Iowa “Debt Matters” forum: Fixing debt that’s ‘eating at us’ will require courage

DES MOINES - In describing how Congress could solve the country's rising debt, former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell borrowed from The Rolling Stones.

Rendell, speaking Thursday in Des Moines at the Iowa Caucus Consortium's 'Debt Matters” forum, said federal lawmakers need to work across political lines to reduce the $13 trillion national debt.

'You can't always get what you want,” Rendell said, invoking a famous Stones lyric. 'But if you try some time, you might find, you get what you need.”

Rendell and former World Fuel Services Corp. CEO Paul Stebbins, co-chairmen of the national advocacy group Fix the Debt, were featured at the event at the State Historical Museum. The duo recited the statistics: The U.S. debt is almost three-fourths of the nation's gross domestic product, and mandatory spending is on course to eat up the entire federal budget.

'The debt is real, it is serious, it's insidious, and it's eating at us,” Stebbins said. 'We are well on our way to really eating up every last bit of the budget on nondiscretionary spending.”

So why does such a serious problem go unaddressed?

Rendell and Stebbins said it will take political courage to tackle the debt, which is driven largely by health care costs and Social Security. And fixing Social Security, they said, probably will require unpopular changes, such as raising the retirement age or the cap on taxable income or changing how inflationary costs are calculated.

'It might hurt in the short run, but they are going to be things that will fix the country in the long run,” Rendell said.

Stebbins and Rendell encouraged Iowans to question presidential candidates on their ideas to reduce the debt.

Rendell said the only candidate talking about entitlement reform is New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican.

Fix the Debt describes itself as a nonpartisan group with the goal of 'putting America on a better fiscal and economic path.”

'This is not a problem that's going away,” Rendell said. 'It has to be solved for a million different reasons.”