The D&C has a story and photos of Massa's Victor town hall meeting. The meeting started with over a thousand people, lasted four hours, and ended with 200 in attendance.
Sean Carroll at 13-WHAM has attended three meetings, including last night's, and he says that "while many disagree with some of his positions on proposed reform, every person I’ve asked at these meetings is appreciative of his willingness to stand in front of them."
News 10 focuses on some of the more outrageous statements:
At one point, someone took it too far for the Congressman and yelled about nuclear bombs.
"I would never ever stand before the American people and joke about dropping nuclear weapons," said Massa. "I'm sorry!"
DaveSyn at The Albany Project reports that, when Massa requested a moment of silence for Ted Kennedy, "The hall blew its top with boos, cat calls, and shouts of 'Mary Jo'."
Comments
That's too bad about Kennedy - He was never my favorite - far from it - but I would have hoped for a little but more class from the audience at the time of his passing.
Of course sometime in the future people at some other town hall meeting will be cheering and clapping when the death of George W Bush is announced.
My guess is that town halls will revert back to being civil and dull in a couple of years.
I hope you are right - but my guess is that both sides will get farther apart - especially on entitlements programs.
Right. The best way to bring both sides together would be to take away their entitlements.
I didn't attend last night's meeting because I had to spend some time with my family and a good friend of mine, Mr. James Beam.
But I'm sure there was a whole contingent of over 65 folks there screaming and yelling about the nefarious Government and how they wanted the Government out of healthcare.
Boy you are quite civil yourself - I said nothing about taking entitlements away - though I do think they encourage some people not to work - or do you suppose that every poor person is just some down on their luck hard worker?
I think he meant entitlements like Medicare and Social Security, too.
Actually my comment was referring to "entitlements" ranging from low capital gains and estate taxes, business-related subsidies and tax breaks, access to transportation, law enforcement and the courts, down to welfare, Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. My guess is that most people benefit from those entitlements, and would like to pay less to support those they get and those that others get. In that sense they have common ground. Take away the fear mongering and class warfare (on all sides) and civil, boring meetings might come back.
Paying less taxes is not an entitlement - paying no taxes (and then getting a refund anyway) now that is an entitlement.
Yes, you have a point. Ideally everyone would have a paying job and pay taxes.
The tricky thing is determining how many people want a job and can't find one; or how many people just don't want to work - or could work more but refuse.