Don’t think like an elephant.–George Lakoff
Tom Reed has announced a town hall at the American Legion Hall on Ithaca Rd. in Horseheads on Monday November 20 from 6-7 PM.
After corporate tax cuts, “the workers have more disposable income, the workers spend more. And we see the whole trickle-down through the economy, and that’s good for the economy.”–Gary Cohn, Director of the National Economic Council at the White House
What Tom Reed won’t discuss in a meaningful way:
- ALEC
- Corporate welfare
- Federal minimum wage
- Firearm violence
- Gender wage gap
- His conflicts of interest
- His tax returns
- Koch Brothers
- Misfeasance in Trump Administration
- Poverty
- Puerto Rico
- Single payer health insurance
- Trickle down
- Trump campaign collusion with Russia
- Wealth gap
Tom won’t discuss these issues because they distract from his message. They aren’t key to his popularity–his image, rather than his performance in office, is important to his continued success.
Tom poses as a benign patriarch, listening patiently to his children’s concerns while standing above them. Rather than react to issues Tom raises in his monologues, one might try to raise matters that Tom is loath to discuss.
At Tom’s meetings one might ask:
- What were Tom’s objectives? Did he achieve them?
- What were the peoples objectives? Did they achieve them?
If some of the peoples objectives were achieved, how did that come about?
New NY 23rd 
I see Tom is having more of his Town Hall meetings at American Legions. He held an October Town Hall at the Urbana American Legion. The last question was about the Las Vegas shooting and Second Amendment issues were being discussed. Legion members, who were at the bar for the whole meeting, decided to join in the discussion. Things got a bit heated, and Rep. Reed ended the meeting.
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Here is the link to Tom’s Priorities he for 2017 that he passed out at the December Town Hall in Barrington. https://newny23rd.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/congressional-priorities-115th.pdf
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Thanks for the link to Tom’s priorities, Rich. I would be happy if he would do something to promote them. As for the American Legion, it is a large hall which suggest Tom anticipates a large crowd.
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After speaking today at the Yates County Legislature to urge them to
Pass a resolution that congress (Reed in our case) to pass
A law to reinstate and fund Child Health Insurance Plan
For states, I hope that this will be a top topic for the upcoming
Townhall. In preparation for today’s public comment,
I called both Washington, DC and Geneva offices for Reed.
The results were dismal. In Washington, the lady had no idea what was going on
And in Geneva, Andrew stated he wasn’t sure of any house bills on this subject.
He then volunteered that Reed will be working on nothing els
But “tax reform” for the next 5-6 days. At that time I asked Himrod give Reed a message that we will expect Reed to tell us what steps he is taking on CHIP.
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Val, thanks for your comment.
On Nov. 3, the House passed H.R. 3922, the “Community Health and Medical Professionals Improve Our Nation Act.” This legislation provides for CHIP funding by sabotaging the Affordable Care Act. It cuts the ACA’s Prevention and Public Health Fund by more than $6 billion over ten years. The prevention fund is 12% of the entire budget for the Centers for Disease Control and is used for numerous public health initiatives. Some of these include managing the opioid crisis and increasing access to vaccines. These funds are also used for diabetes and heart disease prevention programs, as well as many other public health efforts. H.R. 3922 raises Medicare premiums for some and decreases the grace period for paying ACA marketplace premiums from 90 days to 30. This places lower income individuals at risk of losing access to health care for a year if they encounter hardship and cannot make a payment within 30 days. This is needlessly cruel yet Rep. Reed voted AYE. This bill now goes to the Senate.
This is a very good example of a subject that Tom Reed or his staff won’t discuss in a meaningful way. If Reed says he voted to extend funding, he would be half right. He won’t likely mention the rest of the story.
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What action did the Yates County Legislature take?
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Since this is a blog about Indivisible NY23, a priority for discussion should be reducing Tom Reed’s chances for reelection.
IMHO, bringing up a national Democratic liberal program as a topic to a unanimously Republican Legislature in a Deeply Republican County is hugely counterproductive, especially immediately after an election in which Democratic candidates for the Legislature were soundly thumped.
Such actions reinforce the opinion that local Democrats are out of touch liberals with no interest in the real needs of real citizens.
In other words, this quixotic action will have absolutely no practical effect other than to enhance Tom Reed’s chances in the coming election.
If Democrats want to beat Reed, they should concern themselves with national issues that have a local impact in which local citizens are harmed by Tom Reed.
ACA repeal leaps immediately to mind, which will negatively impact Soldiers And Sailors in Penn Yan. In a bigly manner.
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I see from the Chronicle Express that in the Yates County Legislature Meeting, “ten members of the public spoke about…the legislature’s lack of action on preserving the Children’s Health Insurance Act.” The response was, to paraphrase, we’ll get back to you…I’m guessing the all Republican Legislature was less than impressed by a lecture from ten liberal activists.
The lead in the story was ‘Yates targets big pharma”. The gist was that Yates is joining a lawsuit to recover costs related to addiction from drug manufacturers who allegedly used deceptive and unfair marketing strategies since the late 1990s.
What a terrific opening! Opioid addiction treatment is expensive. Everyone is concerned. The proposed Republican Health cuts will gut Medicaid, resulting in higher county costs for treatment of opioid addiction. It will also decrease health insurance enrollments. Both will impact Soldiers and Sailors hospital. Higher costs ALWAYS gets Republican attention.
The Chronicle Express does not say anyone raised these points. I guess they were not made.
A tremendous missed opportunity to talk common cause with Republicans.
It is too bad that some Democrats like the politics of division.
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