Dear Sen. Isakson,

In March I joined a delegation from District 10 that met with Ryan Pelfry, your field representative in Marietta. When asked pointedly about your priorities, he said without equivocation, “Sen. Isakson always favors country over party.”

Although there are dozens of important ways to express your allegiance to country in the political turmoil that is Washington, there are two such paths of existential importance:

• Protecting the accessibility and affordability of healthcare to all citizens
• Expanding the research that will save the world from climatological disaster

Both imperatives are threatened.

I’m sure you are well briefed on the Congressional Budget Office assessment that 23 million people will likely lose their insurance under Trumpcare, but consider this as well. Medicaid provides healthcare insurance to 74 million Americans, among them 60 percent of nursing home residents and millions of people with disabilities. When you add together the cuts to Medicaid in Trumpcare ($834 billion) and in the president’s proposed budget ($610 billion) Medicaid will be reduced by 45 percent over 10 years.

Stopping this cruel insanity should be an easy choice of country over party.

Another clear choice comes in the effort to halt and reverse the effects of climate change. The United States has been a leader in the vital research on the innovative technologies and economic strategies required to address this crisis. This leadership is also threatened by budget cuts.

According to The New York Times:

“The agency’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, which has helped nudge down the cost of solar power, faces a 69 percent cut. The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, a program that funds research into long-shot energy technologies, like algae biofuels or advanced batteries, would face elimination. And, despite Mr. Trump’s stated desire to promote “clean coal,” the Office of Fossil Energy, which invests in techniques to scrub carbon dioxide from coal plants and bury it underground, faces an 85 percent cut to its carbon-capture efforts.”

Following the president’s unenlightened and shameful abandonment of the Paris Accord, these and other cuts would destroy any pretense of our leadership to prevent a global catastrophe.

You and I are contemporaries, so I know what it’s like to look back and consider a life’s legacy, to reflect on what, if anything, of value we have bequeathed to our children and grandchildren.

Using your energies to assure adequate healthcare to all Americans and to preserve the very planet we live on would secure that legacy. So I appeal to you, sir, muster the wisdom and courage to part ways with your party and do what every Georgian needs you to do. Make us proud.

Sincerely,

Edward Miller