Nick Troian of Georgetown University joined student body presidents from colleges across the country on Thursday to lobby Congress about the need to reach an agreement over the debt ceiling. Photo by Kelly F. Zimmerman, Medill News Service
WASHINGTON – Student body presidents from four Vermont colleges joined forces with student leaders from 40 other states in an effort to push Congress and the president to raise the federal debt ceiling and cut spending.
The “Do We Have a Deal Yet?” initiative,created recently in response to the debt ceiling debate, launched a lobbying campaign Thursday with about 120 student body presidents from across the country to support the “Gang of Six” and other bipartisan efforts to end the debt ceiling debate and deal with federal budget issues.
“I think it’s pretty disgraceful that we have legislators who are acting with less maturity than college students,” said Benjamin Chaucer, a recent graduate and former student body president of Johnson State College in Johnson.
President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner continued meetings Thursday to try to reach an agreement on a budget deal that would cut spending and authorize an increase in the current debt ceiling of $14.3 trillion. The “Gang of Six” – a bipartisan group of senators – unveiled a plan to cut about $3.7 trillion from the deficit.
Chaucer signed a coalition letter that will be sent members of the Senate and President Barack Obama this week. Organizers hope to hand the letter to Obama when he visits the University of Maryland on Friday.
“It’s time for the legislators to grow up and to come to terms with the fact that they’re not doing the job that they’re being paid to do,” Chaucer said. “You can only play hooky on your responsibilities for so long.”
Three other Vermont colleges, including the University of Vermont, Lyndon State College, and Castleton State College appeared on the list of schools urging legislators to come to a long-term debt solution by Aug. 2, the deadline to raise the U.S. legal borrowing limits or risk default. The coalition said more than 15,000 students collectively attend the four Vermont schools.
According to the group, it represents more than 2 million students from across the country.
Mike Meaney, president of Georgetown University’s student association, said the coalition is not claiming a solution to the country’s financial woes or targeting any particular leader.
“We are not here to tell our leaders exactly what to do,” he said. “We are simply here to tell them to lead.”