The Concord Coalition sponsored a "Principles and Priorities" town hall meeting in Sioux City this week. The coalition is a nonpartisan group that says it’s dedicated to balancing the federal budget and keeping Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security in working order…and educating the public about those issues.
The group’s Corey Davison says the event was an exercise to get people thinking about how they would balance the budget. He says it’s a chance for people to educate themselves "about where the money’s coming from, and where the money goes. The money comes from us," Davison says, "and we’ll pay just under three-Trillion dollars in taxes in the year to come." The Tuesday-night exercise was held at Morningside College in Sioux City.
One of the things this kid of exercise does is get people of all ages, backgrounds and political persuasions together — and the reason they do them on college campuses is that young people typically aren’t all that interested but they’ll inherit what we’re doing today. Specifically, he says they’ll inherit a load of debt.
Davison says the nation is at a crossroads, more than halfway through the first decade of this century. The national debt is approaching nine-Trillion dollars, and he says it could reach 17 or 18-trillion in the next ten years. Davison says they want people to see how these huge financial numbers have a direct impact on them.
"This is not just a local issue," he says. The tax money may go to Washington and come back in the form of government spending, but he says it deals with our taxes, our pocketbooks, and "the economic stewardship of what we turn over to the next generation." He says the Concord Coalition plans more events in Iowa over the next year before the presidential caucuses.