Tennessee’s Eighth District U.S. Representative John Tanner will speak at the University of Tennessee at Martin at 4 p.m., Nov. 30, in Watkins Auditorium of the Boling University Center. His presentation, “The United States and the New World Order,” is open to the public.

Tanner (D-Union City) is a frequent speaker on topics ranging from Social Security to the National Debt. He is a founding member of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of conservative to moderate democrats focused on fiscal responsibility in government.

“Today, our nation’s long term fiscal security is growing even bleaker with the addition of billions of dollars in emergency supplemental funds needed to rebuild the Gulf Region,” Tanner and his colleagues wrote in a Sept. 28 letter to President George W. Bush.

Tanner spoke to an election day-eve gathering in the UC Game Room in November of 2004 about the need for fiscal reform, calling the current situation a “generational mugging.” Tanner said the budget deficit and national debt in reality taxing young people, who will eventually have to pay it.

“Over the last four years, this country has borrowed in your name $1.7 billion a day,” Tanner said.

He also said that 72 percent of the budget deficit is being financed by other countries.

Tanner and his colleagues have also called for sweeping changes to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

“It is our responsibility to ensure these important retirement and health care programs are stable so future generations can obtain the assistance they have been promised and that they have helped support for others before them,” said Tanner in a statement.

A release from Tanner’s office says that legislation cosponsored with Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) would establish a bipartisan entitlement reform commission to review the three programs and make recommendations on how to sustain their long term solvency and stability.

The presentation is sponsored by the UT Martin Department of Management, Marketing and Political Science, International Studies and the Center for Global Studies and International Education. For more information, contact the Center for Global Studies at 731-881-1023.