My Representative in Congress is a Freshman Republican. This is the letter I faxed to her just now.

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Rep. Name Here
Fax: (Fax No. Here)

Dear Representative ______________:

I live in your district and I’m writing to ask you to vote to pass a clean debt ceiling bill, as was done seven times during the two terms of President Bush.

As both my wife and I are disabled (I have a rare autoimmune disorder and my wife suffers from brain damage as a result of treatments she received for pancreatic cancer), our family depends on SSDI payments each month to survive. The economy will suffer (including our IRA retirement savings, much of which is invested in bond funds) if the United States fails to raise the debt ceiling as soon as possible. That will mean that I can’t put food on my family’s table, pay my mortgage, pay my medical bills or send my daughter (an Honors student at __________ High School) to college. I can’t allow a political food fight to ruin the lives of my family.

I think our national debt needs to be addressed, but deficit reduction plans that consider spending cuts to programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid without considering raising taxes on the upper 1% of income earners and eliminating unnecessary tax subsidies for the profitable oil companies and wealthy hedge fund managers is unacceptable and unfair.

I also know that the debt ratings agencies will lower the triple AAA rating of Treasury Bills and other federal debt instruments, which will result in interest rate increases for businesses and individuals on mortgages, lines of credit, car loans – you name it. In addition, if our government loses its good credit that will only make the deficit bigger since businesses will be unable to hire more employees because of the increased cost of their interest payments.

The value of the dollar will decrease making any commodity we import more expensive, including oil for gasoline. This will burden millions of Americans with in effect, a tax hike, because you folks who represent us in Congress couldn’t get your act together to pass a simple bill to raise the debt ceiling that has been done with bipartisan support in the past under both Republican and Democratic administrations.
Please support a clean bill to raise the debt ceiling.

I won’t vote for anyone who would risk our economy and cost our country billions of dollars in interest in order to make a political point.

Sincerely,

Steven D.

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Use Fax Zero (h/t Balloon Juice) to fax a word document letter to your Congressional representative if you don’t have a fax machine.

Uses this website to find out who is your Congressional representative and his or her fax number.

If your rep is a Democrat, send them a fax also encouraging them to stand firm.