Fix The Debt

This week, the Citizens Petition to Fix the Debt surpassed the significant milestone of 250,000 signatures. What emerged from a spirited debate among politically disparate friends at a Memorial Day barbecue in Vermont has now become the cornerstone of a rising movement to stabilize the nation’s debt.

And behind every critical signature there’s an important story. From Main Street to Wall Street, supporters have been sharing stories about why the debt matters and what we must do to fix it.

While the stories may differ, the refrain is the same. “We need to work together,” says Marc Rotman of Chicago, IL, who recently shared his reasons for supporting the campaign to Fix the Debt:

The debt matters to me because while everybody expects everyone else to sacrifice, I know that it is the same as getting a household budget balanced: every person in the house must live within the household means.

Some years are better than others. But when Mommy and Daddy get laid off, we don't eat steak for a while. In other words, everything has to take a hit. Everything.

Fixing the debt is challenging. It means a great deal of sacrifice from government services to which we have grown accustomed. Defense & homeland security, social security, healthcare, and education dominate the discussion. For our politicians, making dramatic changes to any of these hot items is political suicide. Politicians have to answer to a lot of people.

One of the downfalls of our Democratic system is that government officials often have to wait more than one term for the effects of their decisions to show. A move that is politically unfavorable, but in the eyes of the official necessary, can cause the loss of an election and the loss of a job for a person and his or her family.

Ultimately, we as a people have to tell the government that we can live without. We can delay social security a little longer. We will pay a little more in taxes. We can live without being the world's police, we can live without massive bomb detecting machines in airports, we will raise more money locally for our schools, we will take better care of our bodies to reduce our need for healthcare. We have to stop pointing the finger up at the rich and telling them they need to pay more. We need to stop pointing fingers down at the poor and telling them they get too many handouts. We can't wait until the economy turns around and trust our materialism to pay for everything.

Do you agree it's time for leaders in Washington to choose people over politics? Why not tell them who you are and why you care about Fixing the Debt? Just click here to share your story.

Debt Fix the Debt The Citizen's Petition Vermont