May 29th, 2019
HORNELL, NY – Congressman Tom Reed was in Hornell Wednesday evening for a Town Hall meeting at the VFW. He took questions from the nearly 30 people in attendance, and also discussed some various things that were going on in the House.
The first question Reed was hit with was from Mayor John Buckley concerning infrastructure. “We have roads, bridges, and highways that are in dire need of repair, how is Congress, especially the Problem Solvers Committee (Reed is one of 44 members on that committee), going to deal with this?”
Reeds response, “This is basically a trillion dollar question. We need to come up with over a trillion dollars to fund this and how are we going to do that? Well our plan involves three different things; the first being financing or bonding to raise capital, creative new revenue sources excluding higher taxes on gasoline, and public/private partnerships. It’s going to be difficult, and a lot of folks are saying it might not happen because we are getting into the 2020 presidential election.”
The second question posed to Reed was the situation concerning our trade disputes with other countries and how it is affecting our farmers. Most in attendance were skeptical that our farmers can recover from the loss of revenue to Canada, Mexico, and largely China, but Reed was optimistic. “What China has been doing for the last 20 or so years is taking advantage of our trade imbalance. They have been manipulating currency to their benefit, stealing our technology, and also stealing jobs. Make no mistake; China is a threat to us. Once we have trade agreements in writing, you will see the farmers make a big comeback. We finally have a president that’s calling these other counties out on unfair trade practices.”
Also brought up was Reed’s stance on the possibility of impeaching Trump. Reed was adamant that the president did not commit an offense that rose to the level of impeachment, with one or two in attendance in total disagreement with him. The conversation got a little testy at the end as you can see in the 2nd video below.
