Town hall meeting on national debt is a reality check for Dallas-area residents

dallas moring news ^ | 6/27/10 | TODD J. GILLMAN

[Nachum]

Several hundred Dallas-area residents gathered Saturday for an all-day brainstorming session about the ballooning national debt. They sweated. They scratched their heads, jotted notes and haggled. They made tough choices and in the end, like Congress itself, many came up short.

Frank Reister discussed options with his table Saturday at the AmericaSpeaks town hall meeting on the national debt. Reister thought the choices subtly led people toward protecting entitlement programs. Table 29, for instance, tried earnestly for hours. They got about halfway to the goal of trimming the deficit by $1.2 trillion.

[Nachum]

Funny, nobody in the article mentioned raising the age of qualification for social security and medicare. Matter of fact, nobody mentioned severly restricting all federal pension benefits, raising government health insurance co-pays, and pegging all federal salaries to the private market.

[Deagle]

Funny, just how does Dallas rectify problems with the national debt?

I can see that they are having a nice time (probably with food and drinks free), but just what do they expect to produce that is applicable toward the National Debt?

[fatnotlazy]

Maybe it’s to educate the masses. A lot of people have no idea what the national debt is or how it impacts their lives.

[Peanut Gallery]

The article stated that 19 cities participated. It wasn't just Dallas.

The event at the Dallas Convention Center was part of a 19-city virtual town meeting designed to educate the public, generate ideas and pressure policymakers to take action on the $13 trillion debt. It was organized by AmericaSpeaks, a nonpartisan group that specializes in offering neutral guidance on sticky policy discussions.

[The Duke]

My grandfather used to say ... "Can't never could do nothin'!"

[pnh102]

How hard is this to solve? Cut back spending until you match revenues. Done.

[esoxmagnum]

“How hard is this to solve? Cut back spending until you match revenues. Done.”

1) End government pensions (including school), excluding fire, police, and military until the deficit is gone.
2) Force all gub’mint employees, including congresscritters on Obama care, end all other taxpayer funded healthcare.
3) No new spending until defecit is gone. Let states raise their own money for state projects, and cities to raise their own money for city projects.
4) Close the borders, allow no more work permits, visas etc, from ANYWHERE until our own unemployment is below 3%.

I think those would be a good start, but I bet they weren’t even allowed on the table from what I gathered reading the article.

[steveab]

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