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South Floridians Sound Off On Lingering Debt Debate

FORT LAUDERDALE (CBS4) - The debt ceiling debate in Washington is hitting the South Florida airwaves.

One ad dubbed 'spenditol' urges viewers to call U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, (D) FL, and weigh in on the debate.

The ad shows a woman doing a parody of a medicine commercial saying that spenditol will cure the nation's debt or that spenditol is a congressional wonder drug.

It was produced by the conservative group 'Concerned Women for America.'

Leftist leaning groups are getting in on the act too.

Moveon.org has a commercial dubbed 'Big Mike's Losin' Sleep'.

In it a man wakes up from a seemingly bad dream filled with Washington lawmakers and says

"The Republicans must be crazy" and "under George W. Bush Congress raised the national debt limit seven times!"

The ads are designed to get you fired up on the debt ceiling debate, and weigh in with your local congressman or senator.

CBS4 News spoke with Senator Bill Nelson's Washington office and they say that last week about 2,000 calls came into their office.  The majority of those calls were from people concerned about the future of Social Security.

When CBS4's Joan Murray informally polled South Floridians about what's going on in Washington, we heard a lot of frustration about the inability so far to reach a deal on raising the debt ceiling.

"They have no idea what they're doing.  They are clueless, completely clueless," said Gary Williams.

Voter Trudy Palin agreed, "Nobody is giving any consideration to the good of the country."

"It's like children playing in a sandbox they don't know the rules," lamented Melissa Bobis.

Murray also asked South Floridians whether they would be in favor of more cuts or raise taxes.

"To avoid default and make the U.S. credit go bad, yes choosing higher taxes may be the lesser of two evils," said Andrew Kelly

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