The other day, when I opened my mailbox, I finally figured out how Congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper is fighting unemployment. She is keeping the Congressional Printing Office at full employment, publishing her campaign literature (including her "Congressional Report on Jobs") at taxpayer expense. This abuse by Dahlkemper's office of the franking privilege in an election year is unconscionable. One would think she might have the common courtesy to use some of her bloated campaign treasure chest (that she has collected from special interests located nearly everywhere except in her own congressional district) instead of gouging the hardworking taxpayers of northwestern Pennsylvania for printing campaign propaganda. Dahlkemper requests constituents' ideas about the issues of the day, but then members of her staff apparently evacuate their offices when the tough issues of the day are being debated. Then she votes in lock step with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in Congress anyway, leaving e-mails and phone calls ignored because she doesn't care what her constituents have to say. Recently, she sent an e-mail to my household lauding so-called economic progress, reporting nearly 10 percent unemployment rates in counties throughout her district. That was an unbelievable analysis of the current economy. She is one of the authors of this disastrous economic policy, which has produced deficits of such magnitude that it will take generations to dig out from under them. As Ronald Reagan would say about Dahlkemper, "She spends our tax dollars like a drunken sailor, but that does a disservice to drunken sailors — at least they spend their own money." Come Nov. 2, let's hope people of the 3rd Congressional District have the common sense to add Dahlkemper and her inane policies to the unemployment line.
