The Fiscal Wake-Up Tour Comes to Nashville

Posted by Mary Mancini on July 13, 2007 under Uncategorized |

Get out your lighters (and your calculators), The Fiscal Wake-Up Tour is coming to Nashville.

When the Bush administration announced this week that the federal budget deficit for this fiscal year would be lower than it had anticipated - only $205 billion - our favorite wonky Tennessee Congressman, Jim Cooper (D-the fightin’ 5th!), released these fightin’ words:

“The number the president announced today is more happy talk from a guy who seems to have learned accounting from his friends at Enron. The real, audited federal budget deficit is 15 times larger—about 3 trillion dollars. And what’s more, we have a long-term spending crisis on our hands that will literally bankrupt the country unless we take action soon. President Bush does the nation a disservice by pretending things are just fine. It seems we have a leadership deficit, too.”

Awww, snap, Coop! (He let’s us call him “Coop.” Ok, no he doesn’t.)

So, you want the real numbers? Then join the Congressman as he welcomes U.S. Comptroller General David Walker and The Fiscal Wake-Up Tour to Nashville this Monday, July 16, 10:00 a.m., at the Downtown Library.

Joining Comptroller Walker on the tour is a bipartisan group of economists, or “patriotic experts,” who have vowed to take “this urgent warning directly to the American people” - Robert Bixby of the Concord Coalition, Stuart Butler from the Heritage Foundation, and Isabel V. Sawhill of the Brookings Institution.

As Congressman Cooper says, “Your children will thank you for refusing to bankrupt future generations.”

Info: The Fiscal Wake Up Tour, Downtown Library, 615 Church Street, Nashville, Monday, July 16 at 10 a.m.
Washington Post, “Stumping for Attention to Deficit Disorder”
CBS’ 60 Minutes story on David Walker and the Fiscal Wake Up Tour
Concord Coalition
GAO Fiscal Wake Up Tour