R E E D’ S

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Here’s What Your Congressman

from the Southern Tier & Finger Lakes
Has Been Up To!
 Who is Tom Reed?  Yes, but W
​ HO IS  
Tom Reed? 
A representative who represents money instead
of people….
A lawmaker who’s all good with lawlessness…
A “civil servant” who serves big business,
entrenched interests, and the rich …
 
This book is about the ​MISDEEDS​ that Reed has 
committed​ ​in Congress this term:

Meet the Congressman for the 23rd District of NY.   1. Giving to the Rich

2. Stealing from the Poor

3. Endangering our Lives and Health

4. Crushing the Planet

5. Promoting Racism & Cruelty

He has represented the Southern Tier and Finger  6. Damaging Democracy &
Lakes since 2010, and he’s up for re-election on   Boosting Corruption
Tuesday​ ​November 6 THIS YEAR!    
 Giving to the Rich  After 2024, most of us will see our taxes go UP
because of the law. ​But not the rich! Their taxes will just keep 
going down. The richest 1% will pay less in taxes every year, 
Tom Reed loves the big Republican ​TAX LAW ​that was passed  while the rest of us will return to higher tax rates. 
in December 2017. He brags about it whenever he can.    
   Then there’s the increased profits from cutting the federal 
But what’s in this law? Lots of money for the richest people in  corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, a move that is stuffing the 
the U.S.  pockets of shareholders and wealthy executives. 
     
Reed likes to brag that there’s a small, ​temporary ​tax cut for  One more gift for the rich in the new law? Previously, when a 
ordinary working people in the new law. But the real reason Tom  very wealthy person died, their kids had to pay taxes on ​some​ of 
Reed and the Republicans wanted to pass the bill so badly is to  their inheritance — just like regular income. But starting in 
make rich people richer — permanently. 2018, rich people can leave their children ​$22 million ​with no 
   taxes at all. 
How much richer?    
   BIG BANKS.​ ​Then, in May this year, Reed voted to roll back 
If you earn $50,000 a year, your refund will be about $890 more  the Dodd-Frank Act — the package of bank regulations that 
in 2019 than it is now. But if you earn $1 million a year, your  Congress enacted after the recession of 2007 so that we could 
refund will be ​$70,000 ​more in 2019 than it is now!  avoid a disaster like that in the future. The repeal of Dodd-Frank 
 
allows banks to go back to doing the risky things they did before 
— like borrowing way too much and gambling with people’s 
financial safety. 
  
Reed has shown that he values the wealth of rich donors more 
than basic financial stability for everyday people in his district. 
If there’s another crash, it will be in part because Reed and the 
Republicans repealed the crucial protections of Dodd-Frank. 
  
In our district, most people are NOT rich.​ More than half of us 
live in households that make less than $50,000 per year. We 
aren’t rich CEOs. We don’t have multi-million-dollar 
  inheritances. We aren’t shareholders in billion-dollar 
Here’s the reality of corporate tax cuts that Reed’s so proud  corporations. 
of. Corporate profits are way up. Workers’ wages are NOT.     
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics & U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis   While Tom Reed does all this for the rich, what’s he doing to us?
 Stealing from the Poor  insurance won’t be able to afford it anymore. Then they’ll drop 
out, and premiums will get even higher. Researchers agree that 
1 million people ​will lose health insurance in the coming years 
All those tax cuts for the richest 1 percent are expensive — ​they due to the repeal of the individual mandate. 
will add about $1 trillion ​to the federal debt.    
 
The real goal: ​cut Social Security and Medicare.​ ​The 
To make up for that deficit, Tom Reed and the GOP say we have 
to eliminate services and assistance for ordinary people and  next targets for the GOP are Social Security and Medicare. The 
communities. ​They want to make poor people poorer. head of Congressional Republicans, Paul Ryan, said in 
  December:

Cutting food.​ ​For example, in June, Reed voted for the 2018 
Farm Bill, which would place ​additional​ work requirements on 
SNAP benefits (food stamps) for families. (Some work 
requirements already exist.)  
 
More than 15% of households in our district rely on SNAP to 
make sure they have enough to eat. And 75% of ​those​ already 
include one or two adults who work, or who have worked in the 
last year. Reed wants to create barriers between people who 
don’t have enough to eat and the help they need. 
 
SNAP is an effective anti-hunger program that actually helps 
the economy, according to the Dept. of Agriculture. If the new 
requirements pass, more than two million people will be kicked 
off of benefits. ​That doesn’t mean we’ll have fewer poor
people. That means we’ll have more hungry kids.
 
Making Healthcare more expensive.​ ​Last year, Reed   
helped to tear up the public safety net when he voted to repeal   
Obamacare’s “individual mandate” — the rule that everyone  By “reform,” he means “cut.”​ And Reed is on board.  
must have health insurance or pay a penalty.    
  In order to give money to his wealthy donor friends, Tom Reed 
Without the mandate, fewer healthy people will choose to buy  wants you to pay more for basic needs. He’s taking money out of 
insurance, which means premiums go up for everyone who ​does  the pockets of everyday people putting it into the pockets of 
have insurance. When premiums go up, some people who want  people who already have millions. 
 Threatening Our Lives & Health  one percent of Americans and to companies that sell health 
insurance, prescription drugs, and medical devices.  
 
In 2017, Tom Reed voted for the House American Health Care So, who does Reed really represent?
Act (AHCA), the Republican bill that tried to undo Obamacare.    
Thankfully, that legislation failed in the Senate.  Not these parents, who attended a town hall meeting in Feb. 
   2017! 
But if it had passed, the AHCA would have been disastrous for  
the well-being of working people. ​It would have: 
● Cut Medicaid funding 
● Eliminated protections for people with pre-existing 
conditions 
● Allowed insurers to put lifetime caps on the total 
coverage a sick person may receive 
● Raised medical costs for older people.  
 
The AHCA was opposed by the AARP, the American Medical 
Association, the American Cancer Society, the American 
Diabetes Association, the American Heart Association, the 
Children’s Defense Fund, National Nurses United, ​and​ Planned 
Parenthood. 
  
Republicans in Congress knew the bill was unpopular. So they 
rushed to vote on the measure as they were losing support. 
When asked by his constituents in a town hall meeting why they 
didn’t wait for a scoring of the bill by the non-partisan 
Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Tom Reed quipped that he 
wouldn’t be “beholden to bean counters.” 
   Meanwhile​, ever since the AHCA failed to pass, ​Reed and
When those “bean counters” at the CBO scored the House bill, it  Republicans in Congress have been working to undermine
found that 23 million Americans would lose healthcare by 2026  Obamacare little by little.
under the plan. ​In our district, 68,300 residents —Reed’s own  
constituents—would have lost healthcare if the AHCA passed. You can be sure that if Congress stays in the Republicans’ 
   control after 2018, they’ll meet their goal of undoing all the 
Why did Reed support a rushed bill that endangered thousands  healthcare protections that Obamacare provided.
of his constituents? The bill promised tax cuts to the wealthiest 
 Destroying the Planet   
But Reed was quick to defend the president. When the ​Finger
Lakes Times​ mistakenly reported that Reed had criticized the 
Energy companies like to fill Tom Reed’s campaign coffers. And  President’s decision, he immediately corrected them and said 
they get a lot for their money.   that he found such basic environmental goals “impractical and 
   unrealistic.” 
Marathon Oil, one of Reed’s big backers, lobbies to roll back    
clean air protections. In July 2017, they got what they wanted  Impractical and unrealistic to have clean water, air, and a 
from Reed when he voted for what the American Lung  livable planet?  
Association calls ​“The Smoggy Skies Act.”​ This law   
permanently weakens the Clean Air Act, and, according to the 
ALA, ​will cause up to 230,000 asthma attacks in children,  
160,000 missed school days, 28,000 missed work days, and up
to 660 premature deaths EVERY YEAR.
 
Once again, Reed showed he cares more about donors than 
about the people he represents.
 
Before that, in February 2017, Reed ​helped his party repeal the
Stream Protection Rule​ that kept mining waste out of 
Appalachian streams and kept drinking water safe. Keeping the 
rule would have cost the mining companies little and protected 
over 6,000 miles of streams. 
  
The same day, he also​ voted to repeal an anti-corruption
regulation​ that required U.S. energy and mining companies to 
disclose payments to foreign governments. 
  
Then, in June 2017, ​Reed supported President Trump’s decision
to pull the U.S. out of the Paris agreement on climate change.
This accord would have set goals to limit greenhouse gas 
emissions and curb global warming. It was agreed to by 195 
countries. ​World leaders and scientists have called
Trump’s decision reckless, irresponsible, brutal,
and insane.  
 Promoting Racism & Cruelty  corporate CEOs who withdrew from Trump’s Manufacturing 
Council in protest.  
  
Since Donald Trump started his presidential campaign, we’ve  Tom Reed likes to pretend he is reasonable.  
seen a spike in hate crimes across the country. In just the first 
ten days after the 2016 election, there were 867 hate incidents in   
the nation, and 69 in New York state. These incidents occurred 
in our schools, workplaces, public parks, and places of worship. 
Driving through the 23​rd​, we now see Confederate flags waving, 
two hundred miles north of the Mason-Dixon line. 
  
Candidate Trump ran on a platform of xenophobia, racism,
and hate. ​Now that he’s president, he is making that platform 
into policy: attempts to implement a “Muslim Ban,” ridiculous 
plans to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, a push to bar 
transgender people from military service, separating and 
imprisoning refugee children and their parents, ending 
Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Salvadoran and Haitian 
refugees, and efforts to end Deferred Action for Childhood   
Arrivals (DACA).   
  
But when it comes to backing President Trump’s cruel 
Reed gives lip service to tolerance, but his immigration policies, Reed repeats his party’s unreasonable 
actions support Trump's cruelty and assertions. When asked on CNN about his support for Trump’s 
Muslim Ban, Reed stated, “We need a system in place that is 
xenophobia.
going to vet people coming to America that want to do us harm.”  
 
In 2016, Reed endorsed Trump early and served on his transition  Sounds reasonable, right? But reports from the Department of 
team. He never spoke out when Trump used slurs against  Homeland Security, State Department, and Justice Department 
immigrants, like when he said that a Mexican-American judge  all demonstrate that the US already has a robust and effective 
couldn’t do his job properly because of his race, or when he  system of vetting. This conclusion is also confirmed by USCIS 
insulted the religion and dignity of a gold-star family.   and USAID officials who do the work of vetting refugees and 
  immigrants. According to one of them, the Muslim Ban 
“addresses a problem that doesn’t exist.”  
When Trump refused to denounce white supremacists in 
Charlottesville in August 2017, Reed never wavered in his  And like Trump’s family separation policy, the point of this 
unquestioning support for the President, and he criticized the  policy isn’t to make the country safer. It is racism and terror 
enacted as policy. And Tom Reed is happy to go along with his 
leader on this. 
Meanwhile, in his own district, Reed has pushed the
bizarre lie that the people in his district who speak
against him are actually “Democrats from Washington,”
“special interests,” and “rent-a-mob protesters.”
 
He blames “activists in Ithaca” for the crowds of critics at town 
halls all across his district. This is dog-whistle racism. Reed 
wants to stir fears of “outside agitators.” He hopes to pit rural 
voters against his constituents who live in more diverse cities. 
He plays on old anti-Semitic xenophobia and anti-Black 
arguments about the undue influence of “carpetbaggers.”  
 
 
Make no mistake. Tom Reed knows what he is doing. In a 
moment of rising cruelty and white supremacist violence, Reed  If Tom Reed doesn’t trust you to make decisions about your
supports racist policies and stokes the fires of hatred.
Distrusting Women 
Tom Reed has never blinked in his support of Donald Trump
—a man who admitted to sexual assault on the record and
who is accused of specific instances of sexual assault and
harassment by at least fifteen women.​ This alliance plainly 
demonstrates Reed’s basic lack of respect for women’s 
autonomy and freedom. But if you need more proof, look at his 
voting record in the past year. 
Last February, ​Reed’s vote helped Republicans enact a law that
allows states to “defund” Planned Parenthood​ — in other 
words, to prevent Medicaid recipients from getting family 
planning services, gynecological care, and breast cancer 
screenings at Planned Parenthood. The law has ​nothing to do
with funding abortions​ — there’s already law that forbids 
federal money from going to abortions. But ​the new law WILL
make it harder for poor women, rural women, and women of
color to get basic health care.   
A month before, Reed voted for HR 7, a bill that would have 
prevented many insurance policies from including coverage for 
abortion. The bill would have taken away women’s right to 
choose health plans that best fit their needs and their 
constitutional right to access abortion care.  
In October, he voted for HR 36, an unconstitutional bill that 
endangered women’s health and individual rights. This bill 
would ban constitutionally protected pre-viability abortions and 
offered no exceptions for health. (Due to its likely 
unconstitutionality, the bill has not moved through the Senate.) 
  
body, your health, and your family, why should you trust him
to represent you in Washington?
 democracy. But Trump has attacked independent judges and 
Damaging Democracy   courts, and accused judges who disagree with him of being 
biased and dishonest, when there is actually no evidence that 
& Boosting Corruption  that is the case. 
 
Our democracy is in danger.​ The voices of people are being 
drowned out by money and corruption. Donald Trump and Tom 
Reed are both part of this problem, not a solution to it. 
 
Since President Trump took office, Reed has supported 
Republican efforts to change the norms of how our government 
works. ​They know that their policies in support of big
business and the rich are not popular, so they have to change
the rules to get their way.
 
For example: 
 
→ Financial Conflicts of Interest. ​Unlike every previous 
modern president, Trump refused to put his business interests 
in a blind trust. So he’s free to make decisions based on what 
will benefit his family financially, rather than benefiting the 
country.  
 
In fact, one of the biggest winners of the new 2017 law are 
people who work in commercial real estate...which just happens 
to be Trump’s family business. 
   
→ Interference with Law Enforcement. ​By his own admission,   
President Trump fired former FBI Director James Comey 
because Comey was investigating Russia’s tampering with the   
presidential election, and their potentially illegal interactions  → Ongoing, Outrageous Lies. ​The President, his press 
with the Trump campaign.  secretaries, and the White House communications office 
  routinely tell outrageous and obvious lies to the American 
→ Attacks on the Judicial System. ​The checks and balances of  people.  
an independent court system are a cornerstone of American   
Just a few examples of the Trump Administration’s lies:   
  Through all of this, Reed has been silent.
● They’ve claimed that 3 million votes in the 2016 election   
were illegal. There’s zero evidence for this idea.   He stands by the President instead of standing up for 
  democracy. 
● Trump repeatedly claims that work on his   
much-talked-about border wall has already begun and  He is loyal to the President, not to the Constitution.  
will be finished soon. But in fact, the   
Republican-controlled Congress has not approved money  He is loyal to his party, not to the country.  
for a border wall, and one is not even being planned,   
much less, under construction.   He is loyal to his wealthy donors and their corporate 
  interests, not to his constituents.  
● Trump often repeats the lie that journalists for major   
newspapers make up sources and make up facts. He says   
that journalists are “the enemy of the people.” But ​in
fact, a free press has long been one of the most Tom Reed doesn’t belong in Congress. 
important guardians of democracy and a free society.  
Trump’s lies about journalists further undermines the  If you’re ready to help get him out, turn the 
people’s access to good information on which to make  page.  
decisions.   
 
His lies work to undermine people’s trust in elected officials and 
government. They create a sense of confusion and 
powerlessness. On their own, they are a violation. 
 
Meanwhile, norms have been changing in Congress too. 
Instead of allowing for debate and compromise, Congressional 
Republicans have ​pushed through massive legislation on
health care and taxes without public hearings or the
opportunity for the laws to be read, analyzed, and discussed. 
For them, winning a PR victory for the President and their party 
is more important than making good law.  
 
   
   
   
 Ready to get Tom Reed out of 
Congress?  
 

Register to ​VOTE b ​ y October 12:  

 
GO TO​ ​voterreg.dmv.ny.gov/MotorVoter/  
OR​ ny.gov/services/register-vote
OR​ ​visit any DMV office. 
 

It takes 5 minutes! 
 

THEN 
Go to your polling place on Election Day, 
November 6.  
OR 
Apply for an absentee ballot by October 30. 

Want more info?  

Want to print & share your own copies of this book?  
www.reedsmisdeeds.com 
{Reed’s Misdeeds #1; 1st Edition; August 2018}