Bipartisan Officials Come Together to 'Fix the Debt' [VIDEO]

A collection of current and former elected officials as well as others held a press conference unveiling the New Hampshire chapter of the Campaign to Fix the Debt, an effort to raise awareness about the need for a long-term fiscal plan on the federal level.

The effort, co-led by Donnalee Lozeau, the Republican mayor of Nashua, and state Sen. Lou D’Allesandro, a Democrat from Manchester, hopes to being individuals together to understand the scope of the federal debt and the sacrifices that may need to be made in order to right the nation.

Lozeau said she came to the realization about the problem after a presentation by former U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg at a Nashua Chamber of Commerce meeting. She said it opened her eyes to the problem and the magnitude of $16 trillion of debt. After the meeting, Lozeau said a lot of people spent time discussing the issue and the need to tackle it. While she couldn’t recite all the numbers and didn’t have all the answer, Lozeau said everyone had to work together to solve the problem.

“What we’re used to here in New Hampshire is reaching across the table and finding a way to find solutions to difficult problems,” she said.

D’Allesandro, who served with Lozeau in the House, said he had spoken to Ed Rendell, the former Democratic governor of Pennsylvania and a supporter of Fix the Debt at a conference and then reached out to others, like Warren Rudman, a former New Hampshire Senator, to talk about the problem. He said sequestration – the deal reached between President Barack Obama and Republicans in Congress to raise the debt ceiling that calls for automatic cuts and tax increases in Jan. 1, 2013 – would cause “a great depression … and a grave consequence for the United States of America.” Instead, D’Allesandro called on using the Simpson-Bowles plan as a blueprint and a guide on how to tackle the problem. He also called on “a bipartisan effort” that “would place the good of the country above everything else.” 

“What does that mean?,” he said. “That means that everybody must play a role. That means that sacrifices must be made across the board.”

Dawn Wivell of Firebrand International and formerly the international trade director for the Granite State, said the debt was “hindering the economic recovery,” curbing global trade, would affect credit card rates, and would lead to a fiscal crisis.

“A strong global economy is so important and a sound national economy is absolutely critical,” she said.

State Sen. Gary Lambert, R-Nashua, who is also supporting the effort, said he and D’Allesandro don’t always agree, but they always listen to each other. He said they were both former Marines and had switched political parties during their lives. He said the debt was the biggest threat to national security. Lambert called on people to sign the group’s petition and make sure that federal officials knew that something needed to be done.

“On Jan. 1, 90 percent of households will receive a tax increase,” he said. “The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan group, has said that the economy will slow at 3.9 percent unless something gets fixed here. We’re going to move into a recession.”

Dick Swett, a former representative of Congress, also stood with the organization, saying that the problem had gotten much worse than when he was elected in the 1990s. He said it was about four times worse than it was at that time. Swett added that the debt was a national security threat either from outside or within the country.

“If we don’t take care of our fiscal house,” he said, “if we can’t figure out how to spend our money appropriately, with the right kind of priorities and do it in a way that helps the broadest number of people in our population, then we are going to certainly have terrible problems in the future, much worse than we have experienced in the last four years.”

What to do

While the organizers were concerned about the debt, they didn't have specific answers to offer beyond the commenting about building on the Simpson-Bowles plan.

When asked about specifics on what the organization would do, Lozeau said none of the people involved knew exactly what the solutions were. However, she said, they were all in agreement that everything needed to be on the table.

“We have to make the hard choices and we have to all be willing to put everything on the table,” she said. “We don’t have the luxury anymore of cherry picking the things that people don’t want to touch. We have to look at everything. Our job is to make sure our voices are heard.”

When asked about the sequestration program, which calls for $1 trillion in cuts across 10 years and repealing the Bush tax cuts, or a drop in the bucket as to what is needed to fill up $1 trillion annual deficits and the $16 trillion debt, Swett said the problem wouldn’t be solved in the first year but needed to be spread out over many years. He said people were looking for a plan that would be credible. Swett also said that revenue needed to be generated from the businesses in the later years.

“We need a plan,” he said. “And it’s got to work over time.”

Later, Swett said he was working on software at his company that he hoped could be converted into budget software so that people could easily utilize the tool to understand the problems and how to fix them.

Other orgs respond

Two representatives from other organizations that watched the press conference later submitted statements.

Sarah Chaisson Warner, executive director of NH Citizens Alliance for Action, said the organization opposed Simpson-Bowles because “it starts in the wrong place” with the wrong approach.

"It would lower tax rates for corporations and the wealthy,” she noted, “change corporate tax rules to reward companies that send jobs overseas, and pay for it by taxing worker's health benefits, cutting Social Security, increasing Medicare cost sharing, and scapegoating federal employees.”

Zandra Rice Hawkins, the executive director of Granite State Progress, said she was surprised that advocates were suggesting that the state budget was “a model” for Fix the Debt compromise fixes.

"The state budget cut university funding by almost half and took away essential health services for our seniors and disabled while providing a corporate tax giveaway to tobacco companies,” she said. “That's not compromise, that's an attack on middle class families and we shouldn't replicate it at the federal level."