12.13.10

Conrad Receives Concord Coalition's Economic Patriot Award

Group Honors Budget Chairman for His Efforts to Promote Fiscal Responsibility

Washington, DC – Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) today will be awarded the Concord Coalition’s Paul E. Tsongas Economic Patriot Award. The Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan, grassroots organization dedicated to balanced federal budgets, is honoring Chairman Conrad for his efforts to promote fiscal responsibility and seek out bipartisan solutions to the nation’s long-term fiscal crisis.

“I am deeply honored to be receiving the Concord Coalition’s Paul E. Tsongas Economic Patriot Award,” said Chairman Conrad. “And I am proud to be associated with the Concord Coalition’s tireless work to raise public awareness of the long-term fiscal challenge confronting our nation. I intend to uphold the spirit of this award by continuing to fight for a bipartisan plan
that puts our budget back on a sound long-term course.”

In presenting Senator Conrad with the award, the Concord Coalition called him “a true deficit hawk, who has made fiscal responsibility a hallmark of his tenure on the Budget Committee, as both Ranking Member and now Chairman.” The group further said that “his positions on the debt and deficit are very much in tune with ours. And he also embodies another hallmark of The Concord Coalition – leadership on a bipartisan basis. Over the years, Senator Conrad has reached across the aisle to work on America’s most difficult issues: healthcare, entitlement reform, our fiscal future and more, and he continues his bipartisan approach as a member of the President’s critical National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.”

“We’re on an unsustainable fiscal course,” said Chairman Conrad. “Last year, the government borrowed about 40 cents of every dollar it spent. And the long-term outlook is even worse. We have a simple choice to make. We can act responsibly by taking the steps necessary to stop the explosion in federal debt, or we can wait until the debt creates a full-blown economic crisis and the solutions are forced upon us. I believe one of the messages sent in the recent election is that the American people want to see action on this problem. It is time to end the partisan gridlock and find a bipartisan way forward.”

The Concord Coalition created the Paul E. Tsongas Economic Patriot Award to honor those who have “demonstrated a commitment to fiscal and generational responsibility.” The award has been given to individuals in business, government and politics who have “made lasting contributions to America’s economic health.” Some of the past winners of the award include: President Bill Clinton, Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan
Greenspan, U.S. Comptroller General David Walker, and Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH).

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Steve Posner (202) 224-7925