This article was written an submitted by Russell Tocqueville, from the NY23rd.

OLIGARCHY: A form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people. These people might be distinguished by nobility, wealth, family ties, education or corporate, religious or military control. Such states are often controlled by a few prominent families, who typically pass their influence from one generation to the next.

When Tom Reed was elected to represent New York’s 29^th Congressional district he played the part of small town lawyer who wasn’t a millionaire and promised that his “Tea Party coalition would not vote to cut social security.” Fast forward to 2017, Congressman Reed sits in a swing district, and the only way he swings with it, is with his words not actions.

The Truth is Tom Reed is not interested in hearing out constituents in town hall meetings but using them as a backdrop for fundraisers held by Wall Street executives in New York City as reasoning for them to give him more money. He plays the part of someone who came from a big family, very much like any of us that grew up in a struggling household which he did, and that he’s just a working class guy trying to fight for all us. While he tells us this, he uses his district as part of a transaction for his vote in congress. While he says we all have to come to a middle ground and compromise, meanwhile he introduces bills in Congress to defund SSI after taking money from Hedge Fund manager Paul Singer.

He praises the hard working men and women in the Southern Tier, all the meanwhile voting to outsource jobs to Korea and Colombia. He talks about fighting for American jobs, while giving the president sole authority to negotiate free trade agreements, in the name of free trade that isn’t fair to anyone but Corporate America.

He talks about supporting 2^nd amendment rights and conservation. He even goes as far as saying he believes in Global Warming.  All the meanwhile he votes to gut environmental protections, and try to lead people down a fake reality that is a booming fracking industry.

He openly speaks of supporting veterans and defending them. Meanwhile he called someone who did what he was afraid to do and went abroad to serve our country a carpetbagger.  He regularly insults veterans at town halls when they disagree with him.

While on some weekends he hosts town halls, he is regularly collecting checks from Wall Street lobbyist, and privatizers who call him transactional Tom.

Our 700,000 friends, family and neighbors should not be a piece of a bargain for the personal gain of one elected official who should be more beholden to us than those who support Tom Reed for Congress. As long as Tom Reed says that his neighbors, our neighbors are just protesting to try and defeat him in order to boast about fundraising $585,000 dollars with the help of President Trump he is fighting for the same elites he wants us all to think he hates. As long as he keeps thinking that teachers afraid of education cuts, seniors afraid of social security cuts, workers rightly afraid of outsourcing, and students fighting for student debt justice are “teaming up with Andrew Cuomo and Nancy Pelosi to defeat him in 2018” he is putting the interests of Wall Street above Market Street, Water Street, and all the other main streets in our 13 counties.

When fighting for vets, or seniors, or students demands millions of cuts in healthcare to the tune of 100,000 people being kicked off of health insurance just in our communities and 22 million across the country.  That’s not fighting for anyone but the interest of the few while Tom Reed tells us in the he’s doing it in the name of us all. To go on television and tell the media that as a taxpayer funded legislator I am ok with kicking off 1 in 7 of my constituents from health insurance is not moderate, it is disrespectful to our communities. If Reed really does think that folks don’t care about each other in the Southern Tier, then he has lost touch with our communities where no matter if you’re Republican or Democrat, rich or poor folks are warm and hospitable.

The problem is the malarkey our congressman tells us he doesn’t even believe himself.  If he doesn’t believe himself why should anyone?

If he’s not fighting for veterans, if he’s not fighting for workers, if he’s not fighting for our future, if he’s not fighting for our communities. If he really does think that we are as selfish as he says we are to the national media and that we won’t care if our neighbors lose their healthcare. Or if the families down the road can’t make ends meet because he can’t find a good paying job. Who is he fighting for?