The Fiscal Solutions Tour is designed to help Americans think constructively about how to build a stronger economic future by meeting the challenges of unsustainable budget policies, spiraling debt, low savings rates, dangerous reliance on foreign lenders, and the growing needs of an aging population.
The tour will bring several top national experts to cities around the country to discuss the wide range of options for putting the country on a more prudent and sustainable fiscal path in the next decade and beyond. These options will include possible defense and non-defense spending cuts, Social Security reforms, improvements in the health care system, tax reforms and tough budget controls. Many such options are currently being considered by the president’s bipartisan commission on fiscal responsibility and reform.
Cutting through the usual partisan rhetoric, ideological divides and political smoke screens, the Fiscal Solutions Tour will focus on the positive: Where do we go from here? What key decisions need to be made in the not-too-distant future? How can reforms lead to a brighter future?
The Concord Coalition is conducting the tour with support from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. Primary speakers include:
- Robert L Bixby, executive director of The Concord Coalition
(view presentation) - Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of The American Action Forum and former director of the Congressional Budget Office
- William Novelli, professor, Georgetown University, and former CEO of AARP
- Isabel Sawhill, senior fellow, Economic Studies, Brookings Institution, and former associate director of OMB
(view presentation) - David M. Walker, founder of The Comeback America Initiative and former U.S. comptroller general
(view presentation)
This initiative follows up on The Fiscal Wake-Up Tour, a highly acclaimed effort in which budget analysts of diverse perspectives explained why they were increasingly alarmed by the nation’s longer-term fiscal outlook. Between 2005 and 2009, the Wake-Up Tour visited more than 70 cities across the country and was the subject of the critically acclaimed documentary film “I.O.U.S.A.”
The goal of the Fiscal Solutions Tour is to engage the public, the media and policymakers in a realistic dialogue about our nation’s future, a range of potential solutions that need to be considered, what trade-offs we need to make, and how we can leave a stronger, more prosperous nation to our children and generations still to come.
Initial Tour Schedule
Thursday, September 23 San Francisco, California
Friday, September 24 San Jose, California
Thursday, September 30 Des Moines, Iowa
Thursday, October 7 Portsmouth, New Hampshire
Friday, October 22 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Friday, November 12 Chicago, Illinois
Wednesday, February 9 Austin, Texas
Thursday, February 10 San Antonio, Texas
Tuesday, March 1 Atlanta, Georgia