I am a resident of Texas, DFW area, and just called the local offices of my Congress members to weigh in on the budget debate. Heres what I said, and the results:
My message was essentially as follows:
Setting aside the political posturing, several things seem fairly obvious to me.
- We need to raise the debt ceiling, and we do not need to repeat this circus anytime soon.
- Every person with any professional or experiential knowledge on reducing the deficit is quite clear that it will require both cuts and revenues
- It seems very counter intuitive to drastically cut government spending when the economy is still struggling, and recent jobs reports show the greatest job losses in the public sector.
As I noted, I called their local offices.
Rep. Pete Session - got through immediately, no wait. Sandy was very pleasant and polite, took down my comments. I asked what kinds of responses they were getting - she said pretty much divided.
Sen. Hutchison - again, got through immediately. Staffer did not identify himself. Took my comments. I asked how responses were trending - he said definitely to the Republican side of Cut, Cap, Balance
Sen. Cornyn - local phone forwareded to DC office. Option to leave message led to "voice mail box full". Option to speak to staff led to offer to leave message and then I was disconnected.
Have you called your elected representatives? What did you say? What if any response did you get?