TUCSON, ARIZONA – Two top national experts on the federal budget will present possible solutions to the rapidly increasing debt at a town hall meeting presented Thursday by the office of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the non-partisan Concord Coalition.
TUCSON, ARIZONA – Two top national experts on the federal budget will present possible solutions to the rapidly increasing debt at a town hall meeting presented Thursday by the office of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the non-partisan Concord Coalition. The program, co-sponsored by the University of Arizona and the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, will also include a hands-on exercise in which participants work together to develop deficit-reduction plans.
The speakers:
David M. Walker is the founder, president and CEO of the Comeback America Initiative (http://www.tcaii.org) and former Comptroller General of the United States and head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office. He has written three books, the latest one a bestseller titled Comeback America: Turning the Country Around and Restoring Fiscal Responsibility (2010).
Robert L. Bixby has been the executive director of The Concord Coalition since 1999 and held several earlier positions with the organization since it was founded in 1992. Bixby is also a member of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Debt Reduction Task Force, which issued its report, Restoring America’s Future, late last year.
The Deficit Reduction Town Hall Meeting is free and open to the public. Seating is limited, however, and reservations are requested. To RSVP, email [email protected] or call 520-881-3588. Callers should provide their full names and email addresses.
Walker and Bixby will cut through the partisan rhetoric and ideological divides to encourage a civil and realistic dialogue about the fiscal, economic and demographic challenges facing the country. They will discuss a wide variety of options that have been proposed to reduce the federal deficit. These include cuts in defense and domestic spending, Social Security and Medicare reforms, improvements in the health care system, simpler and more responsible tax policies, and tougher budget controls in Congress.
In the second half of the two-hour program, Concord’s “Principles & Priorities” exercise will place audience members in the shoes of members of Congress, placing them in “committees” to weigh some of the difficult choices to reduce the deficit. Each group will then present their decisions and deficit-reduction figures.
WHAT: Deficit Reduction Town Hall Meeting
WHEN: 6:30 p.m. Thursday, June 30, 2011
WHERE: The University of Arizona
Student Union Memorial Center
North Ballroom
1303 E. University Blvd.
Tucson, Arizona
(Pay parking available in Second Street Garage, 1340 E. Second St.)
