U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., has endorsed a petition, drafted by a group in Stowe, to fix the federal debt.
In August, the group launched the People’s Petition to Fix the Debt, a call for Congress to adopt the Simpson-Bowles plan, a mix of spending cuts and tax increases proposed by a bipartisan committee in 2010.
Welch declined to actually sign the petition — he doesn’t sign petitions on principle, he said — but he supports it.
“The heart of the petition is, ‘You’ve got to use all the tools there and reach a compromise’” on the national debt, he said. “It’s a great project.”
The group, which came up with the idea at a Memorial Day barbecue, now has more than 255,000 online signatures.
The group includes Rob Foregger of Stowe, founder of EverBank.com; Stowe Reporter owner Biddle Duke; Craig DeLuca and Bob Anderson of Stowe; Steve Silverman, a DeLuca friend who was a deputy cabinet secretary for President Clinton; and Jim Del Favero, vice president of software products at Personal Capital in California.
“This is great news,” Duke said of the Welch endorsement. “Our pragmatic congressional representative is endorsing a grass-roots position that began in Vermont. We’re for compromise and a rapid solution to the debt crisis.”
The debt-fixing plan is named for former Wyoming senator Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, who was Clinton’s White House chief of staff.
Under their proposal, the federal budget deficit would be held to 2.2 percent of gross domestic product, and government debt would be cut by $4 trillion in the next decade. Under the plan, the money would come from cuts in domestic and military spending, and eliminating many tax cuts and loopholes for individuals and corporations.
When the Simpson-Bowles commission finished its work two years ago, 11 of the 18 commission members voted for the final report — but 14 were needed to send the plan to Congress.
The petitioners think the U.S. must act now to reduce the federal debt, now about $11 trillion, before painful austerity measures must be taken, like those seen in Europe.
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