CEOs urge Congress to take action on the national debt by raising taxes and cutting spending

By Beth Healy, Globe Staff

Chief executives from some of the nation’s biggest companies are urging Congress to forge a bipartisan deal to address the national debt by raising taxes and cutting spending.

The group, organized by the Campaign to Fix the Debt, involves more than 100 business leaders who support pro-growth tax reform to reduce the deficit. Among local executives who are urging Congress to act are Bank of America Corp. chief executive Brian T. Moynihan; Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. chief executive Marc Casper; Frederick C. Maynard III, managing director of Boston investment firm HarbourVest Partners; and Scott Donnelly, chief executive of Textron Inc. in Providence.

Some of these leaders gathered at the New York Stock Exchange Thursday morning to ring the opening bell to demonstrate their support for the issue.

“The only way you solve this thing is with tax increases and spending cuts. You have to do both. And anybody who ever says no, you can just grow your way out of this, just raise the top two brackets, just cut spending – it’s baloney. The math just doesn’t work, you have to do both,” said Honeywell chairman and chief executive Dave Cote, who is a member of the campaign’s steering committee, in a prepared video.

The executives have been organized by Campaign to Fix the Debt, founded by former US Senator Al Simpson and former White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles. The group has raised over $30 million to push policy makers to come up with legislation that deals with the national debt.