WASHINGTON The Employment Policies Institute, a nonprofit research organization that addresses issues affecting restaurants, debuted Thursday a $10 million advertising campaign arguing that current health-care reform legislation will fuel the national debt and hamper job creation.
The EPI’s national campaign kicks off with a television ad featuring Dr. June O’Neill, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, who maintains that the country is facing “an enormous debt crisis” and health care legislation will only add to that.
“Many of the plans to reform health care will make this crisis worse,” she says. “They will add hundreds of billions of dollars to the already $12 trillion national debt. This growing debt is unsustainable. It will have huge negative effects on jobs, taxes and our economy.”
Richard Berman, executive director of the EPI, said, “With the national debt about to top $12 trillion and debilitating unemployment rate exceeding 10 percent, an impenetrable 2,000-page health care reform plan, such as the one under debate in Congress, poses grave dangers for our economy.”
The ads are expected to air on Fox News, CNBC and CNN.
The pro-business EPI, which studies public policy issues surrounding employment economics, also has been campaigning against the rising national debt, most recently through a web site, DefeatTheDebt.com.
Berman writes a monthly column for Nation’s Restaurant News.
Contact Paul Frumkin at [email protected].
