The Campaign to Fix the Debt, founded by Erskine Bowles and former
Sen. Alan Simpson, on Thursday will announce a dramatic increase in its
drive to mobilize corporate and grass-roots support for Congress to make
tough choices on the rising federal debt, including paid advertising
and a growing movement in the states.
The group has raised more than $35 million since July, from corporations, CEOs, foundations and individuals.
Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a
Responsible Federal Budget and head of the Campaign to Fix the Debt,
said: “It’s clearly going to be difficult — and so many special
interests are going to line up against any of the hard choices that are
in the deal — that there needs to be broad-based support built in favor
of putting in place this kind of a fix.”
“So that created the need for a campaign, and so slowly, gradually —
and then, more recently, more quickly we built the campaign,” she said.
“One of the most gratifying things has been so many CEOs willing to step
out and really focus on this issue and, in fact, put aside so many of
their more typical D.C. ‘asks’ to really help push leaders and lend them
cover when they’re willing to make the choices that will be involved in
a deal.”
MacGuineas said Simpson and Bowles have continued to give speeches
around the country since their debt commission’s report was released in
December 2010.
“It’s sort of like the Pied Pipers of budget reform,” she said. “Once
they’ve talked to an audience, those folks are bought hook, line and
sinker into the notion that not only do we need to do this but we can do
this. People come away fired up, from business leaders to civic leaders
to town hall meetings. They really have left us a slew of informed
people across the country … I’ve actually walked in the airport with Al
Simpson, and people come up and start talking to him about entitlement
reform.”
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