Editor, The Herald:

When I received Tom Perriello's newsletter recently, I almost dropped my teeth! The headlines read, “Perriello Wins High Marks in Frugality.” It seems that Perriello was the most frugal out of the eleven congressmen from Virginia in spending taxpayer money in 2009.

Even after voting for the largest entitlement program (government-run health care) in the history of the United States-a program that will cost taxpayers trillions-how can they make this claim???

In fact, an article just this week in The Richmond Times-Dispatch stated that the “Affordable Care Act” will cost more than 2.7 trillion over its first 10 years of full operation. This does not even include more than 4.3 trillion in costs shifted to businesses, individuals, and state governments. These numbers came from the administration's own chief health care actuary reports.

If Perriello is the most frugal of the eleven Virginia Congressmen, then it's past time to put them all out to pasture.

I can hardly wait for November.

C. E. Brooks

Cumberland