Most of Tom Reed's conference call this morning was taken up by a discussion of deficits, but Reed made his most pointed attack during a discussion of Massa's town hall meetings. Reed said that he thinks town hall meetings are positive, and he strongly supports them. However, he said that, as a single-payer supporter, Massa went into those meetings with his mind made up. He said this is "disingenuous, misleading and highly arrogant."
I believe the leadership we would demonstrate to everyone is, look, I'm here, I'm listening. I will truly listen to what you have to say, and then I will come to a decision, and my decision will be something that I believe in, because I believe in the people that are giving me the information to come to that decision. So I applaud the Congressman in the sense that he's holding the town hall meetings [...] I as a Congressman would do that. [...] I would just hope that they're not a sham and a dog-and-pony-show, like Congressman Massa['s].
On the deficit, Reed said he was concerned that "we are literally bankrupting the United States for our children and grandchildren." He detailed the deficit amounts, and said that the projection that, by the end of the next decade, the national debt will be 75% of the US economy "scares" him. "You can't survive with that debt obligation hanging over your head."
Reed said he was willing to "make hard decisions". Recotta asked him which services and jobs he would could first. Reed said he'd take a "hard look" at entitlement programs, stimulus, and industry bailouts. On entitlements, he said that government had "failed miserably" as trustees for Social Security. Reed felt that "a promise made is a promise kept" in Social Security, but that we have to make some "hard choices" with regards to his generation (Reed is in his late 30's) and later generations.
In response to a question about how to keep cuts from being passed on to states and cities, Reed said that he favored an analysis of the passed on costs in every bill. He did allow that there were some legitimate roles for deficit spending, such as wars, specifically the First and Second World Wars.