COLUMBUS, Ohio—Fictional presidential candidate Hugh Jidette is a cheerleader for the more than $13 trillion national debt—and he’d like to see it get even bigger.
Jidette is popping up in TV and billboard ads across the country, pledging in one ad that the national debt will “double, maybe even triple” on his watch and saying, “Borrow like there’s no tomorrow!”
The nonprofit group that created him says the real point is to get people talking about ways to reverse the nation’s growing debt. His name sounds like “huge debt” for a reason.
The $6 million campaign by the Washington, D.C.-based Peter G. Peterson Foundation aims to promote bipartisan solutions to the federal fiscal crisis.
The foundation’s founder and namesake was U.S. commerce secretary under Republican President Richard Nixon, and a former chairman and CEO of the now-defunct Lehman Brothers. Peterson served on the Bi-Partisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform after a 1994 appointment by Democratic President Bill Clinton.
“Americans are beginning to realize that there won’t be many future jobs if we don’t get our fiscal house in order soon,” foundation vice chairman Michael Peterson said at a Wednesday event unveiling the ads.
Peterson said a recent confidential survey of former federal officials conducted by the foundation found that 100 percent of both Democrats and Republicans strongly agree that the federal government is on an unsustainable path. But he said politicians are hesitant to debate the substance of the issue in public.
Voters in the midterm elections across the country ranked reducing the federal budget deficit as the top priority for the new Congress, followed closely by spending to create jobs, according to Associated Press exit polling. Republicans and independents were prevalent among those who ranked debt reduction highest.
The campaign is especially focused in Denver and Columbus, Ohio—places with track records of bipartisan cooperation that the foundation hopes can get grassroots momentum going.
Former Ohio Tax Commissioner Joanne Limbach said it’s important to act while voters are energized on the issue. She said politicians too often use financial gimmicks to try to make budgets more palatable.
“One of the things we want to do is to try to get to reality,” she said.
Peterson said that could include tax increases, spending cuts and formula adjustments, such as raising the age of eligibility for Social Security, to save money.
Brian Rothenberg, a spokesman for the liberal advocacy group ProgressOhio, said he suspects diminished Social Security coverage is a goal of the campaign.
“We’re concerned that there appears to be a concerted effort to continue to chip away at people’s Social Security in an ultimate attempt to privatize it,” he said. “Contrary to their alarmist message, the Social Security Trust Fund is more solvent than most government funds, according to most studies.”
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AP Correspondent John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed to this report.
