Rep. Neugebauer (TX) on Government Shutdown, Dyess Air Force Base, and Endangered Species Act

Open Email to Representative Neugebauer (TX):

Dear Rep. Neugebauer,
    Congratulations on your being a part of the House recommendations to keep significant parts of our government operating, in the face of the 17% partial government shutdown. All of these are nice gestures, and although some are unlikely to pass through the Democratic Senate and the socialistic president, you have made good inroads in establishing with the American people a better image of a caring federal government..
    You also point out that the Air Force has committed to upgrading the housing infrastructure at Dyess Air Force Base. I agree that our Air Force families should not be living under less than average conditions, but I hope we are cautioned to the extent that we don't overdo. As a comparison, the American public was previously incensed at some of the poor living conditions at some of our penal institutions. In the course of time, that has been changed so that prisoners now have a better lifestyle than many unpenalized US citizens.
    Lastly, you say you are part of a working group seeking improvement of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Similar to many of the laws that Congress has passed, the Endangered Species Act was completely overdone. It is not the responsibility of people to deprive themselves of opportunities for development of this country's natural resources in order to avoid disturbing the habitat of various non-human organisms. Even on the human level, we found many years ago that the best way to handle Indian problems was to use reservations. We did not set up a reservation wherever an Indian tribe happened to be. In many cases, the Indians were moved to reservations almost 1000 miles away from their original habitat. We can obviously do the same thing with prairie chickens, polar bears, snail darters, and the like. Let's get the Endangered Species Act back on a practical course and not cater to environmental groups, who are now so constituted as to be political forces promoting replacement of our republic form of government with socialism.