Monday, February 13, 2017

Letter to Pat Toomey - Feb. 4, 2017

Senator Pat Toomey
248 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Senator Toomey,

Donald Trump was elected by the working, disenfranchised middle class. I have a unique perspective because I saw where my Berks- and Leigh-County-based family was in 2008, 2012 and 2016. It’s not what you would think.

My family is evenly divided between Blue Dog Democrats and middle class, Catholic Republicans.  In 2008, nearly everyone voted for Obama. In 2012, a token few went to Romney, but most still had faith that Obama would bring some kind of change to places like Reading and Allentown. In 2016, about half voted for Trump. At least a dozen former Obama supporters who I know intimately voted Trump into office, reaching for the most outlandish option in the hopes that he would “shake up” Washington.

If you want to survive Trump’s four years as a politician, distance yourself from him now. He’s appointing billionaires and deregulating Wall Street, and you’d better believe that we’re paying attention.

On Friday, Trump threatened the fiduciary rule, which protects people like me and my family from self-interested brokers. The fiduciary rule requires that brokers must make decisions in the best interest of their clients, not in the interest of their own portfolios.

We need Dodd-Frank and the Volcker Rule intact, to protect the American people from another runaway financial crisis. We don’t want to bail out the banks with our tax dollars any more.

P.S. Betsy DeVos is still a terrible idea. Come to the right side of history. She’s a terrible idea for Pennsylvania, and the nation. I know because I’ve been doing the work of education – and paying attention to the politics of it – for 15 years longer than she has.

~~~~~

To learn more about how YOU, reader, can fight back against Republican extremism, check out the Indivisible Guide. It was written by Obama White House staffers, and modeled after the ways in which the Tea Party worked against him throughout his Presidency. It's our turn. 

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