N.H. and Maine Members Support Bush’s War Funding; Caution Budget Implications
WASHINGTON—Members of Congress from New Hampshire and Maine agreed that President Bush’s supplemental budget request Tuesday for $74.4 billion in war funds was a necessary one, despite conflicting opinions over the effect such spending could have on the president’s fiscal 2004 budget. But one of Maine’s Republican Senators broke party ranks in voting to cut the president’s tax cut proposal in half, in part because of her concern about the costs of the war in Iraq.
Bush on Tuesday morning called on Congress to act “quickly and responsibly” and said the emergency spending request is “directly related to winning this war.” His plan covers a six-month period and includes spending for the Defense Department, the rebuilding of postwar Iraq, U.S. allies and homeland security.
“I think the president’s package is a very strong one … and, I think, a common sense package,” Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.) said Tuesday in an interview. “This spending is needed now.”
Sununu noted that the funds are being sought on an emergency basis for the current fiscal year and said that the president’s proposed budget for next year is sufficient to address “any recurring costs.” Both Sununu and Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) support Bush’s budget.
“Should additional funding be necessary, I will continue to make sure our brave men and women of our armed forces have the resources they need to be successful in Iraq,” Gregg said in a statement.
On Tuesday, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and two other Republicans joined with Senate Democrats in a 51-48 vote to reduce Bush’s proposed 10-year tax cut from $726 billion to $350 billion. The difference in the size of the tax cut, according to Snowe’s press secretary, Dave Lackey, could do much “to cushion the size of the war cost.”
“The president’s request puts a figure on the cost of the war, but clearly it’s an estimate, and much depends on precisely what happens during this process,” Lackey said in an interview. “[Sen.] Snowe wants our military commanders to know they have the resources right now.”
Rep. Tom Allen (D-Maine) said that he supports the war package to “support our allies and our troops” and has “no doubt it will pass,” but implementing Bush’s sizeable tax cut at the same time spending is rising because of the war would be “destructive.”
“To do massive tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans when we’re at war is crazy,” Allen said in an interview. “It’s clear, absolutely clear, that further tax cuts are the administration’s priority.”
“We need to throw out [this] budget, and do one that’s realistic and prudent … at a time when we’re running up hundreds of billions of dollars for a war,” he added, saying that Bush’s budget made “no sense” and would put the country “in a financial hole that will take decades to climb out of.”
On Friday, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) was one of three Republicans to support an amendment to the budget resolution that would have trimmed the proposed tax cut by $100 billion to help pay for the war in Iraq. But she voted against the successful effort Tuesday to trim the cut by more than half.
“Originally, the budget didn’t include any funding for the war, so establishing this reserve fund was essential to drawing a realistic blueprint for the expenditures our nation will have to make in the near future,” Collins said in a statement.
As to the more drastic rollback of the proposed tax cuts, she said that the economic impact of the war would need to be seen before making an appropriate budget decision.
In an interview, Rep. Jeb Bradley (R-N.H.) said of the president’s supplemental budget request, “I think the thing to remember is that while there is some deficit spending in this proposal these are unprecedented times: a recession at the same time as the war on terror.”
He focused on two major concerns–“The security of the American people and also getting the economy back on track”-and to not act in such a way that would deviate from those two fundamental goals.
Published in Foster’s Daily Democrat, in New Hampshire.
