Live from Washington
Sen. Patrick Leahy talks about war tax and abortion with Rutland students.
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Rutland High School students talk with Sen. Patrick Leahy on an Internet connection on Tuesday. Senior Amy Mollison asks a question. Vyto Starinskas / Rutland Herald |
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By Cristina Kumka STAFF WRITER - Published: December 2, 2009
Live from Washington and just off the Senate floor, Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy addressed the war in Afghanistan, abortion and other issues of importance to Rutland High School students Tuesday afternoon.
They asked and he answered.
A group of 18 students from seven different sections of Civics and Economics had questions in hand for the so-called "Cyber Senator," who since 1995 has held online chats with more than 80 classes.
It was the first Leahy Web chat using the live, online telecommunication software Skype at the high school and the second in the district overall. In February, Rutland Middle School students asked the third most senior U.S. senator and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee how it felt to have a cameo in the latest Batman flick and his thoughts on the anthrax scare.
On Tuesday, the students' questions were of a more serious nature.
Shannon Switzer broke the ice by asking Leahy if he remembered dining with her grandparents in Brattleboro.
"How do you feel about our country's ability to finance a war while we are trying to budget for the health care system if it passes?" Switzer asked.
From his Washington, D.C., office, Leahy said he was to meet with President Barack Obama in a few hours to discuss just that.
Their meeting was expected hours before Obama was set to publicly announce a new exit strategy for the war in Afghanistan, one that will pave the way for American troops to start withdrawing from the region in 2011, but not before a surge of about 30,000 more by next summer, according to news reports early Tuesday.
Leahy said the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have gone longer than expected and funding for them has taken away from alternative energy proposals, improved education, health care and the country becoming less dependent on foreign goods.
"We ought to have a specific war tax to pay for it," Leahy told the class.
"Both Republican and Democratic members of Congress should look at the fact, do we have to have a specific way of paying for it rather than someday, when you are my age, have you still paying for it."
Amy Mollison, 18, asked Leahy's stance on abortion after doing a paper on it earlier this year, she said.
"Simply making it illegal is not going to stop abortion," Leahy said.
The senator, in his seventh term, said during the Ronald Reagan presidency, abortion went up after he declared there was a constitutional right to ban it.
Under President Bill Clinton, Leahy said, abortions went down because education and awareness were promoted.
In response to the students' peppering, Leahy said Cuba's Guantanamo Bay prisoner camp should be shut down and health care in America is broken.
"Insurance rates are higher than inflation," Leahy said. "When the wealthiest nation on Earth doesn't have comparable health care compared to other nations, something is wrong."
According to Leahy's Deputy Press Secretary Megan DeMers, the senator usually brings back student inquiries to the Senate floor with him.
"In the chat today, some of the students had timely questions about the cost of the war in Afghanistan, as well as how this war will affect Vermonters," DeMers wrote in an e-mail late Tuesday.
"Those happen to be issues that he is taking to the White House this afternoon for the meeting with President Obama about his new plan for Afghanistan."
Teachers who wish to set up a chat with Leahy are asked to call (800) 642-3193.
cristina.kumka@rutlandherald.com
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