Sign Maker Angry Over Budget Crisis Has Message for Congress: Get Serious

Ira Spector can’t sleep these days. He’s too busy watching the congressional debates over the budget deficit that are rebroadcast overnight on the C-SPAN television channel.

And what he sees makes Spector an angry voter, an angry taxpayer. Those rascals in Washington are playing politics, he says, instead of taking a serious look at the budget deficit that in 10 years will be larger than the combined incomes of every taxpaying United States citizen.

So Spector, a Solana Beach sign maker, is taking the message to the streets. On Friday, he hung three 20-by-3-foot signs from his South Cedros Avenue business imploring voters to write their congressmen and senators in Washington with a warning:

“Tell them to stop playing politics now,” he says. “Or come November we’ll throw the do-nothing, hypocritical rascals out.”

“I’ve seen them on the television, all saying the things that their own constituencies want to hear. And we’ve got a Godforsaken disaster going on in this country--a fiscal crisis that goes beyond politics to affect us and our kids and our grandchildren.”

Even today, Spector says, the current budget deficit exceeds $13,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States.

“It’s real, not fake,” he said. “It’s time these politicians started acting like statesmen and stop acting selfishly, worrying about their own elections.”

Spector’s signs warn local passers-by not only to call their own representatives but to telephone out-of-state relatives with the message to call their congressmen and senators.

The 57-year-old Coronado man, who in 1972 led a North County homeowners revolt against a proposed beachfront hotel complex, says he has seen the power of a grass-roots rebellion.

“That’s the message we’ve got to get out,” he said, “that we’re not impotent. We can do something today about this budget crisis if we band together and let these politicians know we really mean business. We want something done.”

Spector said the reaction to his banners has been positive.

“It’s got people talking about the issue,” he said. “Now I hope they go home and pick up their telephones and dust off their typewriters.”

He said he got the idea from a Florida man’s recent campaign in which he spent more than $60,000 to place full-page ads in several newspapers nationwide speaking out against Washington’s handling of the budget deficit.

“Those ads set the wheels in motion for me,” he said. “I said, ‘By golly, I’m going to do something about this.’ ”

Local politicians say they’re attuned to Spector’s concerns.

“Bill Lowery (R-San Diego) shares every one of his frustrations,” said Lowery aide Karl Higgins. “Some members of Congress are addicted to deficit spending. Luckily, we don’t share that problem.

“If I get any calls in response to that banner, I’ll tell people that we’re disgusted that we didn’t get a solution Oct. 4 when we voted for a budget that would have reduced the deficit $500 billion over five years.”

An aide for Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) said: “Hey, if he wants to use a banner to exercise his constitutional right to free speech, that’s OK with us. We agree with him.”