If Congress cannot agree on a deficit reduction deal by January, a series of automatic tax increases and spending cuts known as the “fiscal cliff” will kick in. Today, a national bipartisan has launched in New Hampshire to make sure that doesn’t happen.
After a bipartisan debt-reduction plan commissioned by President Obama failed to gain support in Congress, its authors – Republican former Senator Alan Simpson and Democrat Erskine Bowles – went grassroots. They started the Fix The Debt Campaign -- a national group with state chapters.
Amanda Biundo is a student at New England College in Henniker. She says she joined the Fix The Debt campaign in New Hampshire because she’s worried about the future:
When I grow up I want to be able to have social security and I want to make sure those things are available to me in the future.
Nashua mayor Donnalee Lozeau, a Republican, co-chairs the New Hampshire chapter with Democratic Senator Lou D’Allesandro. Lozeau says ordinary people like Biundo need to come together to tell Congress that partisanship and inaction won’t be tolerated.
I think it’s important to remind people that our expectation is that they have to work together.
Fix The Debt is co-chaired at the national level by Ed Rendell, and New Hampshire’s former Governor, Judd Gregg.