To the editor:

Open letter to Elise Stefanik, since there will never be an in-person Town Hall.

The current political and economic chaos is carefully planned and intentional (Project 2025). Please explain to me how you are not part of a conspiracy to subvert the Constitution?

¯ Explain how we have anything resembling a democracy when the Justice Department ignores judges’ orders.

¯ Explain why Congress has completely abdicated its powers to control the purse. (How long has it been since there has actually been a budget?)

¯ Explain to me why it is legal to deport people who have a valid visa or green card.

¯ Explain to me why we have private prisons, particularly when “we need to cut costs,” and the local federal prison has been understaffed for years while taxpayer money for incarceration goes to for-profit businesses.

¯ Explain to me why it is okay for a person not elected nor vetted by the Senate to trash people’s livelihoods.

How do you spell “corruption”?

Your child will have to live in the ruins left by taking an ax to everything. When one purposely unleashes chaos, one cannot know where it ends. By definition, chaos is not controlled. Chaos here is the purpose, and through your silence, you are complicit in the current activities. This is not governance. There is crime by action and crime by inaction.

Think about the reactions when these actions really come home to roost, when people’s pocketbooks are emptied.

Think about the pocketbooks emptied because Canadian tourists are not visiting our district. Think about emptied pocketbooks because groceries have gone up 5% to 25% with the imposition of tariffs but with no increase in salaries.

Think about pocketbooks being emptied when working stiffs are paying taxes and Elon Musk is not.

Think about the farmers who are being stiffed by the government which has reneged on contracts. How many farmers in your district are left holding the bag?

Think about the losses to small businesses in your district that will not be able to get the workers they need because seasonal workers who have been coming for years on temporary visas are afraid to come. How many of these businesses will lose money and go bankrupt. Why are you aiding and abetting these policies?

If Congress wants to cut benefits for the normal American, Congress needs to first cut its own benefits, its own health care coverage, its own pensions and cut its own salaries to the level of the median American income. Congress currently pays its members over twice the median American income. After all, the median income means one half of the population lives on less money than that. Congress should live on the median income for a while, before it makes decisions that affect every American. But, of course not, because the current political power clique thinks Congress is special and deserves more and views the average American as an idiot.

Margaret Campion

Saranac Lake