Our goal is to create good paying, high-quality jobs while cutting taxes for the middle class. This can be done through incentivizing the manufacturing sector and small business growth, as well as lowering rates on businesses and investments. This path will ensure that hard-working folks of our region, and across America, have more money in their pockets.–Tom Reed (facebook)

We need to focus on uniting for the victims and their families.–Tom Reed (facebook)

There is no need to make these ideas up; one sees them frequently on Tom Reed’s facebook page.

• Laissez-faire is all the government we need.
• States can do everything better than the Federal Govt.
• We should return to the gold standard.
• The government should be funded with tariffs on imported goods.
• Another war might be necessary.
• People need arms for a possible insurrection.
• The rich should be taxed less, the poor more.
• We spend too much on those in need.
• Tax cuts for the rich benefit all of us.
• Cutting taxes increases revenue.
• Consumption taxes are fairer than income taxes.
• Income tax is (or ought to be) unconstitutional.
• Any firearm regulation  is (or ought to be) unconstitutional.
• Gun toting citizens are an answer to crime and violence.
• Everyone, rich or poor, has what they deserve.
• Effective firearm regulations are impossible.
• Government can do no good.
• Recessions and depressions are inevitable.

Some of us are believers in these. Their beliefs are immune to argument; they are based on faith not fact. Are believers influenced by relatives, fake news, political propaganda, little education, or what, one wonders?

My father claimed to be a “rugged individualist” and an “independent voter.” He favored Hoover over FDR. During the depression, he said, it wasn’t the government but people helping each other that mattered. But when he was older, when inflation had depleted his savings, when he was dependent on Social Security and Medicare, he softened his views. I got more raises from Social Security than I ever got from my boss, he avowed.