Looking towards today’s election and beyond, two former U.S. House members in Iowa recently urged aspiring political leaders — including presidential hopefuls visiting the state — to focus on reining in the federal debt.
“Over the next decade, under current law, the U.S. government will add $7.2 trillion to the debt — a figure that could reach $9.5 trillion under reasonable assumptions about future policy decisions,” say former lawmakers Tom Tauke, a Republican, and Leonard Boswell, a Democrat, in a guest column in the Des Moines Register.
Boswell and Tauke, who are working with The Concord Coalition and Fix the Debt to raise awareness of the nation’s fiscal difficulties, emphasized that “we cannot continue down this path.”
Also in the Register last week, a news story included observations from Concord Field Director Sara Imhof on the U.S. Senate race between Democrat Bruce Braley and Republican Joni Ernst.
“It is hard for the candidates, particularly this close to the election, to talk that much about specifics and not be attacked by their opponents,” Imhof said.
She added that ruling out revenue hikes or Medicare reform “is pretty much a non-starter for getting deficit reduction in a way that is lasting, and that will allow a buy-in for both parties.”
External links:
Braley, Ernst Have Deep Divide on Fiscal Issues (Des Moines Register)
The False Choice Between Deficit Reduction and Jobs (Concord Blog Post)
