Action speaks louder than mere words

When U.S. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite came to office she represented 634,000 people. Her constituency is now approaching 1 million people. She obviously has the most engaged constituency of any member of Congress.

Brown-Waite utilizes the frank to correspond with her constituents via multiple forms of communication. Among them: direct mailings, monthly telephone town halls, issue newsletters, a weekly column, franked e-mails, comment cards, handouts and flyers and radio advertisements announcing jobs and veterans fairs. Florida's Fifth District is the fourth largest congressional district in the country.

Brown-Waite's constituents are arguably the most engaged of any constituency in the country. One reason the people voted out Brown-Waite's predecessor was because she was not listening to her constituents nor was she responding to their inquiries. Brown-Waite made a promise to communicate with her constituents, and she has kept that promise. If a constituent contacts Brown-Waite 100 times, she responds in kind a 100 times.

It seems like Jim Piccillo and Jason Sager, who are running against Brown-Waite, are ganging up on her regarding franking privileges. We wish more politicians would keep us updated on legislation. Congress set up a budget just for this purpose. Brown-Waite has always stayed within her budget.

A wonderful virtue of Brown-Waite and her staff is they do research before making comments that are not true. At a Department of Constitutional meeting, Sager should have done some research before making some untrue, disparaging remarks against STARS (Subtropical Agricultural Research Station), which Brown-Waite supported. This $1.033 million in federal funds created new jobs, produces safety measures that prevent Mad Cow Disease in our beef and provides research that produces more beef for our money due to the feed grown at the Research Center at Chinsegut and U.S. 41.

Sager wanted to know who, where, when and why that $1.033 was allocated; he should have taken the time to research the answers. This was not stimulus money as Sager indicated at the Department of Constitutional Protection meeting.

If you read the article "Believe it or not, it's true" in the Oct. 16, 2008, Hernando Today, you will find that after Brown-Waite read over 400 pages of a bailout bill that was rushed to be signed, she voted against the bill even though it was signed by President George Bush. I would call that non-partisan.

By the way AIG received money from that bailout and spent $480,000 of the taxpayers' money to party at a spa in California.

Now that we have divulged some of Brown-Waite's actions instead of mere words, what are your actions Mr. Piccollo and Mr. Sager? I hope they are not mere words.

George and Eleanor

Marholin

and Deborah Roscillo

Brooksville