No Anger at Toomey Town Hall
COUDERSPORT, Pa. -- The state troopers’ Tasers stayed holstered, nobody yelled, and nothing seemed embarrassing enough to warrant posting a video-clip on the Internet.
No Anger at Toomey Town Hall
Thomas Fitzgerald, Inquirer Politics Writer
COUDERSPORT, Pa. -- The state troopers’ Tasers stayed holstered, nobody yelled, and nothing seemed embarrassing enough to warrant posting a video-clip on the Internet.
Indeed, even the requisite jousting with angry activists from the opposition was downright civil at a town-hall meeting here Wednesday with Sen. Pat Toomey (R.,Pa.), a fiscal conservative freshman recently named to the congressional super-committee charged with figuring a solution to the federal deficit and national debt.
In this summer of public discontent, with the Gallup approval rating of Congress below 20 percent, many senators and representatives around the country have declined to hold no-holds-barred forums with voters that are a fixture of the August recess.
“My question to you, sir, you support corporate loopholes and not cutting them,” Dan Haney, an activist from the MoveOn.org-affiliated American Dream Movement, who drove up from Philadelphia to confront Toomey. “I want to know what you’re going to do to stop the tax breaks” that help companies send U.S. jobs overseas.
“That’s a very fair question,” Toomey responded. “I happen to think our tax code is a complete disaster…that makes us less competitive because it is driving investment decisions.” He said it was “indefensible” that General Electric, a profitable U.S. multinational, paid no corporate taxes recently; A tax on bringing cash home from foreign subsidiaries, after it’s already been taxed by foreign governments, is keeping about a trillion dollars from being invested at home, he said.
“It’s maddening, it’s crazy,” Toomey said. He said he wants to work on an overhaul of taxes as part of the supercommittee’s agenda.
“We could go after the spending in any number of ways….and there is a reasonably broad consensus among my colleagues in the senate that the tax code is costing us growth and jobs.”
A resident of nearby Tioga County asked Toomey why he would not support a “modest” tax increase on the very wealthiest individuals, who used their 2001 tax breaks to “spend it all on the Hamptons, yachts, overseas travel and furs.”
Toomey said that government’s share of the gross domestic product has crept upward at an unsustainable rate, and he believes that increasing taxes to close the deficit would give the government an excuse to keep spending.
“If we say we’re going to keep raising taxes on some Americans to make them pay for this ever-growing share of government we’re going to have slower economic growth,” Toomey said.
Afterward, Toomey said he agreed with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R.,Va.), who prompted a furor earlier this week when he said that federal spending in the wake of natural disasters like Hurricane Irene should be offset by cuts in other programs.
“It's not as though we're unprepared for this situation,” Toomey told reporters. “We know that at any time in this great country of ours there are storms, there are floods...” He said it is “reasonable” for the federal government to respond but money for that should be budgeted upfront or savings found elsewhere, given the deficit-spending crisis.
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When everyone is yelling an no one is listening it is hard to get things done. It is time for the reasonable people in the center to take back control while unlimited funds are hard to overcome people getting together and demanding the politicians work together, disclose the source of their funds and sign the politicians pledge can go a long way. The people in the center need to form their own grassroots movement and demand sane and equal representation for all. If you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem. . If you want to be part of the solution check out the pledge at http://truefiscalconservative.blogspot.com/p/pledges.html If we all sign the citizen pledge, it will force the politicians to sign the politician pledge and we the people will get the country back on the right track by forcing both sides to come together.— minoriabc- I love how people just blanket the tea party as conservative republicans only. Go to a tea party event before you run your mouth about it. I am a black male who use to be an inner city democratic now I am a suburban libertian who has been to multiple tea party events and have met Mrs. Palin. The people and her also were great and treated me with respect even when I didn't agree with them. What is so bad with a smaller government and more individual freedom and rights?— skills
- You are joking right. Please let us know where the TP meetings you attended. I have only been to two - one when the concept first started (only 4 people there) and another one (about 20 people there) and at both there were zero minorities and from my point of view a lot talk about the "good ol' days". I live in the year 2011 not in 1950. Things change no matter if you like it or not. Although I do not agree with the TP I am willing to listen but please point me to one with more than one minority. — Worker1
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- Just wanted to mention, as I have before, that there's nothing "just honest" about you. "Just moronic" is more like it.
— 1980 - A liberal is never happen unless he or she is unhappy about something. It must really suck being a liberal.— fafafooey
- Liberals are the happiest people in the world because they know what they are doing is for the good of society, while conservatives only care about themselves and could careless about whole of society.
Does your overlord Howard Stern know you typed this?— DavidAG - Comment removed.
- Phish, you're right! It's a loooong bus ride from Philly to Coudersport. I wonder if our locals would be so civil if they could take SEPTA to a meeting with him?— Bucks County Mike
- This comment has been deleted.— Phishface
- Tell me how are those Credit Default Swaps, your child's teacher sold you? — DavidAG
- Pat Toomey, masterfully, answered two key questions.
What are your questions, DavidAG? or email to Sen. Toomey - http://toomey.senate.gov/?p=contact Sen. Toomey is responsive
My sense is that you are not interested in a thoughtful response but in dramatic confrontation for reasons you can best tell us. I would think there are many more like you who are interested in creating heat rather than a civil exchange of ideas.
And, when have Tea Partiers been rowdy? Certainly, not to Pat Toomey.— bobguzzardi - Those Astroturf rebels have been told to get on one knee and bow to the almighty Pat Toomey (a wholly owned subsidiary of Koch Industries). — DavidAG
- The reason they are civil is because there are no people wearing tea bags as accessories.— DavidAG
- When is Tommey coming to Philly, I have question or two for him.— DavidAG
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You can reach Tom Fitzgerald at 215-854-2718 or tfitzgerald@phillynews.com.
Reach Thomas at tfitzgerald@phillynews.com.
