Activist protest doesn’t move on

Members of liberal activist group MoveOn trooped into U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher’s district office last week to protest President George Bush’s proposed budget.

Rohrabacher wasn’t in the office during the March 23 protest, but that didn’t stop the activists from delivering letters from 120 people opposed to the president’s plan to cut $191 billion from Medicaid, Social Security, education and social services.

The congressman later dismissed the complaints as “liberal hogwash.”

“It’s immoral,” said Dave Hamilton, a senior citizen with multiple sclerosis who attended the protest. “It shirks the government’s responsibility to help the poor and the needy to make way for tax cuts to corporations and the rich,” he said.

Bush plans to cut funding for Medicaid, Social Security, education and child care by $191 billion over five years, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a think tank based in Washington, D.C.

Hamilton said he depends on Medicare, and he worries that cuts in programs making hospitals, universities and other public buildings accessible for wheelchair users will affect his ability to get around. “Enough is enough,” he said.

Teddi Alves, a MoveOn member who is running for reelection to the Orange County Democratic Central Committee, said the president has proposed a “reverse Robin Hood” budget.

“He is robbing from middle-class families to pay back his wealthy supporters,” she said. The heated discussion in Rohrabacher’s office quieted when Demian Talmo began to talk. Talmo, 32, suffers from schizophrenia and is dependent on Social Security to pay for medication, therapy and visits to the doctor.

“Social Security is the sole reason I can live at least a partially normal life,” Talmo said. “[What] are we, the mentally ill, going to do if we are dropped out of the financial picture? Society is measured by its compassion for its people and its ability to retain sound structure and equality. Please consider rejecting these budget-cut proposals,” he said.

Rohrabacher said there are limits to what government can do.

“The government’s job is to take care of people who can’t take care of themselves,” he said Monday. “It is not to take care of everybody.”

According to Rohrabacher, MoveOn represents only about 10% of his constituents. He described the group’s philosophy as “total leftist nonsense, liberal hogwash.”

“If they’re interested in the welfare of Americans, they should wean off illegal immigrants from benefits,” he said. “We would be able to spend lots of money on our people then.”

He also defended the president’s tax policies.

“Without the tax cuts ? which didn’t go to the rich only ? our economy would be functioning at a lower level with fewer jobs created,” Rohrabacher said. “In fact, the tax cuts have helped us achieve an optimum level of growth.”

During the protest, MoveOn complained about Rohrabacher’s lack of response to their phone calls and letters.

Eileen Murphy, a Huntington Beach resident for 22 years, said: “I have been down here three to four times and he never pays me any attention.”

Kathleen Hollingsworth, district director for Rohrabacher, explained to the protesters the difficulty of trying to respond to the hundreds of letters and calls the congressman receives each day.