To the Editor:

 

Time to retire Maryland's third senator

 

Sen. Chuck Grassley visits all 99 Iowa counties every year (not every six years) as does his colleague Sen. Joni Ernst. The media has dubbed this tour "The Full Grassley."

 

Sen. Amy Klobuchar goes to all 87 Minnesota counties annually and Sen. Chuck Schumer shows up in all 62 New York counties each year.

 

Our junior senators from Ed Brooke to Paul Tsongas to John Kerry all made it a point to get to each and every part of the Commonwealth.

 

We have 14 counties (one of which – Nantucket - is a single town) and yet there are dozens of communities from the hilltowns of western Mass to North Quabbin and the Blackstone Valley that Sen. Ed Markey can't be bothered to set foot in. Since joining the US Senate in 2013, he's never visited almost all of the rural towns in the five western counties. This is unacceptable.

 

The fact that he spends more time in his Chevy Chase mansion rather than in Cheshire, Chesterfield and Charlton is why he's earned the disparaging moniker as Maryland's third senator.

 

Markey also doesn't answer his constituent mail. Looking to know where he stands on an issue or if he'll co-sponsor a piece of legislation? Well, good luck waiting for a reply to your query.

 

Markey voted for NAFTA which resulted in the loss of 185,000 good-paying manufacturing jobs (43 percent of this sector's employment) between 1994-2002 in Massachusetts.

 

Markey was the deciding vote in 1998 to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act. This sellout to Wall St. and unwise degregulation helped pave the way for the 2008 financial collapse where approximately 60,000 homes were foreclosed on in Massachusetts between 2007 – 2011. To make things worse, Markey voted in 2008 to throw $700 billion of taxpayer money to bail out these financial firms who gave hefty bonuses to their CEOs and top executives. Markey voted for big bank bailouts and Bay State homeowners and businesses went bankrupt.

 

On Sept. 1, please join me in voting for Rep. Seth Moulton.

 

Matt L. Barron

54 Stage Road, Chesterfield, MA

413-446-5228