The Concord Coalition is urging the Commission on Presidential Debates to devote a significant portion of debate time next year to the candidates’ plans for dealing with the nation’s growing fiscal difficulties.
While the United States faces many challenges, Concord leaders said, “the nation’s unsustainable budget policy hangs over all of them, because it affects the resources that can be devoted to competing priorities and the size of the future economy that will be called upon to produce those resources.”
The Concord Coalition is urging the Commission on Presidential Debates to devote a significant portion of debate time next year to the candidates’ plans for dealing with the nation’s growing fiscal difficulties.
While the United States faces many challenges, Concord leaders said, “the nation’s unsustainable budget policy hangs over all of them, because it affects the resources that can be devoted to competing priorities and the size of the future economy that will be called upon to produce those resources.”
The suggestion was made in a letter this week to Frank J. Fahrenkopf, Jr. and Michael D. McCurry, co-chairmen of the commission. It was signed by Concord’s co-chairs, Mike Castle and John Tanner, and the organization’s executive director, Robert L. Bixby.
One approach would be for each candidate to be given 15 minutes in a debate to lay out a budget plan, highlighting major proposals and projecting deficits and debt. The moderator could then devote 30 minutes to follow-up questions.
“Concerns about the rising debt and the economy are in fact intertwined, which underscores the importance of hearing how the presidential candidates propose to deal with the nation’s finances,” the letter says.
