{"id":840153,"date":"2025-04-09T16:12:17","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T21:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/09\/letter-this-is-personal\/"},"modified":"2025-04-09T16:12:17","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T21:12:17","slug":"letter-this-is-personal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/09\/letter-this-is-personal\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter: \u2018This is personal\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n<\/p>\n

Area resident Martha Wiley shares her views on President Trump\u2019s Make America Great Movement<\/h2>\n

Editor<\/strong>\u2019s note: Opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are those of the author alone and do not reflect the editorial position of ClarkCountyToday.com<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Trump and Musk and following their mantra: \u201cMove fast and break things.\u201d Isn\u2019t it fun to watch?\u00a0 Guess those woke liberals are really getting it, right?\u00a0 But here\u2019s the thing: these fast broken things aren\u2019t just making liberals\u2019 heads explode.\u00a0 They have actual, real-world consequences that affect all of us, regardless of our political views.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Martha
Martha Wiley<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

My father, grandmother, and uncle died of cancer.\u00a0 My husband, daughter, and I survived cancer.\u00a0 We were lucky.\u00a0 Trump cancelled funding for cancer research. I guess the 33% of Americans who will develop cancer in their lifetimes just have to take their chances without further research. (www.MSN.com\/en-us\/news\/politics\/who-voted-for-this-trump-admin-obstructs-cancer-research-funding<\/a>; www.cancer.org\/cancer\/risk-prevention\/understanding-cancer-risk-\/lifetime-probability-or-developing-or-dying-from-cancer.html<\/a>)<\/p>\n

I have Multiple Sclerosis and am anxiously awaiting a cure.\u00a0 Trump cut funding for the MS Research Program for FY 2025, so the 1 million people with MS in the US are just out of luck.\u00a0 At the same time, Trump has cut funding for the Americans with Disabilities Act, so those of us in wheelchairs won\u2019t be able to go into stores or businesses without the accessibility required by the ADA. (www.nationalmssociety.org\/news-and-magazine\/news\/funding-congressional-directed-medical<\/a>)<\/p>\n

My daughter required special educational accommodation during her high school years.\u00a0 This successful program was enabled by grants from the federal Department of Education.\u00a0 Trump is shutting down the DOE, putting students with disabilities in limbo, but hey, my daughter already graduated and is paying her own way.\u00a0 Without the DOE, your daughter may not. (www.newsweek.com\/what-does-department-education-actually-do-trump-shutdown-explained-2048067<\/a>)<\/p>\n

My grandmother spent the last seven years of her life in a nursing home, paid for by Medicaid.\u00a0 Republicans\u2019 Continuing Resolution calls for the Energy and Commerce Committee to cut $880 billion in spending over 10 years.\u00a0 The committee\u2019s options for those reductions are almost entirely in spending for Medicaid and Medicare. My granny passed away a few years ago, but other people\u2019s grandmas will wind up living with and being cared for by family, if they\u2019re lucky.\u00a0 If they\u2019re not, they\u2019ll be on the street.\u00a0 (www.factcheck.org2025\/03\/the-war-of-the-words-over-medicaid-cuts\/<\/a>)<\/p>\n

My father-in-law, after nearly 40 years of military service, received exemplary care from the Veterans Affairs hospital system.\u00a0 Trump intends to cut 80,000 employees from the VA.\u00a0 My father-in-law passed away in comfort, surrounded by family and the excellent staff at the hospital.\u00a0 Without these 80,000 employees, yours may not.\u00a0 (apnews.com\/article\/veterans-affairs-cuts-doge-musk-trump-f587a6bc3db6a460e9c357592e165712<\/a>)<\/p>\n

I live in Washington state.\u00a0 Trump\u2019s tariffs on imported supplies, from lumber to drywall to tools, could increase the already high cost of construction in our state by $10,000 per house.\u00a0 China\u2019s 15% retaliatory tariffs on food produced in Washington, such as beef, dairy, and wheat, will reduce our markets.\u00a0 Farmers import 90% of fertilizer \u2013 whoops, it\u2019s either unavailable or more expensive.\u00a0 Too bad for the 40% of Washingtonians whose jobs are tied to trade.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ships pass through the Columbia River carrying $31 billion in trade.\u00a0 Trump cut funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that runs a fleet of more than 100 coastal buoys, jeopardizing Columbia River navigation safety and weather forecasting and affecting fishermen and shippers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In addition, Trump has refused to approve the July 2024 version of the 1961 treaty with Canada on the wide-reaching Columbia River Treaty that regulates everything from flood control and power generation to water supply and salmon restoration in the region.\u00a0 (www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/british-columbia\/columbia-river-treaty-talks-1.7480986<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Trump laid off hundreds of people at Hanford, Bonneville Power Administration, and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.\u00a0 Linemen, engineers and power dispatchers will no longer be there to make sure my family and I have power.\u00a0 Cleanup measures at Hanford will be cancelled, and guess what? Nuclear waste will be reaching the Columbia River.\u00a0 I\u2019m not thrilled at the thought of the fish and people swimming among nuclear waste, are you?\u00a0 Oh, and by the way, BPA is entirely self-funded by the utilities that pay for its power and transmission; cuts to the BPA therefore don\u2019t cut taxpayer spending or reduce the federal deficit.\u00a0 Were these cuts just for fun?\u00a0 (www.tricitiesbusinessnews.comarticles\/reports-hundreds-laid-off-at-handford-site-bpa-pnnl<\/a>)<\/p>\n

All of this is in addition to reckless cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency (the people who make sure our air and water are clean), the Food and Drug Administration (protecting the quality of baby food, meat, milk, medicine, etc.) and on and on.\u00a0 I guess you think we don\u2019t really need that kind of protection.\u00a0 I mean, you can always pay $8,000 for a water filter system if the Clean Water Act is erased.\u00a0 And who needs protection for baby food?\u00a0 Babies\u2019 little bodies can just learn about food poisoning and toxic metals as they eat their applesauce.\u00a0 My babies are grown and can make their own decisions about what they eat.\u00a0 Yours may still be depending on you.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But hey, MAGA is doing a great job owning the libs!<\/p>\n

Martha Wiley<\/strong>
Clark County<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Also read:<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

ClarkCountyToday.com
Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Area resident Martha Wiley shares her views on President Trump\u2019s Make America Great Movement Editor \u2019s note: Opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are those of the author alone and do not reflect the editorial position of ClarkCountyToday.com Trump and Musk and following their mantra: \u201cMove fast and break things.\u201d Isn\u2019t it fun<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":840154,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2079,1150],"tags":[5994,5146],"class_list":{"0":"post-840153","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-this","8":"category-letter","9":"tag-letter","10":"tag-this"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=840153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/840154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=840153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=840153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=840153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}