These events don’t seem to be on Representative Carney’s website yet (or I just bypassed them), but he is holding two Town Meetings to talk about the deficit. From his Facebook page:
Want to discuss ways of reducing the federal deficit? I’m hosting two town hall meetings, in coordination with the Concord Coalition, on January 31st to get your thoughts and ideas. We’ll be at Wesley College in Dover from 1 – 2:30 and at Delaware Tech’s Stanton campus from 6:30 – 8:00. These meetings are open to the public, but seating is limited, so please RSVP by calling (302) 691-7333 or (877) 899-7872.
First, I’m stunned that he isn’t holding a Town Meeting about boosting employment. ONCE AGAIN we see Representative Carney getting focused on something that still isn’t the first priority of Americans. Second, this Concord Coalition does claim to be nonpartisan, but keep in mind that one of its founders is none other than Pete Peterson, the man who has spent almost a half of a billion dollars of his own money to destroy Social Security and Medicare. Of course, Peterson and his groups (including the sham that is Fix the Debt) never quite see their way past cutting back on New Deal commitments to get to deficit (or debt — I never understand which they are trying to get to) as their preferred solutions to the US money problems. I haven’t seen them advocating cutting back on the DOD, or maybe cutting back on the funds available to local law enforcement for arming themselves to the teeth. I certainly never see any of them talk about making sure that corporations actually pay their fair share of taxes — eliminating their loopholes and even their subsidies. Or how about growing the economy as a way to reduce deficits?
But hey, I don’t know what is on the agenda of Carney’s meeting, other than it it being supported by a Pete Peterson stalking horse. It is (according to the poster on Facebook) an “interactive exercise, developed by the non-partisan Concord Coalition, that lets you make decisions about the priorities and challenges of the Federal budget.” Which means that it could be a live exercise of something like this book tries to accomplish (and the group that supported this book has Pete Peterson as an Honorary Board Member). If it is, it could be a useful exercise in demonstrating just how difficult the budget problem is.
Still, it would be worth it to go in order to challenge the idea that in order to solve the budget problem, everyone has to give up something. Even the people who have spent their lives paying into Social Security and Medicare. And I’d like to know what Carney plans to tell the seniors he speaks to why they need to live with more cutbacks than Lockheed Martin will.
Let us know if you go. And if you can’t go, let us know what you’d ask Representative Carney in this Town Meeting in the comments.