Month 3, Day 27: Another Saturday POTUS

The first post-healthcare letter to the President. Congratulations where congratulations are due, and all that.

Dear President Obama,

Congratulations on the passage of health care legislation. Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid have done yeoman service to America in bringing the bill forward and creating the circumstances for a “yes” vote. I have every hope that you will continue to advance your agenda over the next few months. Let’s keep the momentum going.

I understand that the next big legislative package will be on financial reform; this is sorely needed, and if the legislation is not unnecessarily diluted with too many giveaways to the financial criminals who broke the system in the first place, it will have an immediate and powerful effect on the country’s confidence in its economic system. And after financial reform, what?

This letter is to urge you to make the upcoming climate bill the next item on your agenda. We need meaningful legislation to be passed before the next round of climate talks. It is absolutely crucial that this bill be free of egregious concessions to major polluters. Big oil and big coal have no interest in making this bill better; their interest is in their own short-term bottom lines. In fact, strong climate legislation is analogous to strong financial reform. In both cases, the government needs to ensure that the people’s resources are not wasted and destroyed for the sake of a corporate profit margin — and that we as a society learn to live responsibly and within our means.

If a climate bill is passed soon, the fickle components of the electorate will have had ample time to forget it before November — while the environmentally aware Democratic base will be energized.

I know I will. Pass strong legislation on climate change and I’ll donate and volunteer double what I did in 2008. This is the most important thing we’ll ever do.

Yours Sincerely,

Warren Senders