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To: NJ Congressional District 7 Rep. Tom Kean, Jr.
An Open Letter to Congressman Thomas Kean, Jr.: Your Constituents Seek Answers.
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OPEN LETTER TO REP. THOMAS KEAN, JR.
Dear Rep. Kean:
Since you are our congressman here in the 7th Congressional District of New Jersey, we have some questions we’d like you to answer directly and candidly. Our preference would be to ask these questions in an open “town hall”-type forum that would allow immediate follow-up questions so we could be assured that your responses are clear and that we can understand them. You have said that you desire such an approach; at least, that is how we read the following statement: “It is important that you listen to the people who are approaching you directly, their challenges and their issues, those are my priorities” [NJ Globe, 4/4/2025].
Of course we are disappointed that you continue to decline to hold live, open, in-person town halls. We understand that House Speaker Mike Johnson has discouraged all Republican congressmen to hold such forums, claiming that they attract partisans whose only purpose is to disrupt and malign (AP News, 4/4/2025), but such claims are unsubstantiated, and, besides, they don’t pertain to us. We’re just some of your constituents with some questions.
In fact we have many questions –- too many to list here! – but here are a few. We’ll start with some provisions in H.R. 1 (sometimes called the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” or the Reconciliation Bill of 2025), a bill you enthusiastically voted for.
- H.R. 1 cuts 15% of the funding for the Medicaid program, or over $1 trillion. You have said that the funding cuts are justified by eliminating “waste, fraud, and abuse” from the program, and you support this claim by noting measures designed to ensure that “benefits go to only those who qualify.” Yet it has been determined that the vast bulk of fraudulent activity in the Medicaid program is due not to healthcare clients but healthcare providers (billing for services not provided; kickbacks; providing unnecessary services; falsifying records; selling prescriptions; double billing or improper coding; etc.) [source]: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services]. The funding cuts, along with the expiration of premium tax credits for marketplace plans, will lead to an estimated 10 million American citizens losing their health insurance coverage over the next decade [source]: Congressional Budget Office]. The Washington Center for Equitable Growth estimates 16 million.
So, our question is: Why have you not focused your attention on the fraudulent abuses of providers?
- H.R. 1 features large tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthy, thus continuing to widen the gap between the upper 1% of households (30.9% of the national wealth) and the bottom 50% (2.6% of the national wealth) [source: 2021Federal Reserve data]. This transfer of the national wealth from the impoverished to the already affluent, along with cuts to Medicaid and SNAP benefits, seems designed to make life harder for those struggling to get by.
So, our question is: How do these tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthy help to “promote the general welfare,” that phrase in the Constitution’s Preamble generally understood to signify the government’s role in promoting the well-being of ALL citizens?
- H.R. 1, to quote Democratic members of three different House committees, “is a shameless giveaway to polluters, consisting almost entirely of handouts and new loopholes for the oil, gas, and mining industries. The bill does not address or even reference clean energy, even though it is the cheapest form of energy.” You, Rep. Kean, have regularly proclaimed your devotion to an “all of the above” energy policy, since you understand that we can and should continue to develop non-polluting energy sources in addition to fossil fuels to meet our energy needs.
So, our question is: Why did you vote for a bill that not only ignores the reality of climate change, which all climatologists have determined is exacerbated if not primarily caused by “greenhouse” gas emissions, but in addition gives permission to the fossil fuel industry to ignore former EPA environmental pollution regulations?
And here are some questions not directly related to H.R. 1 (which you voted for) but concern your strong support of the current Administration.
- While we agree that U.S. immigration laws and policies have long needed serious reform on a bipartisan basis, the present policies of the current administration are in clear violation of established law and “due process.” As stated by the 5th Amendment, “No person shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The word “person” refers to any human being, not just a U. S. citizen. The present administration has practiced: rapid deportation without a judicial hearing; depriving detainees of counsel; arbitrary and prolonged incarceration in extremely inhumane “detention centers” (such as “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida); arrests via racial profiling; and transfers of detainees to facilities in foreign jurisdictions, which gladly accept U.S. taxpayer-supported funding for their services (such as the CECOT prison in El Salvador).
So, our question is: Why have you not exercised your due diligence as a member of Congress to object strenuously to the Executive Branch’s repeated violations of established law? -continued-
Why is this important?
-continued-
- As Robert Hubbell says in a recent newsletter, “Virtually every executive order signed by Trump in his second term has violated a congressional statute or the Constitution. Every dollar of congressionally appropriated funding that Trump has withheld violates the Appropriations Clause of the Constitution or the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. Trump’s actions in impounding funds justify impeachment, conviction, and removal from office” (Today’s Edition Newsletter, 7/22/2025).
So, our question is: How do you justify, as a sitting member of the U.S. Congress, allowing the head of the Executive Branch to repeatedly violate his oath of office to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States”?
- Finally, the astonishing assault on the Capitol by partisans of the outgoing Republican President on January 6, 2021 stunned us all. Shortly afterward, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stated the obvious: “There’s no question – none – that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it. The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president.” He then disgraced himself as a partisan equivocator by claiming that “we have no power to convict and disqualify a former office holder who is now a private citizen,” thus eliding the fact that Trump was the sitting President between January 6 and January 20, during which time a responsible leader of the Republican Party would have taken immediate action, as was done by responsible Republican leaders when the lawlessness of the Nixon administration became obvious to everyone.
So, our question is: You have publicly stated your belief that Former President Biden was duly and fairly elected in 2020. How can you continue to support and even praise President Trump when the whole premise of his claim to legitimacy is based on an outrageous lie – a lie that he continues to proclaim -- that he actually won the 2020 election?
We would, of course, prefer you to answer these and other questions at a well-advertised live and in-person town hall open to all your constituents in NJ CD-7. If you are still uncomfortable with such a framework, perhaps you would be willing to meet with us privately at some time during the August recess?
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