News Release

CAF Offers Experts on Jobs, Deficits, Social Security to Respond to Release of Rivlin “Bipartisan” Debt Commission

On the heels of the surprise release of the deficit-reduction proposals from the co-chairmen of the White House deficit commission, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, the Bipartisan Policy Center has released a report of its Debt Reduction Task Force.

Both panels embrace austerity and dangerous Social Security cuts while ignoring the damage their proposals would do to the economy and the vast majority of Americans. The Campaign for America’s Future urges media covering these reports to interview experts who reject these proposals and support going after the real causes of the deficit.

On Tuesday, Roger Hickey of the Campaign for America’s Future announced that an alternative commission—the Citizens’ Commission on Jobs, Deficits and the American Economy—will release its recommendations on November 30.

in a story on NPR’s All Things Considered, Hickey declared: "I'm happy to announce that with all of these right-wing commissions, we at the Campaign for America's Future ... are going to come out with our own report on how you get deficits under control by growing the economy and investing in the future." (Click here for the NPR story.)

Among the members of this commission who are available for interviews are:

• Robert Borosage, Co-Director, Campaign for America’s Future
• Heidi Hartman, President, Institute for Women’s Policy Research
• Dean Baker, Co-Director, Center for Economic and Policy Research
• Robert Reich, Former Secretary of Labor, UC Berkeley
• Teresa Ghilarducci, Schwartz Chair of Economic Policy Analysis, New School for Social Research
• Robert Kuttner, founder The American Prospect
• Nancy Altman, Co-Director, Social Security Works

To talk with any of these experts, call Gena Madow at (202) 789-7756.