On Tuesday, North Carolina will become the 17th state to host an active
chapter of Fix The Debt, a nonpartisan group working to promote
solutions to the problem of the growing national debt.
The new chapter will be formally launched by former North Carolina
governors Jim Hunt, a Democrat, and Jim Holshouser, a Republican, at a
news conference in Raleigh,
McClatchy reported.
The group plans to reach out to people through advertising and events in
the hope of conceiving and proposing solutions to the debt, which has
nearly tripled to more than $16 trillion since 2000.
“We intend to create a groundswell of local, state and national support
that persuades Congress to pass, and the President to sign, a
comprehensive debt deal,” spokesman Jon Romano said.
Fix The Debt was founded by former Clinton Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles
and former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson, who co-chaired President Barack
Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform,
commonly known as the Simpson-Bowles commission.
Bowles is a native of North Carolina and ran its state university system from 2005-2010.
The rest of the national organization is run by a long list of former
politicians and high-ranking businesspeople from both sides of the aisle
who hope to push Congress and the White House to find an agreement on
how to start reducing the debt.
The hope is to be more successful than the Simpson-Bowles Erskine-Bowles
proposals, which included massive cuts to Social Security, the Pentagon
budget, other government agencies, and a host of tax breaks. Members of
both parties reacted negatively to the plan.
