I was so relieved to learn via a July 10 item in the Butler Eagle that the most serious problems facing America today, according to Rep. Mike Kelly, are tax relief and education reform. There was no mention of global warming or health care, which I found curious.

Global warming is the greatest moral issue facing our generation. The earth is warming dangerously and quickly, and that warming is methodically causing climate calamities, including extreme cold. Yet our representatives are mute on the dangers that are present now.

Every American should have access to a state-of-the-art affordable health care system. This is a basic freedom issue, not an insurance issue. If you have cancer and don’t have health care, you are not free. If you are in an auto accident and suffer injuries and don’t have health care, you are not free. Ill health enslaves you. Disease enslaves you. You cannot be free without affordable, available, state-of-the-art health care.

But our representative does not mention freedom as a basic human right. Instead, Kelly wants less government regulation so more jobs might be created. I assume he means government protection which protects the public from harmful products and fraud by unscrupulous or irresponsible businesses. We should all support keeping and extending protections for consumers, workers, retirees and investors. Let’s call them what they are, protections, not regulations.

Congressional Republicans called for immediate elimination of regulations from the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Securities and Exchange Commission. What would be eliminated?

Protections against cancerous poisons in foods, drugs untested for their safety, unsafe drinking water, air pollutants that get into your lungs and can’t get out, fraudulent stock sales, unscrupulous mortgages. That is what our representatives in Congress are proposing, hiding it behind the word “regulations.”

Kelly says, ”The No. 1 problem we have today is that we’re not getting young people ready for the opportunities that exist right now right here.” He is hinting at public school failure and that vouchers for religious or private schools give parents choice. Those vouchers tend not to pay for high-quality schools, so that poor families that receive them tend not to get high-quality education for their children. But for wealthy parents, the vouchers represent public support for the wealthy and a cut in support for those who lack wealth.