Rep. Putnam must have a very short memory because it was a Bush appointed Republican bureaucrat named "Brownie" whom Bush praised for his stellar response to Katrina as FEMA head.
As for the evils of government bureaucrats, try dealing with a health insurer bureaucrat who says your policy doesn't cover saving two fingers, only one, so choose. Or your health care policy, which you paid for, is rescinded because you didn't show on your application that you were treated for acne as a child, therefore your liver is your problem, and then you die.
My wife and I have had Medicare for 12 years and have had but one problem. That problem was not caused by a government bureaucrat (claims processing is outsourced) but by a market/profit driven provider who filed an inaccurate claim. Representative Putnam's dreck is no more than the typical partisan Republican demagoguery/ propaganda/fear mongering that they try to cloak as reasoning.

After posting this blog, I remembered a similar letter to the editor of the SPT several weeks ago by Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (R) concerning energy legislation.

In the second paragraph of her letter she stated that retirees in Florida would pay higher electric bills if the legislation passes while people in California would pay almost nothing -- a bald-faced lie.

Using data from Nate Silver's website I submitted a rebuttal to Brown-Waite's misinformation. It wasn't published, but fortunately other letters refuting her statement were.

What I've just realized is the GOP's MO is to appeal to the emotions of an ill-informed, gullible public. Democrats/Progressives seem, more often than not, to appeal to logic. There was a post on HuffPo recently that addressed this issue.

The public will buy into misinformation if it triggers a knee-jerk emotional response. Our job, as I see it, is to craft messages that trigger a favorable knee-jerk emotional response to health care reform and provide easy to understand information in the process. No small task, but necessary.

This spring, due to the demand decrease, the highest fuel price came down below $40 per barrel, though, the 'similar' insurance premiums still go on rising, which may imply that health care is not optional, but essential, and the inaction could bankrupt family, business, and government beyond this recession, as all across the board agree.
Earlier, the revised HELP BILL with the public option and employer mandatory has got a green light from the CBO, yet still, a new 'incomplete' analysis of emerging House legislation said it would increase deficits by $239 billion over a decade.
But, CBO does not score any savings from prevention / wellness and the rest, even as Prevention / Wellness is an actual and essential part of the savings, without which the reform would be meaningless.
And I think the other things such as increased productivity / consumer confidence, 'potential stem cell effect', 'decreased mental stress', and 'massive job creation', 'stock price effect' and etc considered, the reform might be within reach. Most importantly, a few years later, if the excessive war and military spending goes toward the health care program, the cost issue does not matter at all, I think.
Edward M. Kennedy argues, the perfect should not be the enemy of the good, "Everyone won't be satisfied and no one will get everything they want. But we need to come together, just as we've done in other great struggles in World War II and the Cold War, in passing the great civil-rights laws of the 1960s, and in daring to send a man to the moon. If we don't get every provision right, we can adjust and improve the program next year or in the years to come. What we can't afford is to wait another generation."

Thank You For Reading !

To get back to the idea of offering 'talking points':

(1)Until an actual, defined bill actually emerges, it's hard to know what to say. Most of what we now regard as advocacy of one element or another is nothing more than blind speculation.

(2)As someone said above, we have to get the heart of the case down to 2 or 3 (at most, 5) specific, one-sentence statements of FACT. Any issue as inherently complicated as this runs the risk of losing the forest in the trees. Let me suggest ONE such fact: Society (ie, us) CANNOT sustain an ever-increasing arc of Health Care expenditures now standing at 17% of GDP. Let me suggest another: No one will be prevented from supplementing their basic choices by whatever free-market options are available, within the limits of their ability to pay.

(3)I know this is not directly a 'talking-point', but I still think it is critical: Once (1) above is done, get Bill Clinton out there SELLING it. He is the best political figure of my lifetime at explaining complicated public policy issues in a way that allows the average person to grasp the essentials and come to a conclusion.