To the Editor:
After reading the recent newsletter from Representative Mike Lawler, I feel compelled to point out that the budget bill he is so proud to have supported will end Affordable Care Act subsidies and cause millions of Americans (many of them Lawler’s own constituents) to lose their health insurance coverage. The bill also does next to nothing to fight the skyrocketing premiums the rest of us are paying.
Mr. Lawler claims to be a moderate Republican, but he supports his party leadership’s refusal to enter bi-partisan negotiations on the bill to keep the Federal government open. Democrats are demanding that the bill restore funding to the Affordable Care Act, a position favored by large majorities of U.S. citizens.
Mr. Lawler’s has also failed to speak out about lies that some of his fellow Republicans are telling about the ACA giving “illegal aliens” free health insurance coverage. The allegation is false, and Rep. Lawler knows it.
I wish Mike Lawler would stop trying to have it both ways. He should move away from MAGA and be the “moderate” he claims to be.
Maria Modica-Snow, Peekskill
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LTE: Subject: Lawler’s Aid Policy Is Indifference—and Indifference Leads to Death
Congressman Mike Lawler’s record of supporting devastating foreign aid cuts is not only dangerous and shortsighted—it’s deeply unjust. Since January, the Trump Administration has overseen the most sweeping rollback of U.S. humanitarian assistance in modern history, and Lawler has supported it at every step. The consequences are catastrophic: millions of children in Africa now face famine, while thousands of HIV-positive patients across Africa and Asia have lost access to life-saving medication. The loss of food and medical relief is not just policy failure—it is a death sentence.
The pattern is unmistakable. The vast majority of the aid programs targeted for elimination serve the world’s most vulnerable—Black and brown communities across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. While Lawler claims these cuts are about “efficiency,” they are, in truth, a form of discrimination. That discrimination has devastating effects on those already enduring drought, disease, and war. In nations such as Malawi, Sudan, and Nigeria, U.S. funding has often been the difference between life and death. Now, as UNICEF reports rising childhood malnutrition, surges in maternal deaths, and growing instability, Lawler’s votes speak volumes.
Foreign aid accounts for less than one percent of the federal budget, yet it has helped cut infant mortality, curb disease, empower women, and save millions from starvation. Most Americans understand that global stability—and our own safety and prosperity—depend on the well-being of all people, not only those who look like us. Lawler’s complicity in these cruel cuts is not just un-American; it is immoral. Voters must hold him accountable for the suffering his policies have caused among the world’s most vulnerable.
Lawler’s indifference extends beyond foreign policy. At home, he echoes the same “fraud and efficiency” rhetoric used to justify cuts to Americans’ medical insurance, cancer research, and other vital programs—without proof, alternatives, or compassion. Americans and people worldwide are dying, or will die, because of these so-called efficiencies.
Lawler calls it efficiency. Let’s call it what it is: indifference—and indifference leads to death.
Mark A. Lieberman. Yorktown
