Category: Bethany Stone
N.H., Maine Legislators Continue to Scrutinize Iraq Funding
WASHINGTON – As they continue to scrutinize and debate President Bush’s $87 billion request for Iraq and Afghanistan, many New Hampshire and Maine lawmakers are prepared to support – and even co-sponsor – amendments that would make at least a portion of the money a loan.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) has co-sponsored an amendment that would require Iraq to repay $10 billion of the more than $20 billion designated for reconstruction. More than $65 billion is earmarked for military operations.
Although critics of the amendment say Iraq would be unable to pay back the money, Collins said she would like to alleviate some of the United States’ financial burden. She said Iraq has large oil reserves and a highly educated population, which would make it easier to amass the money necessary to repay its debts.
“Ultimately, it will be a wealthy country with the ability to repay the American taxpayer for the help we’re giving now to build a working infrastructure,” Collins said in an interview. “And I think it makes sense from a taxpayer’s perspective to structure $10 billion of the assistance as a loan.”
Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) said she supports making Iraq repay even more than $10 billion.
“It balances our need to support the developing self-sufficiency of the Iraqi state with the need to keep American taxpayers from bearing an overly large share of the costs,” Snowe said in a statement.
Some of the $20 billion proposed by the Bush administration would pay for such things as museums and roads. Collins said she decided to offer her amendment because the money could be spent on similar things in the United States.
“Many of my constituents have e-mailed me or called to say that they support my efforts and they are concerned that so much money is going to be used for projects in Iraq, whether it’s new schools or garbage trucks or sewer systems that are needed right here at home,” Collins said.
The only lawmaker from New Hampshire or Maine who expressed opposition to the creation of loans was Sen. John Sununu, a Republican. He said a loan would send the wrong message to the Iraqi people, whom the United States is trying to help.
Sununu added that he expects the Senate to approve most of Bush’s request by the end of the month. He noted that Congress has added extra money to support reserves traveling home from Iraq for vacations.
“We want [the troops] to know that we appreciate the work that they’re doing,” he added.
While the Senate is on recess this week, the House is looking to reduce the total through minor cutbacks. Some lawmakers have targeted such expenses as garbage trucks and the establishment of an Iraqi ZIP code system.
Rep. Jeb Bradley (R-N.H.), like many of his colleagues, said designating some portion of the money as a loan is necessary.
“There is increasing desire on the part of members of the House at leastáthat there should be some mechanism for repayment of the reconstruction dollars,” he said.
Granite Staters are asking legitimate questions about the money for Iraq, Bradley said, and he is attempting to convey those concerns on the House floor. Support for U.S. troops remains high among his constituents.
“I think that, for the most part, people are fairly supportive and understand that it’s important that we stay the course and that we succeed in Iraq in order to reduce the threat of terrorism and instability in that region of the world,” Bradley said.
Rep. Charles Bass (R-N.H.) said he supported a loan. Despite public concerns, Bass said he was optimistic the money the United States is spending on Iraq would contribute to a beneficial outcome.
“Having a stable Middle East and winning the war on terrorism is a legitimate sacrifice, if you will, to make over the short term for very significant long term gain,” he said.
The area lawmakers had a mixed reaction to whether the international community would play a larger role, either with financial contributions or troops, in Iraq.
Bradley said it looked as though United Nations members will start providing additional expenses and personnel to aid in the Iraqi effort.
Bass said he expects other countries to aid the reconstruction effort further along in the process, though getting them to do so will be an “uphill battle.” He said leaders of other countries know the United States will foot the bill, so they have little incentive to pitch in.
Collins agreed.
“I am pessimistic about the rest of the world stepping up to the challenge of providing the money to rebuild Iraq,” she said. “I think we’ll get some limited assistance, but not nearly the billions and billions that will be required to accomplish the task. That means the burden is going to fall most heavily on our country and that’s one reason why I think it’s important that part of the cost be born ultimately by the people who are going to benefit – the Iraqi citizens.”
Gregg’s Wife in Thoughts of N.H. Legislators
WASHINGTON - Kathleen Gregg, the wife of Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), was in the thoughts of New Hampshire Congress members Tuesday as questions about her abduction, robbery and eventual safe return remained unanswered.
Two men kidnapped Mrs. Gregg from her suburban Washington home at approximately 9:30 a.m. Tuesday and took her at knifepoint to a nearby bank to withdraw cash, according to the Fairfax County, Va., police. The men left the scene shortly after Mrs. Gregg handed them the cash.
New Hampshire legislators expressed relief over Mrs. Gregg's safe return.
"This was obviously a very traumatic event for Kathy," Rep. Charles Bass (R-N.H.) said in a statement Tuesday afternoon. "My thoughts are with her and the entire Gregg family as they deal with the aftermath of this terrible ordeal. I am hopeful that the perpetrators of this crime will soon be caught and punished to the fullest extent of the law."
"We're extremely, extremely happy that Mrs. Gregg is safe," said T.J. Crawford, spokesman for Rep. Jeb Bradley (R-N.H.).
Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.).also issued a message of support for the Gregg family Tuesday.
"This was an outrageous and horrific crime," he said. "It's an incredible relief to know that Kathy Gregg is safe, and we can only hope that her assailants will be caught quickly and brought to justice."
It is not known if the abductors knew that Mrs. Gregg is married to a U.S. senator. Bass' wife, Lisa, and their two children live in Peterborough. But Bass spokeswoman Sally Tibbetts said the couple recognizes that crimes can occur anywhere.
Federal Medicaid Funding Awaits State Answers
WASHINGTON - New Hampshire's request for more federal Medicaid money for nursing homes has stalled because state officials have failed to respond to a Bush administration request for information.
Mary Kahn, spokeswoman for the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said federal officials asked New Hampshire in August for more data on its request for additional nursing home money. State officials said they sent the information in on Oct. 1 and will remain in contact with CMS to answer any further questions.
The state legislature voted this year to levy a 6 percent tax on gross revenues of state nursing homes and to ask the federal government to match the money with funds from Medicaid, the federal-state health-care program for the poor. New Hampshire plans to redistribute the money to nursing homes, based on the number of Medicaid recipients they house.
To avoid over-taxing nursing homes with few Medicaid patients, the state also asked the federal government to waive a regulation requiring a uniform tax on health-care facilities across the state.
Kahn said CMS, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services, will work with New Hampshire officials on their June requests once they provide more information. She said she did not know how much longer the process would take.
"The ball is in their court on this," Kahn said in an interview Wednesday.
According to Douglas McNutt, acting director of the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services Division of Elderly and Adult Services, the department has been working to answer the series of complicated questions posed by CMS concerning Medicaid payments.
"The letter is not late," McNutt said. "It's not that this is overdue or anything. It's just that those questions were asked and we have made a concerted effort to get together to respond to them."
McNutt said responding to the federal request for further information required consultation with the New Hampshire attorney general's office.
McNutt said he was not aware that information concerning the Medicaid reimbursement request would hold up review of the waiver application. The state "immediately" answered outstanding questions in July about the waiver request, he said.
John Poirier, executive director of the New Hampshire Health Care Association, said the federal money is desperately needed. He said New Hampshire nursing homes have not received additional Medicaid funding since 1999 and are losing more and more money each year.
Additional Medicaid money "will allow for facilities to bring in additional staff, to pay existing staff more so that there is better retention in the facilities," Poirier said.
Poirier said he was bothered by the slowness with which New Hampshire was taking up the federal questions.
"I'm disappointed that New Hampshire has not yet responded to CMS, and my organization is urging them to respond as quickly as they can get good, constructive answers back to them," he said. "It is something that is critical to these facilities and if there is á any more significant delay than already has occurred in the approval of this program, it will not help our facilities."
According to Bill Hamilton, advocacy director for AARP New Hampshire, a number of states are trying to get more Medicaid money for nursing homes, a development that is placing stress on the federal budget.
"CMS is looking at it a little more closely because now there's another state that's going to be doing it, [there are] additional costs," said Hamilton, whose organization represents senior citizens.
Other states that have made similar requests to CMS include New Jersey, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Kentucky.
Congress Rushes to Keep Do-Not-Call Legislation
WASHINGTON - New Hampshire residents can look forward to a likely drop in annoying telemarketing phone calls starting Oct. 1, as Congress speed-dialed its way through a bill Thursday to enforce a federal do-not-call registry.
Both the House and Senate moved swiftly just one day after a federal judge in Oklahoma City released a ruling that Congress had not authorized the Federal Trade Commission to institute the national registry.
The House acted first, as Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Billy Tauzin (R-La.) introduced a bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Charlie Bass (R-N.H.), to clearly empower the FTC to execute the do-not-call registry. The House approved the bill, 412-8, on Thursday morning, and the Senate approved the bill, 95-0 later in the day.
Congress moved far more quickly than usual, said Rep. Jeb Bradley (R-N.H.), who has been in the House eight months.
"I don't agree with the judge's assessment," he said Thursday. Bradley said he thought a bill Congress passed in February authorizing the FTC to draft rules to curb telemarketing empowered the commission to establish the do-not-call list. U.S. District Judge Lee R. West ruled the FTC did not have that authority.
"We're correcting that right now, if in fact there was even a problem," Bradley said.
Bass said he fully expects President Bush to sign the law quickly.
"Twenty-four hours ago, we found out about the problem, and today we're attempting to solve it," Bass said in an interview Thursday. "So there's no reason to believe [the bill] couldn't be signed into law sometime before next week."
Bass said that after West released his ruling Wednesday, his congressional office was deluged with calls from constituents who supported creation of the do-not-call list. This doesn't usually happen, even with more critical issues, he said.
"This is not an issue like Iraq or the economy or the kinds of issues that Congress considers 'big' issues," he said. "It is irritating to many people."
The numbers prove it.
More than 50 million Americans have registered their phone numbers on the do-not-call list since June. Telemarketers who call those numbers could be fined up to $11,000.
The FTC reported that 274,893 New Hampshire phone numbers were registered on the do-not-call list as of Sept. 16. The 2002 census estimated the state's population at approximately 1,275,000.
New Hampshire is one of 24 states, according to the FTC, that did not have its own do-not-call list in place. So the national list has added significance for residents, Bradley said.
Calling the federal court's ruling a "technicality," Bradley said the list's numbers indicate strong national support by Americans who deserve the right to avoid telemarketing calls.
"People should not be denied because of a technicality the ability to voluntarily restrict calls that are coming in at dinnertime or maybe at bedtime, who knows?" he said Thursday. "I think it's something that's long overdue."
Presidential Candidates Torn Between Campaigns, Congressional Duties
WASHINGTON - New Hampshire residents are used to seeing a lot of presidential candidates around this time every four years. But what happens in the Capitol when six of the nine candidates -10 if retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark enters the race-are members of Congress?
The 2004 presidential election is nearly in full swing - New Hampshire's primary is Jan. 27 -- and critics are quick to point out the faults of the Democratic candidates challenging President Bush. And with so many of those candidates holding congressional seats, their absences during important votes have placed their campaigns under much scrutiny.
"It's obviously complicated matters for Democrats in the House, and it's even more complicated for Democrats in the Senate because you've got four candidates," said Norman Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank here. "And four candidates really, when you've only got 49 members, can make a difference."
Balancing campaign appearances with congressional schedules is a complicated undertaking for most of this year's Democratic candidates. "It's not the first time this happened," Ornstein said. "Of course, it happened when Bob Dole was running for president as [Senate] majority leader [in 1996]. You've got tremendous cross-pressures. When you're campaigning for president, you've pretty much got to be campaigning night and day."
Supporters say that the candidates must be on the road to reach out to voters, explain their positions and demonstrate their concern for favored issues.
"You can't run for president and be in Washington every day for six months," said Pamela Walsh, spokeswoman for the New Hampshire Democratic Party. "They're trying very hard to balance those responsibilities. They're running because they believe they can make a difference and make it better, and that's why they ran to serve in Congress. And so they're continuing to do that job, while working to make sure we have a president who is going to be doing that job."
But detractors say the candidates are failing to act on their words when they repeatedly miss votes and lack a physical presence in Congress.
"The bottom line is these candidates are crisscrossing the country criticizing President Bush on every issue from the budget to tax relief to national security issues to prescription drugs," said Julie Teer, communications and political director of the New Hampshire Republican Party. "And they need to start putting their money where their mouth is. And when these issues are on the floor of the Senate and the floor of the House for votes, oftentimes, they can't find the time or don't think that it actually is important enough to actually show up, do their jobs that they're elected to do right now and vote on them."
According to a Sept. 5 Republican National Committee tally, Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.) missed the most votes -- 90 percent -- since he began his campaign. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) is second, having missed votes 57 percent of the time. Other Democratic Congress members running for president are Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and Sens. John Edwards of North Carolina, Bob Graham of Florida and Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut.
"There's no question that votes are taking place that are close, and it's almost inevitable that people who are simultaneously members and candidates end up being pulled in two directions," Ornstein said.
It is when those votes are potentially close that the input of Democratic candidates is vital. Last week, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) successfully scheduled the vote for his overtime pay amendment so the Democratic candidates could be on hand. The Senate passed the amendment, which blocked any action to change current overtime laws, by a vote of 54-45.
However, according to Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.), planning Senate votes around the four Democratic candidates has not been a common occurrence. That's because the Republicans control the Senate - and its schedule.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), Sununu said, "has made it clear that we have work that needs to get done. We need to continue to work to stay on schedule, and I don't think that there has been or will be a great deal of accommodation based on their schedules."
Scheduling conflicts aside, Dennis W. Johnson, associate dean of the Graduate School of Political Management at the George Washington University, said what the Democratic candidates are doing in their campaigns should be of no interest to members of Congress, who have more vital issues to concentrate on.
"The economy and the war and the war effort are far more important as global issues for Congress and the way Congress behaves than what the presidential candidates themselves are saying," he said.
Yet Ornstein says the opposite is true. The Democratic presidential candidates' voices in Congress are not silent, especially when they speak out against Bush on such controversial issues as Iraq and the economy, through their campaigns.
"As the Democratic presidential candidates criticize Bush on Iraq, it gives more leverage to Democrats in Congress who are asking for hearings or asking questions at hearings or raising these issues as well," he said.
Sununu added that because of the candidates' opposition to Bush in their campaigns, the party lines are sharper in the Senate.
"They're out there campaigning and to whatever extent demagoguing issues or criticizing the president, so naturally that creates a more partisan atmosphere and highlights some of the debates we're having here in Congress," Sununu said.
The question still remains: when New Hampshire residents go to the polls, will they care if the Democratic candidates missed votes in Congress?
To the GOP's Teer, the voters will see it as an issue of sincerity. "I think that voters are asking and are going to continue to ask, 'Why would we put somebody in the highest office in the land who can't make a difference in their current job? she said. Why would you promote that kind of lack of leadership and lack of sincerity about the issues they're campaigning on?' "
And on the other side, Ornstein said he does not see the lack of votes affecting the candidates' success at the polls because the public understands that running for president and holding a seat in Congress are two full-time jobs.
Instead, the candidates' reputations will matter most to the voters, Walsh said.
"I think what they've accomplished has earned them respect from a lot of people," she said.
Mood in Washington Cloudy as Congress, Public Await Answers
WASHINGTON - As President Bush pushes Congress for $87 billion more for war and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan, members of Congress have questions, experts are critical and the public continues its support for U.S. troops.
Yet, most agree on one thing: after the administration is pressed for answers, Bush will get the money.
"I think he's going to receive [the $87 billion], but it's going to be subject to close scrutiny and explanation," Rep. Charlie Bass, R-N.H., said in an interview Tuesday. "And I think there'll be a lot of questions about where it leads us, what other funds are going to be made available from other countries, what kind of revenue-generating capacities are within Iraq over the next year, and what are the prospects for us getting some portion of this back at some point."
Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H. had fewer questions about the need for more money.
"This will be expensive, but it will be money well spent if it, as I believe, can lead to having a significant negative effect on the ability of Islamic fundamentalists to use the Middle East as a breeding ground of hate and terrorists bent on attacking our country," Gregg said in a statement.
Chuck Cushman, director of the Master of Arts and Legislative Affairs program at George Washington University here, Bush must prove himself before the money comes his way.
"I think that he'll get what he asked for or something very, very close to it," Cushman said. "But I don't think he'll enjoy the process. His administration is going to be dragged over the coals. They're going to have to defend every decision they've made and they're going to have to demonstrate that they've gotten their act together. And then they'll get the money.
"The mood in Washington has been fairly negative for a while about whether or not the Pentagon and the White House had presented a realistic estimate of what this operation was going to require of the United States," he said.
According to Cushman and Karlyn Bowman of the American Enterprise Institute, much of the public's support derives from its identification of the war in Iraq with the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"One of the reasons that I think Americans are going to be somewhat patient -- their patience isn't infinite -- but I think that they will be patient because they believe that the war with Iraq is part of the war on terrorism," Bowman said. "They don't see it as a separate military event."
"I think the president gets a pretty big free pass because of the war-on-terror cover," Cushman said.
"It's really been surprising to me the whole time to look at the polling since the start of the run-up to this last year that there's this assumption in the public that Iraq is somehow responsible for Sept.11 when zero evidence has been found of that," he added.
Whatever their views of the origin of the war, Bowman said many Americans knew tackling Iraq would not be easy.
"Clearly Americans are worried about casualties. How could it be otherwise?" she said. "But at á the same time, nearly all of the polls that have asked the question show that a solid majority still say that the war was worth the cost. And they have always thought that the peace would be more difficult than winning the war."
Rep. Jeb Bradley, R-N.H. said his constituents have expressed similar thoughts.
"My own feeling and what I've heard from people is that there was an expectation that winning the peace was going to be the more difficult part of this job and that this is not a surprise," he said in an interview Tuesday. "Have there been roadblocks? Absolutely, but I think it was to be expected.
"And I think that while nobody likes to see the threat that our troops are enduring every day, and the increasing casualties are a tragedy for the nation and the families, I think people understand, though, that this is an important component to winning the war on terrorism."
In an interview Wednesday, Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H. said with the support his New Hampshire constituents have shown for rebuilding Iraq comes a desire to stay informed. "So there's a strong support for the mission," he said. "People want information. They want to hear the president speak about our priorities in Iraq. They want to have as strong a sense as possible as to where we're being successful and where there is work still to be done."
