I’m deeply concerned about the rampant corruption and confusion we’ve been seeing out of Washington this year. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is spending millions of dollars of taxpayer money on a superfluous security detail, first-class airfare and raises for his friends. HUD Secretary Ben Carson is spending tens of thousands on dinette sets for his office. And don’t even get me started about the hundreds of thousands wasted on chartered flights by Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin. The list goes on.

But what troubles me the most is the silence on these matters by our own Congressional representative, Scott Tipton. Tipton has always claimed to be a fiscal conservative, but wouldn’t a fiscal conservative be outraged at the obvious waste from this administration? Then again, a real fiscal conservative never would have voted for a corporate tax cut that adds $1.5 trillion to the deficit. That’s why I’m so excited that there is a real challenger in the race, doing the hard work necessary to defeat him in November: Democratic candidate Karl Hanlon. From the solid results I saw from the Democratic State Assembly last weekend, it’s clear that people are seeing what I see: Karl has the integrity, compassion, and grit to represent the people of the 3rd Congressional District. We deserve better than what we’ve been getting.

Michael Doyle

Mancos