Harris/Trump Debate: Let's Give Them Something to Talk About - Fiscal Sustainability, Says Concord Coalition

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Sep 05, 2024, 09:58 ET

WASHINGTON, Sept. 5, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The presidential debate early next week is the perfect opportunity for us to hear from Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump about how they would tackle the challenges of $2 trillion annual budget deficits, ballooning national debt, and the pending insolvency of Social Security and Medicare trust funds.

These problems are not new. In fact, 30 years ago The Concord Coalition's co-chairmen, Jack Danforth and Bob Kerrey - both then U.S. Senators - chaired a commission that warned of unsustainable fiscal trends. And, because politicians have failed to act in the intervening decades, the commission's findings are still valid today.

The Concord Coalition today is releasing an updated edition of those findings, which received broad bipartisan support among the commission members, Kerrey-Danforth Commission Findings Still Need Solutions Thirty Years Later. Taken together, they comprise a blueprint for presidential candidates and all those in national office to guide their policymaking.

As Senators Danforth and Kerrey put it:

"In our introduction to the August 1994 Interim Report of the Commission we wrote 'America is at a fiscal crossroads...if we fail to act, we threaten the financial future of our children and our Nation…If the country does not respond, Americans 10,15…20 years from now will ask why we had so little foresight.'"

Thirty years have passed, and the American people have a right to ask that question. Why has there been so little action?"

"There is no good answer. So, we are issuing a challenge to a new generation of national leaders: Take up this cause. Solve this problem."

SOURCE Concord Coalition