This election, we have two choices in the 4th Congressional District: a fresh new voice in Washington to truly represent us … or more of the same old broken politics.

Becky Greenwald was born and raised in State Center. As an ISU alumnus, I appreciate that upon graduating from high school, she attended and graduated from Iowa State. Tom Latham attended Iowa State, but left in 1970 without graduating. Greenwald also earned her MBA from Drake University.

A changing point in Greenwald’s life was when she accepted a job as a caseworker for the American Red Cross at the largest U. S. Air Force Hospital in the world. She worked with injured airmen returning from the war in Vietnam. This job has caused her to put medical care for all Americans as one of her top priorities. Latham has voted consistently against health care for all, voting only for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program bill after President Bush had promised to veto the bill.

Greenwald believes we should not continue a war that was ill-planned and doomed to fail while Latham consistently votes to keep our troops in the Middle East, even voting to build permanent bases. He is 100 percent behind our endless war in Iraq. Greenwald knows that she can help bring our troops home and quit wasting $5,000 a second or $10 billion a month on a war that can’t be won. As a military family member and veteran, I find Latham’s claim that he supports veterans while cutting funds from Veteran programs, reducing funding for Veteran’s care in the VA Hospitals, and refusing to vote for increasing the GI bill for education unbelievable. Fortunately, better minds prevailed on some of these issues.

Greenwald knows the 4th Congressional District — in fact, she knows the entire state of Iowa — well. She will work to keep our jobs here and invest in new jobs that pay a living wage. She supports working to lessen the grip of foreign oil while creating jobs that promote alternative sources of energy such as ethanol production, wind energy, solar energy, biofuels and geothermal energy. Latham has given tax breaks to overseas corporations and contributed to the loss of jobs here in Iowa, and in the 4th District while opposing minimum wage increases for workers.

Now we are in a financial crisis. Republicans got us into this mess and then they throw up their hands and say we can’t afford to bail out the situation. I don’t like the bailout as written, but at this point, we, as citizens and taxpayers, must step up and help rebuild our economy. Greenwald has said that she would have voted for the bailout. What other choice did we have?

Latham claims he is a bipartisan representative for the 4th Congressional District of Iowa. How can this be? He has voted 94 percent of the time with President Bush and the Republicans. It is far past due that we have a representative who truly represents the people of the 4th District, and the people of Iowa in general.

Ron Dinsdale

Resident

Huxley