, and this is not how we do things in Minnesota. It shouldn't be how things are done in Washington.
If you want to restore our families, our communities, and our future as the priorities of Congress, I ask for your vote on Tuesday and your help in the coming months.
Tarryl Clark is one of three Democratic candidates for U.S. Congress in Tuesday's primary election in Minnesota's 8th Congressional District.
