Scott Smith

Scott Smith is a Republican who has been Mesa, Arizona's 38th mayor since June 2, 2008. Since he took office, Mesa has downsized its government nearly 20 percent. He was Vice President of the United States Conference of Mayors (USCM) in 2011-2012 and is slated to be President of the group in 2013-2014.

In a 2011 interview in the Washington Post, Smith said, "I’m a conservative Republican, and I believe . . . [creating a prosperous America is] best achieved through a limited government, low regulations, and low taxation." However, he also signed onto an October 2012 letter from the USCM urging the federal government to reduce the deficit without additional discretionary spending cuts. Smith was part of a mayor delegation that urged President Obama and Congress to maintain tax breaks for investors in the $3.7 trillion municipal-bond market.

Ties to Pete Peterson's "Fix the Debt"
The Campaign to Fix the Debt is the latest incarnation of a decades-long effort by former Nixon man turned Wall Street billionaire Pete Peterson to slash earned benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare under the guise of fixing the nation's "debt problem."

Smith is on the steering committee of the campaign to Fix the Debt.

Smith is a member of "Building America's Future," a bipartisan coalition of elected officials led by fellow FTD leaders Michael Bloomberg and Ed Rendell along with former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

This article is part of the Center for Media and Democracy's investigation of Pete Peterson's Campaign to "Fix the Debt." Please visit our main SourceWatch page on Fix the Debt.

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