With 46 million Americans currently living in poverty, our safety net programs need to be reformed to better empower low-income Americans to find work and provide for themselves and their families. –Tom Reed

Tom Reed’s reelection campaigns have attempted to portray Tom as “from here,” a “good old boy,” one of us. Tom was born in Illinois, but no matter. Is he one of us or not?

• He favors tax cuts for the wealthy at the expense of the rest of us.
• His views on guns are more extreme than most New Yorkers.
• While he frequently claims he cares, his record shows no sympathy for his constituents.
• He considers Social Security and Medicare “unsustainable” unless benefits are cut.
• As a bill collector, Tom made his living dunning people for unpaid hospital bills.
• Most of his funding originates out of state.
• He is embarrassed to release his tax returns.
• He is opposed to affordable health care, beholden to health industry interests.
• He puts private property before the public interest.
• He supports fracking, except near his vacation home.
• He voted to shut down our national government which offended many of his constituents.
• He is less than honest, usually telling only one side of the story.
• He is a Republican, a minority in New York State.
• He supports Trump for President; even though Trump has no record of public service and holds views that ought to be abhorrent to us.

Most New Yorkers are open and honest with real sympathy for others. My conclusion: Tom Reed’s views and performance in office make him an outsider, not one of us. That may be why he spends so much time and money trying to convince us that he is a “good old boy,” “from here.”