My checkbook says more about what I believe in than any words I say, making my checkbook a moral document, a testimony, if you will.

Our national checkbook does the same thing. Right now it says – or at least it will if the president’s proposal to pay for Katrina rebuilding solely by reducing the amount we spend on essential services and on the poor while continuing the repeal of the estate tax – the rich deserve more and the poor deserve less.

I disagree and, more to the point, the Bible and all major religions do, too.

Let’s insist that Sens. Snowe and Collins vote to write values of fairness and concern for the poor into our national spending policies.

Silver Moore-Leamon, Auburn