Indiana Residents React to Possible Debt Deal for 'Tell Washington'
Fort Wayne residents are hopeful about compromise as default deadline nears.
Aug. 1, 2011 — -- Lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle are to blame for the crisis that has pushed President Obama and congressional leaders to an 11th-hour, tentative deal to raise the U.S. debt limit and avoid a default, diners at an Indiana restaurant told "World News'" Diane Sawyer.
"Who do I blame?" Nabi Faghihi asked. "I blame both sides equally because I feel they are more worried about who gets the pat on the back to say, 'I solved it,' instead of worrying what the people's needs are. They're more worried because it's Republican or Democrat that gets the credit."
"I'm happy that they've come to a conclusion," one woman said of the fragile compromise, "but I do think that we've lost a lot waiting all this time."
Sawyer sat down with residents Sunday at Faghihi's Sara's Family Restaurant in Fort Wayne for the ABC "Tell Washington" series to give them a chance to have their opinions heard on the debt crisis and other issues.
"My father always told me that people should live within their means and I think the government should do the same," Leonard Mechels said.
He said that many of the residents in a mobile-home park that he and his wife, Bernadette, owned in Henderson, Ky., were on Social Security so any changes to that would hurt them. Leonard Mechels said he wanted Obama to come up with more ideas on where to make cuts.
Deal? $1 Trillion in Spending Cuts in 10 Years
The plan reached Sunday night by Obama and congressional leaders would increase the government's borrowing power by up to $2.4 trillion through 2013, and impose nearly $1 trillion in spending cuts in 10 years. It headed to the Senate and the House today for votes.
"He has not come out with anything," Mechels said.
Another local woman who joined the conversation said she didn't think Americans were thinking about the repercussions of reaching a deal so close to the default deadline. She said people would be "absolutely" shocked at how cuts to various programs would affect their communities.
"Our credit is downgraded. We'll have a lot of cuts," she said. "I don't think people have an appetite for the cuts they are talking about."
Faghihi said he hoped Sunday's deal would bring the national debt down so the United States didn't face the same problems 10 to 15 years from now.
Karen Francisco, an editorial writer for Fort Wayne's newspaper, the Journal Gazette, said Fort Wayne residents expressed a desire for compromise in their letters to the editor.
"We need that," she said. "I think everyone's tired of both sides digging in and not giving. If we reach a deal, that means both sides are giving."
Everyone agreed that this was not the government they'd grown up with. "Most rational Americans would have gone with the $4.7 trillion with a few revenue hikes," another woman said. "The extremists stopped that and now it's down to the wire and it seems like everyone is giving too much now."
"It's, 'We the people,'" X-ray technician Demaris Jones said of the U.S. Constitution's first three words. "It's not, 'We the government.'"
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