Carvin and Lowey Weigh in on Federal Debt
Rye Supervisor Joe Carvin and Rep. Nita Lowey, who will face off this November for Lowey’s congressional seat, differ on how to approach the nation’s $15.9 trillion debt.
Carvin, who spoke Friday outside Lowey’s White Plains office at a rally of the challenger’s young supporters, said the problems caused by the debt and deficit were “no longer ideological. They’re mathematical.”
“Today’s conference we had a number of young people there and ultimately it’s their future that’s being mortgaged – in fact in many ways stolen – from them,” Carvin said later in the day. “Every time you make a government expenditure you have to pay for it with taxes. The only question is whether it’s taxes today or taxes tomorrow.”
To tackle the long-term debt and annual budget deficits, Carvin, a Republican, believes the federal government must rein in spending on Social Security and Medicare. He noted that the life expectancy when Social Security was first put into place was just 62 years, while it is now 78.5 years.
“The bottom line is we’ve made promises we can’t possibly keep,” Carvin said.
Lowey, on the other hand, urged caution when it came to reducing the deficit solely through entitlement reform.
“We must not use the federal debt as an excuse to slash critical Medicare benefits or privatize Social Security, or otherwise target programs on which millions of Americans rely,” Lowey said in an e-mail. “The federal debt is a serious long-term challenge that should be addressed in a balanced way through responsible spending reductions and policies that will promote job creation and economic growth.”
Lowey (D-Harrison) pointed to her vote for the Budgetary Control Act of 2011, which cut discretionary spending by more than $2 trillion over 10 years while raising the debt ceiling.
Lowey has also called for closing certain tax loopholes and has supported letting the Bush-era tax cuts expire for the highest income Americans. While Carvin believes the Bush tax cuts should be extended across the board, he has acknowledged the need for closing some tax loopholes and said additional revenues could be generated that way. He said most of the problem, though, came from the spending side of the equation.
Carvin is running against Lowey, a 24-year incumbent, in what will become the state’s 17th Congressional District.
Adam has worked in the local news industry for the past two decades in Westchester County and the broader Hudson Valley. Read more from Adam’s author bio here.
