Morrisville: Representative Brandon Williams, who represents New York’s 22nd Congressional district, held his third town hall in Morrisville on Thursday.
He again responded only to screened written questions and did not give his audience any method to ask follow up questions or share their own concerns. With no other way to be heard, some supporters and detractors in the audience have taken to calling out their comments when they believe his statements are misleading or false. As soon as the event was finished, the Representative once again left immediately without waiting to shake hands with his constituents or answer any individual questions.
“I came to the town hall to ask the specific question about protecting social security and medicare from being impacted by debt ceiling negotiations. He sidestepped the question and didn’t stay afterward to answer questions either. It’s pretty clear that he was shamed into showing up, but he’s still not willing to have a conversation with us” said attendee Maureen Zupan.
“Brandon Williams told the audience to stop calling out responses because we need dialogue, but dialogue is a two way street, and he gave us no way to speak. He likes to tell us what he thinks but he has little or no interest in knowing what we think” commented attendee Kristi Andersen.
Activists held a demonstration outside of the Morrisville-Eaton Junior/Senior High School prior to the event with a message to “Protect our future. Keep Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid Whole.” People held signs and banners with such sayings as “Protections for NY22 Constituents,” “This is a bipartisan issue,” and “Raising the age is a cut.”
Multiple members of Rep. Williams’ party have called for cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, and more, and are calling for these demands to be met in order to get their support to avoid America defaulting for the first time in our history. A recent poll cited by the Auburn Citizen showed that 82% of NY-22 voters would prefer raising taxes on the wealthy to cutting social security benefits. The debt ceiling was raised without conditions with the help of both Democrats and Republicans under President Trump. These local residents came to the town hall to get Rep. Williams’ commitment to withhold his vote if the debt ceiling bill includes cuts to programs that their lives depend on.
