In his Letter to the Editor of the Intelligencer on October 19, 2010, Alan Folsom of Warrington said,
“Fitzpatrick is an honest, caring individual, and perhaps the best friend the Boy Scouts of America have in Bucks County.”
Despite that, and acknowledging that his oldest son, an Eagle Scout, served as Patrick Murphy’s very first intern as he was just beginning his congressional campaign. He then goes on to say that his choosing between them came down to the fact that Mike was elected to Congress “to support the policys of the Bush administration, and he did so.”
Seems to Mike’s friends that we know also for a fact that Mike was considered one of the few Republicans in Congress who was fiercely independent of the therepublican party machine, perhaps the most independent, as has been described in many articles of historical note.
Even in an ad in the same newspaper on the 19th, the Fitzpatrick For Congress campaign took time and money to combat some of the other distortions being pushed by those supporting Murphy on Veterans issues and support for troops in the field and Veterans benefits.
If you haven’t seen the ad here are some of the key points:
- Mike voted for a 3 1/2% across the board pay raise for our men and women in uniform and an increase in the reenlistment bonus from $60,000 to $90,000.
- Mike voted for $1.36 billion in funding for the IED Defeat Task Force of the DoD and an additional $362.7 million to procure and test new technology to protect our troops.
- Mike voted for and additional $1.2 billion for personal force protection items and gear such as body armor, for troops in the field.
- Mike voted for $22.5 billion in funding for Veterans Medical Services, a $1.7 billion increase over the previous year’s funding.
- Mike supported providing $2.2 billion for specialty mental health care services and doubling of funding for Veterans Administration (VA) mental health research.
- Mike co-sponsored H.R. 2735 to provide an enhanced funding process to ensure an adequate level of funding for VA health care programs and to establish standards of access to care for veterans seeking health care from the VA.
- Mike co-Sponsored H.R. 994 to allow Federal civilian and military retirees to pay health insurance premiums on a pretax basis and to allow a deduction for TRICARE supplemental premiums.
