Congressman Dan Lungren (R-CA-03) announced that he will be holding a town hall meeting in Folsom this coming Thursday, July 21st. The event will be held at the Folsom Community Center, 52 Natoma Street from 7 – 8:30 pm.
The Folsom Democratic Club encourages the people of Folsom to turn out and come prepared to ask Dan Lungren questions about his voting record and his positions on current issues. If you’ve never attended one of Lungren’s town hall meetings, this is an excellent opportunity for you to observe his communication style up close and personal.
Among the topics that Folsom Democrats are eager to hear Lungren explain:
Dan Lungren voted for the Ryan Republican budget plan that would voucherize Medicare, effectively ending the program as we know it, all in the name of fiscal responsibility. But even the Ryan budget does nothing to address the impending debt limit catastrophe.
Largely overlooked in the media coverage of the Republican debt ceiling hostage drama is this: those 235 House Republicans and 40 GOP Senators who supported Paul Ryan’s 2012 budget bill voted to add $6 trillion to the U.S. national debt over the next decade. And that means, as Speaker John Boehner acknowledged, Republicans now and in the future would have to increase the debt ceiling – repeatedly.
Under the Ryan budget, Congress would be required to vote to increase the debt limit multiple times over the next several years. That’s because the Ryan budget adds to the national debt. How does Congressman Lungren rationalize his party’s support for a budget that requires raising the debt ceiling, while simultaneously blocking attempts to raise the debt ceiling?
Congressman Lungren’s mailing says we must rein in government spending. But President Obama has proposed reducing the debt by $4 Trillion over the next 10 years, and Republicans are opposed to his suggestion, even as Moody’s and Standard and Poor side with President Obama against the GOP.
Blogger M. S. Bellows, Jr. summarizes the S&P statement as follows:
The credit-rating agency Standard & Poors has released a statement that says, among other things, that merely raising the debt ceiling is not enough to prevent a downgrade of the United States’ credit rating, triggering market instability and causing the interest rate on U.S. debt to skyrocket. What’s more, S&P is attaching numbers and conditions to its statement: to ensure a stable credit rating, any deal between Obama and the Republicans must reduce debt by $4 trillion, should include some balance of cuts and revenues (ie, tax increases), and will involve concessions by both sides (a thinly-veiled repudiation of Eric Cantor’s assertion that merely attending negotiations is the only concession the GOP intends to make).
In short: the G.O.P. must grow up and accept Obama’s offer, including politically suicidal tax increases, or the U.S. economy will tank.
We strongly encourage Folsom residents to turn out in large numbers to ask direct, but respectful questions of their elected representative in Congress. We hope to see you there!
