Category: Matthew Negrin
Sununu Votes for Final Version of Senate Stimulus Plan
SUNUNU
Union Leader
Matt Negrin
Boston University Washington News Service
7 February 2008
WASHINGTON — Sen. John Sununu was one of a handful of Republicans on whom some Senate Democrats had been counting to support their proposed stimulus package Wednesday. But when the roll was called, Sununu denied Democrats his support and accused them of heaping cumbersome additions onto an economic bill whose passage both parties have been urging.
Senate Democrats fell one vote short in bringing to a vote a package that had snowballed over several days into a bundle of tax cuts, unemployment benefits and care for seniors and veterans totaling more than $200 billion over two years.
The Senate on Thursday passed a trimmed-down version of Wednesday’s proposals, as members of both parties overwhelmingly supported payments to 20 million seniors and 250,000 disabled veterans. Pressured by House Democrats, Senate Democrats dropped from the bill benefits for the unemployed and heating assistance for the poor. Sununu joined 80 other senators in voting for the bill.
The one vote needed to reach the 60 votes necessary to move the package forward could have come from a few Republican senators thought to have favored some of the bill’s provisions, according to the AFL-CIO. One of those senators was Sununu, who gave biting criticism of Democrats’ add-ons that he said would have stalled the legislation.
Although the New Hampshire senator supported Democratic provisions covering more than 250,000 disabled veterans and 20 million seniors in the economic package, he decried efforts to benefit oil, natural gas and coal companies through tax cuts. He also said that while he supports increased home heating assistance to poor families, it was “disgraceful” of Democrats to slip funds for the popular program into the bill at the last minute.
Sununu voted against the Finance Committee’s proposals to tack on dozens of projects to benefit various industries. “Had it not been for this wheeling and dealing, we would have already passed an economic growth package,” he said in a statement.
Earlier this week, the senator had called for the stimulus bill to be passed swiftly, criticizing senators’ “pet projects” for adding weight to legislation he said is necessary for a boost in the shaky economy.
Sununu was thought to have favored Wednesday’s package because of his support of low-income heating assistance, said Bill Samuel, the AFL-CIO government affairs director. New England relies on oil heating in the winter more than any other part of the country. In the Granite State, 32,581 families benefited from fuel assistance last year.
“He has every reason to be for it because of the situation in New Hampshire,” Samuel said.
“I never told anyone I was going to support the bill,” Sununu said of the original Senate Democratic plan, adding that he supported Thursday’s final vote because the provisions for certain industries’ companies were dropped.
Sununu had voted against his party and the Bush administration before. In December 2005, he helped block reauthorization of major portions of the Patriot Act. Arguing that the act would override some civil liberties, Sununu quoted Benjamin Franklin: “Those that would give up essential liberties in pursuit of a little temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security.”
New Hampshire’s other Republican senator, Judd Gregg, voted Wednesday against the Democratic stimulus package as well, citing the $200 billion tag as too expensive and a burden to the deficit. He suggested creating jobs and “economic investment” as an alternative.
On Thursday, Gregg voted against the slimmed-down version that the Senate approved and sent on to the House.
On the floor, Gregg blasted Senate leaders for trying to “assert some prerogative” by complicating the stimulus package with an additional $44 billion.
“A lot of that package was basically baggage being thrown on a train with absolutely nothing stimulating the economy in the short run,” he said, “including tax breaks for the wind industry and coal industry.”
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N.H. Senators Support Budget Tax Cuts, Criticize Spending
N.H. Budget
Union Leader
Matt Negrin
Boston University Washington News Service
6 February 2008
WASHINGTON — With the unveiling of President Bush’s $3.1 trillion budget this week came the predictable blitz of denunciation from congressional Democrats — and from a handful of Republicans. New Hampshire’s two Democratic representatives were no exception in heaping criticism on proposals to cut domestic programs, while its Republican senators offered support for the permanent extension of existing tax cuts.
Sens. John Sununu, the newest member of the Finance Committee, and Judd Gregg, the senior minority member of the Budget Committee and a top Republican critic of Bush’s proposals, both used the phrase “smoke and mirrors” to describe a budget they say has gimmicks and does not cover the cost of national security and the war in Iraq.
Both praised the budget’s suggestion for extending tax cuts adopted from 2001 to 2003 and set to expire in 2010. The president estimates it would cost $635 billion to extend them into 2013. The New Hampshire senators called for the cuts to be made permanent.
“If we don’t do that, we’re going to be raising taxes on every working family in the country,” Sununu said.
At a Budget Committee hearing Tuesday, Gregg lamented how the federal spending, the shaky economy and the costs of war in Iraq and Afghanistan are driving the country into a $400 billion deficit. Although, he said, he “pointed a few fingers” at the budget, he sharply chastised Democrats for offering a worse budget of uncontrollable spending and understated revenues.
“I wish there was some realistic effort around here to control spending, but it certainly isn’t coming from the other side of the aisle,” he said.
Reps. Paul Hodes and Carol Shea-Porter were quick to assail Bush for proposing to slash $570 million from a popular program that provides heating assistance to poor families, many of whom live in New England, the part of the country most reliant on heating oil. The cuts include $2 million to New Hampshire’s Fuel Assistance Program, which enrolled 32,581 families last year.
The average New Hampshire family receives annual benefits of $553 from the program, according to the state’s Office of Energy and Planning. The Energy Information Administration estimates the average cost to heat a home with oil this winter will reach $2,000.
Shea-Porter sent a letter Tuesday to Democrat John Spratt, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, urging his committee to reject the proposed budget cuts.
“In a troubled economy, such a reduction, along with volatile oil prices, could put thousands of families in my state at serious risk next winter,” Shea-Porter wrote.
Hodes also denounced the budget for leaving out a weatherization program that helps homes become more energy-efficient. Hodes said the program saves the average family $320 per year.
Many senators and representatives from both parties have dubbed the budget dead on arrival, if not dead before arrival. Many of Bush’s proposals seemed far-reaching to lawmakers, particularly for a lame-duck president in a fierce election year.
“There are pieces that are missing,” Sununu said. “Both sides of the aisle … need to start working together to deal with the growth and entitlement spending. If we don’t begin to address these issues this year and next year, we’re going to leave just a horrible legacy for future generations.”
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Senators: Stimulus, Surveillance Bills to Pass by Week’s End
BILLS
Union Leader
Matt Negrin
Boston University Washington News Service
5 February 2008
WASHINGTON — Senate leaders of both parties said Tuesday they plan on passing bills on economic stimulus and electronic surveillance law changes by the end of the week.
Sen. Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, said both bills are “important measures” that have large and bipartisan support. He told reporters the Senate is prepared to pass a modified version of the House’s stimulus bill, which proposes a $146 billion boost to the economy but does not include payments to seniors and disabled veterans, unlike the stimulus bill the Senate Finance Committee approved last week.
Sen. Harry Reid, the majority leader, also told reporters the Senate plans to vote on a stimulus package soon.
The Senate also will vote within days on an extension of President Bush’s electronic surveillance program, the senators said, though they admitted there has been frustration in reconciling differences.
“We’re having some sparring back and forth,” McConnell said.
The bill would grant immunities to telecommunications providers that let the government spy on citizens after Sept. 11, 2001. Bush has threatened to veto a bill “that does not provide the U.S. intelligence agencies the tools they need,” wrote Attorney General Michael Mukasey and National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell in a letter to Senate leaders Tuesday.
Reid scoffed at the threat, saying “there’s nothing to veto” yet.
Both of New Hampshire’s Republican senators are calling for the bills to be voted on soon.
“There’s no reason we shouldn’t be voting on them,” Sen. Judd Gregg said in a telephone interview, adding that the surveillance bill “is all about protecting America from an attack by terrorists who want to do us harm.”
Sen. John Sununu said the stimulus package should have incentives for small businesses in New Hampshire while providing coverage for seniors and disabled veterans.
“If every senator gets to add a pet project on the package, it’s going to collapse under its own weight,” he said. “We need to use the House bill as the base for what we move forward.”
Sununu said he will work to protect civil liberties in the surveillance bill, but he urged Congress to pass it “immediately so that our intelligence community can continue essential monitoring and surveillance activity overseas.”
Democratic Rep. Paul Hodes also said the Senate should “pass a bill that protects the rights of Americans to be free from government spying, while also putting the necessary tools in place to keep our country safe.”
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Hodes Introduces Resolution to Honor Challenger Crew
CHALLENGER
Union Leader
Matt Negrin
Boston University Washington News Service
31 January 2008
WASHINGTON — Christa McAuliffe’s 1986 space mission aboard the Challenger was supposed to be her “ultimate field trip.”
The 37-year-old Concord High School teacher had sent her 11-page application to NASA’s Teacher in Space program just before the deadline. She would compete against — and defeat — 11,500 others, among them notable doctors and scholars.
McAuliffe’s life in space lasted 73 seconds. Her sudden death, along with the other six crew members aboard the Challenger, stunned the country with shock and sadness but helped enforce perhaps her most valuable principle: The best way to learn something is to see it for yourself.
Those are the feelings U.S. Democratic Rep. Paul Hodes is trying to revive as part of a House resolution to honor the crew aboard the space shuttle that exploded above the Atlantic Ocean near Cape Canaveral, Fla. on Jan. 28, 1986.
Hodes’s resolution will appear on the House floor in two weeks. The Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the Science and Technology Committee have each approved it.
In Concord, memories of the Challenger explosion may not be fresh, but the inspiration left behind is, said Jeanne Gerulskis, executive director of the Christa McAuliffe Planetarium, an institution opened four years after the shuttle disintegrated and dedicated to teaching students through experiential learning and field trips.
“When it first happened, it was very much a tragedy, but as the years have gone on, people have drawn a lot of inspiration from Christa,” Gerulskis said.
Construction for the planetarium began in 1988 after a Northwood teacher suggested the idea as a way to honor McAuliffe. Instead of a monument or museum about the astronaut’s life, the planetarium encourages students to learn by doing and seeing — one of McAuliffe’s philosophies that embodied her journey on the Challenger.
McAuliffe was to teach two lessons from the shuttle to schoolchildren. Though she never got the chance, she may have still reached her mission objective, said David McDonald, the planetarium’s education director.
“I think there’s a great deal of interest among teachers for experiential learning,” he said. “I think just spending hour after hour in the classroom with lectures and PowerPoints and things like that is not the only way that teachers want to teach these days.”
Hodes said he also introduced the legislation to spur a “new generation of scientific pioneers.” Aboard the Challenger, the astronauts were scheduled to deploy a satellite, perform an experiment on Haley’s Comet and observe fluid dynamic tests.
Hodes lamented the pressures on teachers to meet No Child Left Behind requirements, often forcing them to forgo field trips.
“They’re under pressures from many different directions,” he said. “There’s a lot of pressure to reduce time to do things like experiential learning, and I think that’s the important part of an education.”
Gerulskis hailed the resolution as a reminder that McAuliffe was an “Everyman” who appealed to the masses because of her teacher status.
“She wanted to show people that everyday people can go into space, that everyday people should know about what’s going on, that this is for all of us,” she said.
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Shea-Porter Asks Manchester VA Medical Center to be Restored
VETERANS
Union Leader
Matt Negrin
Boston University Washington News Service
30 January 2008
WASHINGTON — Rep. Carol Shea-Porter requested Wednesday that a veterans’ hospital in Manchester be restored to full service status, marking the congresswoman’s most recent effort to improve veterans’ medical conditions.
In a letter to Veterans Affairs Secretary James Peake, Shea-Porter cites New Hampshire as the only state without a “full-service veterans’ hospital” and comes after she was invited to tour and review the Manchester VA Medical Center earlier this month. The Democrat had written a similar letter last Oct. 5, to Gordon Mansfield, then the acting secretary.
The Manchester hospital has been inadequate, advocates say, since it cut many of its inpatient and outpatient services more than seven years ago.
Sen. John Sununu also urged Peake last week to consider fully restoring the hospital. In a resolution, the New Hampshire Senate also unanimously called for full renovation, saying New Hampshire veterans are forced to seek care in Massachusetts and Vermont.
“In no other state in this country does this happen, and it places our veterans’ health and care at serious risk,” Shea-Porter said in her letter.
The Department of Veterans Affairs did not respond to phone calls seeking comment.
Sen. Judd Gregg said yesterday he has worked to decrease veteran referrals to Boston while creating outpatient centers in New Hampshire cities.
“I am always available to assist any New Hampshire veteran in receiving the care he or she earned and which is rightly owed to them,” Gregg said in a statement.
Shea-Porter is a member of the House Armed Services Committee and touts her history of fighting for soldiers and their families. She helped pass a funding increase in the Department of Veterans Affairs, advocated for a 3.5 percent military pay raise and co-sponsored legislation to improve treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury.
President Bush nominated Peake, a retired lieutenant general, a last October and the Senate confirmed him on Dec. 14. He was Army surgeon general from 2000 to 2004 and was the executive vice president of Project HOPE, a nonprofit health organization.
When Peake was confirmed, Bush said one of his priorities would be acting on recommendations from a 2007 report on veterans’ care.
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SCHIP Provider Calls on Congress to Prevent Grim Future for Uninsured
KIDS
New Hampshire Union Leader
Matt Negrin
Boston University Washington News Service
29 January 2008
WASHINGTON — Insurance coverage for some New Hampshire children will be in peril if Congress does not soon act to counter an administrative rule forcing states to cut back health care programs, a state health insurance official told a House subcommittee Tuesday.
The popular State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), designed to insure children whose families’ incomes are too high for Medicaid but not enough to afford private insurance, will not be able to cover up to 4,000 of 20,000 eligible New Hampshire kids if the state is forced to cut back funds, said Tricia Brooks, president and CEO of New Hampshire Healthy Kids, the Granite State’s SCHIP administrator.
New Hampshire and other states will be forced to cut back, Brooks said, because of an Aug. 17 directive from the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services that requires states to meet certain standards, such as proving that they have enrolled 95 percent of children below 200 percent of the poverty line who are eligible for SCHIP or Medicaid and ensuring that employer-covered children’s insurance has not decreased by 2 percent or more in the last five years.
The House has twice passed a bill to reauthorize SCHIP, but despite bipartisan support, both bills have been vetoed by President Bush. The House last week fell short by 15 votes to override the second veto (42 Republicans joined the Democrats). Many committee members expressed disgust at the vote’s shortfall and attacked Republicans for playing partisan politics.
U.S. Democratic Reps. Paul Hodes and Carol Shea-Porter voted to override the latest veto.
“It’s hard for me to understand the president’s logic, or the rationale of those within Congress who voted to uphold his veto,” U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J., the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health, said at the hearing. “I think they all have forgotten or simply do not understand the challenges that American families face in securing affordable health coverage for their children.”
Brooks said in her testimony that after Congress’s success in passing the bipartisan reauthorization bill last year, “I am discouraged that progress has been thwarted by the President’s subsequent vetoes.”
She called the August directive’s requirements “unrealistic,” saying that states cannot control employer-coverage trends that have dropped for employees and their children.
“The predictability of reauthorization is essential to states,” said Brooks, whose private, nonprofit organization was legislatively created and is run by several government appointees. Healthy Kids is also supported by both parties in the New Hampshire Senate.
Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, who voted to uphold the veto, acknowledged “differences of opinion” on which children should be covered by SCHIP. The program should focus on “the near-low income,” whose parents do not have employer-covered insurance, he said at the hearing.
In New Hampshire, eligible families pay as much as $45 a month per child, supporting 25 percent of the cost of SCHIP, Brooks said after the hearing.
“Unless Congress places a moratorium on the directive, New Hampshire and other states must move backward,” she said.
Pleading a similar case for New Jersey was Ann Kohler, deputy commissioner of her state’s Department of Human Services. She said that as the economy worsens, low-income families “must rely on the safety net provided by Medicaid and SCHIP to provide health insurance for their children.”
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