To the editor:
Several weeks ago, I received an email from Congressman Lance. The email contained the results of a survey he had conducted regarding his constituents’ opinions regarding the provision of $1 billion in financial assistance to Ukraine. By more than a 2 to 1 margin, they opposed this assistance. However, immediately below the survey results, Congressman Lance stated that he supported H.R. 4152, federal legislation to extend loan guarantees to Ukraine.
I was taken aback by his vote in contravention of his constituents’ views on this issue.
To be fair to Congressman Lance, he does a good job in canvassing the views of his constituents on various issues and topics. Additionally, his staff is courteous and prompt in returning emails and phone calls. However, there is something very troublesome about a congressman’s action so utterly contrary to the views of the people he represents.
In his email, Congressman Lance included the ostensible basis for his decision to support the legislation. He states that the law is intended “ to shore up the Ukraine’s economy, which is suffering from Russia’s military intervention.”
This is simply untrue. Ukraine’s economy has been struggling for years for reasons which have nothing to do with the cause alleged. Congressman Lance may have a reason for overriding his constituents but a factually inaccurate one in a press release will not suffice. He needs to articulate the reasons for his vote in person and be prepared to address his constituents’ growing skepticism that throwing money (or, for that matter, military force) at a country halfway around the world can shape the course of events there to our liking. To label this as a “creeping isolationism” is sheer nonsense.
On the contrary, it is a refreshing dose of reality, which Congressman Lance and his colleagues would be well advised to bring to the House floor when debating matters of foreign policy.
So the end result of this legislation is to transfer U.S. taxpayer dollars to a government whose legitimacy is questionable and which certainly does not have the means to repay us. This comes in the midst of a proposal to eliminate a subsidy under the Internal Revenue Code, namely, the low income housing tax credit, which has provided and continues to provide quality affordable rental housing for millions of Americans, because of “budgetary constraints.”
And it comes in the midst of a report by the Federal Highway Administration that an additional $8 billion needs to be spent annually to repair all structurally deficient bridges in the United States over the next 15 years. Having that $1 billion would certainly help (in case you have not noticed, our roads could use some TLC as well). Is it any wonder that Congress’s approval rating is in the single digits?
Fortunately, there is a solution to this quandary. It does not involve protesting with pitchforks but rather the creative use of our federal governmental structure. I will provide more details in the future, but essentially it involves the reclaiming by the states of some of their foreign affairs powers which were ceded to the federal government at the time the U.S. Constitution was adopted.
The first step will need to be an attitudinal sea change, which consists of a movement away from thinking that “foreign policy is strictly the federal government’s business.”
I am hopeful that Assemblyman (Jack) Ciattarelli and the rest of this country’s state legislators will be up to this challenge.
Leonard A. LaBarbiera
Hillsborough

