The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

Erin (pop. 2054) hosted another packed town hall meeting last night. The Star-Gazette story focuses on Massa's view that the bill won't pass and we'll get an individual set of reforms instead. WETM was there, too.

Billie Owens at the Batavian covers a hearing on Western New York dairy issues, held by Kirsten Gillibrand. Eric Massa made some comments there.

Here's something I hadn't seen before: a district-by-district analysis of the impact of HR 3200. In the 29th District [pdf], we'd have 39,000 more people with health insurance, $98 million less in uncompensated costs for hospitals, and 800 fewer healthcare-related bankruptcies.

Bob Clark at the Hornell Evening Tribune has a good story on short-line rail in the far Southern Tier, a topic that came up in Tuesday's press conference.

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'."

The D&C says that more than 1,000 people showed up at Massa's Victor meeting tonight.

The Star-Gazette has a story on today's Reed press conference that includes Massa's response.

The S-G also covers Massa's visit to a local valve manufacturer.

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.

Last night's Massa town hall meeting in Farmington got big play in the Democrat and Chronicle and on 13-WHAM. Normally, any mention of Massa in Rochester media would be diluted by references to Lee, Slaughter and Maffei, but he's got center stage now because all of the other area Members of Congress aren't holding public meetings.

The Star-Gazette has a report on yesterday's Massa conference call.

At today's Massa press conference, Eric Massa announced that tomorrow's town hall meeting, which was to occur outdoors in Perinton, has moved to Victor High School:

Wednesday, August 26th
5:30-7:30 PM
Victor High School Auditorium
953 High St.
Victor, NY 14564

Massa and Schumer are asking again for disaster money for CattCo.

Jill Wynn of the D&C editorial board has a post about Massa's town hall meetings. I thought this was an interesting way to put it:

I received this information below via e-mail Friday afternoon from the Organizing for America folks regarding town hall meeting to discuss healthcare reform in our area. These meetings will be held by Rep. Eric Massa.

Since Massa is the only federal office holder hosting open town hall meetings, I wonder how many Rochester-area voters will use his meetings as an opportunity to learn or protest, even if they don't live in the 29th.

Reader Elmer sends today's Corning Leader Opinion Page [pdf], which contains Eric Massa's op-ed explaining his position on listening to constituents.

Editor Joe Dunning's column also discusses the healthcare issue, making the point that doing something is probably better than doing nothing.