To the Editor:

Kim Hansen, chairwoman of the Martin County DFL wrote to "inform" us that Congressman Tim Waltz carried Martin County in the last election and was voted in by the majority to bring health care reform to the nation. She states he carried out the mission by voting for the bill House Speaker Pelosi brought to the floor.

My opinion is he may have represented the majority when he was elected on the platform of health care reform, but I seriously doubt the majority of voters expected the reform to be a gigantic $1.2 trillion entitlement program that is 1,990 pages long, read by few representatives and understood by fewer.

The bill is full of special interests, such as millions for union workers to be able to keep their Cadillac insurance plan; unionized jobs for health care workers; federal money for abortions; and illegal aliens able to get on the plan. They say these items are not in the bill, but written deep into the legalese of this monstrosity are loopholes.

Walz is not a Blue Dog Democrat - so his vote on this bill was not in question as to where he stood on the issue: With the party. The question I have for Rep. Walz is: Did your vote represent the majority of the people today, or did you vote along party lines, without current consideration of the people's wishes? In most of the polls taken throughout the country, this bill is opposed. I have a hard time believing the majority of southern Minnesotans would vote for a bill that would socialize our health care, take over one-sixth of our economy and could cause the collapse of capitalism, all by an administration that has put our country so far into debt unborn generations will have to pay for it. This government entitlement will be another avenue for fraud and deception costing billions of dollars, just like Medicare and Medicaid, with no real reform.

So the issue is: Do we send people to Washington to represent us who vote against the majority, or do we look around and find real, common sense people who will listen to us on each major issue?

The American voter has the ability to make changes at the ballot box. It is time to clean house of those who have been there two terms or more. If this approach is taken in every state, it will only take six years to clean house and restore common sense to our government. Yes, this plan will take out some "good" congressmen, and that is unfortunate, but it was not the intent of our forefathers to have professional politicians, especially lawyers, run our country. In the long run, it will bring our government back to what our forefathers believed would make a great democracy.

Dorothy Behne

Sherburn