Delegation Thinks Budget Proposal is Good for New Hampshire
WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 – New Hampshire residents will be benefiting from President Bush’s proposed budget for next year, according to the state’s all-Republican congressional delegation.
“It’s good for New Hampshire, it’s good for the economy,” Sen. Judd Gregg said in a phone interview. Gregg said it was important for the government to focus on addressing “the problems of the baby boomers,” which he believes this budget has done.
Gregg, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said he plans to concentrate on controlling entitlement spending. “That’s where the problem is,” he said.
In a statement on Monday, the day Bush submitted his budget plan to Congress, Gregg cited Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security as the mandatory spending programs that, if left unchecked, he said, would pose a threat to the economic security of future generations.
The President has proposed spending of almost $2.8 trillion for 2007, an increase of $61 billion over 2006.
“We must address the retirement needs of the massive Baby Boom generation, grapple with the skyrocketing costs of health care and find some balance that will not leave future generations with a bill they cannot pay,” Gregg said in a letter to his colleagues Monday. By 2011, according to Gregg, the proposed budget would curb the growth in Medicare spending and create personal retirement accounts as part of the Social Security program.
And as for the potential cuts in entitlement programs that Gregg announced last week, he said in the interview, “I think we’re going to have a pretty good challenge just trying to do what the president’s proposing here.”
Sen. John E. Sununu agreed that the budget proposal is promising. “I think overall it’s a budget that’s good for the economy and that’s good for New Hampshire,” he said in an interview . “We’ve had consistent economic growth in the last couple of years. We want to make sure that’s maintained. New Hampshire is a very entrepreneurial state, so making tax relief permanent that encourages investments and new business creation is important to New Hampshire.”
Sununu said controlling the growth of the federal government is in everyone’s interest. “It’s a budget that is very much in keeping with the New Hampshire tradition of fiscal responsibility,” he said, “and I hope we can speak with that discipline as we go through the process.”
In a statement, Rep Charles Bass said the President’s proposal provides Congress with a starting point for consideration and debate. “Congress needs to craft a budget that reflects our continuing national priorities of securing our homeland, developing our economy, and reducing the growth of mandatory government spending,” he said.
Rep. Jeb Bradley said in an interview that the President set the right tone by seeking to reduce the nation’s deficit while maintaining strong national security. Bradley, a member of the House Budget Committee, said he was “looking forward to the hearings process and working on it, and moving it forward and reducing our nation’s deficit while we continue to strengthen the military and grow our economy.”
When the budget goes before the House committee, Bradley will be looking out for issues that affect New Hampshire residents, he said, such as the home heating assistance program, and the nation as a whole, such as special education funds.
He said that he will also be looking at larger issues, such as how the budget proposal will affect “the deficit, how we slow the rate of growth of government programs, how we strengthen our nation’s defenses and how we grow the economy.”
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