South Florida lawmakers get avalanche of calls, emails about raising debt ceiling

[Scurrilous]

The debate over the federal debt ceiling brought a deluge of email and calls to Congress, including lawmakers from South Florida.

<snip>

"President Barack Obama asked Americans to reach out to Congress to make their voices heard on the debt ceiling debate —and so they did.

Thousands of callers with opinions on how to solve the debt crisis flooded the Capitol switchboard Tuesday, and email traffic swamped congressional servers on both sides of the aisle.

In South Florida, Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Miami, saw her website slow to a crawl, while Republican Rep. David Rivera’s office handled two and a half times its normal call volume.

Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson’s office got more than 5,500 emails Tuesday morning. And underscoring the role of seniors in the debate as well as their concerns about Medicare and Social Security, the American Association of Retired Persons dropped off 87,000 petitions at Republican Sen. Marco Rubio’s Orlando office.

"Our phones have been ringing off the hook all day — nice to see democracy at work," tweeted Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who is chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee and represents parts of Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

The Capitol, which typically handles 20,000 calls per hour, saw spikes of up to 40,000 calls Tuesday, rivaling the 50,000-an-hour rate of the 2010 health care debate."

"Congress and Capitol Hill have been flooded, with emails and phones, switchboards are jammed, servers going down. So it’s clear the American people are frustrated by the lack of compromise in Washington," said David Plouffe, the president’s senior adviser, who was clearly getting exactly the response the White House had sought when the president called Washington a town "where compromise has become a dirty word."

Their details of their opinions varied widely, but callers and emailers across Florida seemed to agree with the president, who warned Congress Monday night that even if Americans voted for divided government last fall, they didn’t vote for a dysfunctional government. Those heeding the president’s advice to make their voices heard on the debt debate had one common refrain: Get it done."

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/07/26/2332290/south-florida-lawmakers-get-avalanche.html#ixzz1TICs4aQh

:thumbsup:

[glowing]

1. I doubt in S. Florida it was compromise on the backs of seniors..

I'm sure it was leave it alone; tax the rich... keep your filthy hands off my paid into for life social security and medicare!!! "Get it done" isn't a sollution. Get it done on the compromises proposed really suck.. Its not even close to fair.. and its entirely unnecessary. Just raise the damn debt and squabble about the rest later on.. To hold ss and medicare and rich people having more tax breaks as a hostage in negotiations is ridiculous.

[Kolesar]

2. I would trust the Miami Herald because they were a Knight Ridder newspaper

The chain who published the articles by Strobel and Landay countering the Beast-Cheney lies about Iraq.

[Harmony Blue]

3. Many elderly Republicans are in buyer remorse mode given that

they regret electing Florida Governer Rick Scott, and the Tea party in general. I continue to be amazed people vote against their own interests, but the mentality that "it can't happen to me because I am in control" still persists in the American mindset. Well, if a default happens Americans will experience what the rest of the world has experienced the last 60 years.

[Tarheel_Dem]

4. Here in NC, I contacted my Rep (Mel Watt), who is the bomb. I also contacted

Kaye Hagan's office, and was unable to get through to Richard Burr. Thanks for the reminder, I think I'll give Sen. Burr another try. ;)