Category: Joseph Markman
Shaheen Chairs, NH Businessman Attends Hearing on Boosting American Exports
EXPORT
New Hampshire Union Leader
Joseph Markman
Boston University Washington News Service
12/09/09
WASHINGTON – The glitz of recent economic development in countries like China and India should not overshadow America’s more lucrative trade relationship with Europe, economists said at a hearing Wednesday chaired by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H.
New Hampshire businessman Charles Howland stressed that point in his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European Affairs. Howland, president and chief engineer of Warwick Mills, Inc., a New Ipswich company that engineers protective textiles, joined with the chief economist at the U.S. State Department and two other experts in examining the trade and investment ties between the United States and Europe.
With high unemployment and stagnant economic growth, the United States needs to find ways to encourage small and medium-sized businesses to invest in markets across the Atlantic Ocean, Shaheen said.
“It is easy to forget that, by far, America’s largest, most vibrant, and perhaps its most critical economic relationship is actually with Europe,” Shaheen said at the hearing. “It would be a mistake to neglect this crucial partnership as we attempt to dig ourselves out of this economic downturn.”
Robert Hormats, undersecretary of state for economic, energy, and agricultural affairs, testified that American exports to the European Union are more than five times the amount sent to China every year. Even combining China with Russia, Brazil and India, the European connection is much more substantial, Hormats said.
“We need to build on this strong, transatlantic foundation,” he said.
New Hampshire has its own ties to the European market. Shaheen, when she was governor, led the state’s first trade delegation outside of North America, and in 2007 Europeans bought nearly $1 billion worth of goods from companies in New Hampshire, Shaheen said.
Warwick Mills was founded in 1870 with a focus on making cotton textiles. Through the decades, it has produced parachute fabric for the U.S. military during World War II, created a specialized weave for use in body armor, and made high-strength fabric for the space shuttle Endeavour’s parachute, according to the company’s Web site.
Howland said more than 50 percent of his sales are to the European market, which is his most important business relationship. Key partners include Germany, France, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.
In order for Warwick Mills and other American companies to succeed overseas, Howland said they need to focus on developing “best in class” technical products to sell to niche markets. That way, Howland said, the United States can work to retain or create manufacturing jobs.
“We exist on the value of our innovation,” he said. “We must innovate to thrive.”
Howland called on the Department of Defense to work more closely with the Commerce Department in its Small Business Innovation Research initiative, in the hopes of facilitating American exports. The initiative provides up to $850,000 in early-stage research and development funding directly to small technology companies.
The New Hampshire businessman said most small businesses in the United States find exporting “a mystery” because the large domestic market has made it easy for them to avoid the more difficult task of getting their product overseas. He urged the government to create a “portal” involving some combination of embassies and government trade departments to encourage Atlantic trade and boost the U.S. economy.
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Sen. Gregg Introduces Bill to Create Task Force Addressing National Debt
DEBT
New Hampshire Union Leader
Joseph Markman
Boston University Washington News Service
12/09/09
WASHINGTON – Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., along with a bipartisan group of senators, introduced legislation Wednesday that would create a task force to examine ways to reduce the national debt.
As Congress faces a vote on whether to raise the federal debt ceiling above the current $12.1 trillion limit, Gregg and Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., have spearheaded an effort to address the debt, which they say is likely to surpass 100 percent of gross domestic product within a few years, nearing levels not seen since the end of World War II.
“Congress feels entitled to spend with a blank check and little regard for the future of our economic stability,” Gregg said at a press conference on Capitol Hill. “We are swimming in a sea of red ink that will drown any chance our children have for prosperity or even a decent standard of living.”
The bill, co-sponsored by 27 Democrats and Republicans, proposes an 18-member commission of lawmakers and members of the executive branch. To address “unsustainable long-term fiscal imbalance,” the proposal would put “everything on the table” and would require the panel to submit a report after the 2010 elections.
Responding to criticisms that they are seeking to avoid scrutiny before next year’s elections and that they have not set any specific goals, Conrad said he “harbors no illusions” about the political pressures that come with trying to reduce government spending while increasing revenue.
“The regular legislative process is simply not going to get the job done,” Conrad said.
Gregg and Conrad, who hold the two top spots on the Senate Budget Committee, called for “fundamental tax reform” as a path toward easing the deficit, saying the country’s “inefficient tax system” collects only 76 percent of the revenue it is due.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., among others, has criticized the proposal, calling it too blunt an instrument to deal with what is really a problem of rising health care costs.
Conrad argued that health care reform “will not be enough to solve this problem,” though he and Gregg acknowledged that spending on entitlements – Medicare and Social Security – consume an outsized amount of federal resources.
“We owe it to the Americans who depend on these retirement and health care programs, as well as our children who will pay for them, to fix our broken entitlement system,” Gregg said.
The Bipartisan Task Force for Responsible Fiscal Action Act, which would require a final vote on its recommendations during the “lame-duck” portion of the current Congress, represents an updated version of a bill Gregg and Conrad introduced in 2007.
The Democratic leadership appears split on the issue. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is reportedly considering the task force and Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., the House Majority Leader, is in favor, Conrad said. But Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has rejected the idea in favor of the existing legislative process.
Gregg countered that “a bipartisan, fast-track process is the best way to arrive at workable solutions.”
“It is no longer enough for Congress to simply talk about reform; it is time for action and leadership,” Gregg said.
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Paid Sick Leave Sparks Debate in New Hampshire and Across the Country
SICK DAYS
New Hampshire Union Leader
Joseph Markman
Boston University Washington News Service
12/08/09
WASHINGTON – The customers at Arthur’s Market in Rochester, N.H., are buying less of the store’s specialty meats and produce lately, straining co-owner Kathy Gagnon’s ability to keep a staff of 18 people employed. And so she casts a skeptical eye toward efforts to mandate that companies provide paid sick days.
“It would cost me a fortune, and I’m barely getting by as it is,” Gagnon said in a telephone interview. “I’d probably have to replace some of them myself and work more than the 70 hours a week I already work.”
Employees are also struggling in today’s economy, and Jenn, a Granite State retail worker, recently lost two and a half days of pay because her employer does not provide paid sick days. First her 4-year-old daughter caught the seasonal flu, Jenn said, and she lost a half day of work because her husband, who works in marketing, couldn’t skip a series of meetings. Then Jenn herself fell ill and missed two days of work.
“I live paycheck to paycheck, so we’re basically your typical middle-class family,” said Jenn, who requested that only her first name be used for fear of upsetting her employer. “It’s not like we make any surplus income.”
Legislation in New Hampshire, Washington, D.C., and cities and states nationwide that would force all but the smallest companies to pay workers for a set number of sick days each year is drawing fire from businesses even as the H1N1 flu pandemic provides momentum for worker advocates who’ve been pushing reform for years.
Advocates argue that current federal law – The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 – does not go far enough in protecting sick workers. The law provides up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for employees of companies with 50 or more employees. Pointing to studies that show 60 million Americans go without paid sick time, supporters consider the issue a fundamental workplace right.
“The idea that people are working in this country with no paid sick leave is pretty foreign to the environment we work in,” said Mark MacKenzie, president of the New Hampshire AFL-CIO. “There's a place where governments have a role. One of the places is to figure what is good public policy.”
Critics counter that the government should leave employee benefits to negotiation between employers and their workers. They fear that mandating paid sick leave would hurt businesses like Arthur's Market, which are already struggling to earn a profit.
“It is inappropriate for government to be trying to mandate a one-size-fits-all benefit plan for employers in the private sector,” said David Juvet, senior vice president of the Business and Industry Association, New Hampshire’s statewide chamber of commerce. “This is not the right time to be putting additional costs on the small-business community.”
State Rep. Mary Stuart Gile, a Merrimack Democrat, introduced a bill in January to give five days of paid time off to workers at New Hampshire businesses with 10 or more employees. After negotiations weakened the mandate, the bill stalled before Thanksgiving in a House committee, where it was sent for more study.
Nikki Tobiasz Murphy, director of the New Hampshire Women’s Lobby and campaign manager for the Gile’s legislation, said opposition concerns are overstated because both the state bill and a broader national bill – the Healthy Families Act – take into consideration employers that are already offering paid time off as a benefit that can be used at an employee’s discretion.
“It will not be a human resources nightmare,” Murphy said. “We do not want to penalize businesses in any way that are already doing best practices.”
In addition to bills working their way through Congress, 12 states, including every one in New England, are considering action on paid sick days. San Francisco, Milwaukee and Washington, D.C., have enacted similar laws.
Kristin Smith, a family demographer at the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey Institute, said the paid sick leave effort has gained a lot of visibility because President Obama and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have urged people to stay home from work or school if they have flu-like symptoms.
“This has been an issue for a long time, and maybe it’s gaining more momentum because of H1N1, but I don’t know that it’s been an effective tool,” Smith said.
Along with the Healthy Families Act, which was originally introduced in Congress five years ago and would mandate up to seven days of paid sick leave for businesses with 15 or more employees, there are also two pending emergency measures focused on containing the H1N1 outbreak.
U.S. Rep. Paul Hodes, D-N.H., said he is skeptical of assertions about the innocuous nature of both the Healthy Families Act and the two emergency bills, and has decided to adopt a wait-and-see stance.
“If it makes workers more productive, I think it’s good for business, although it imposes some burdens on business,” Hodes said. “I am concerned, especially at this time, with a fragile economy.”
Advocates argue that having millions of Americans without paid sick time actually hurts businesses because of what they term “presenteeism” – when employees show up to work sick so they don’t lose pay and end up infecting their fellow workers.
Yet those on the front lines of human resources at small-to-mid-size companies, even those that offer some form of paid time off, worry about the economic impact of any new benefits laws.
At Bancroft Contracting Corp., a Maine construction company with a permanent field office in Berlin, N.H., which already provides some paid time off, human resources head Harold Skelton said, “We don't have money like that to throw around.”
Skelton, who oversees about 150 employees, cautioned that “something would have to give. That’s really a considerable impact on our bottom line.”
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Sen. Shaheen Hears Concerns Over Health Reform from AARP members in N.H.
AARP
New Hampshire Union Leader
Joseph Markman
Boston University Washington News Service
11/19/09
WASHINGTON – Following the unveiling of the Senate Democratic leadership’s version of health care reform, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., fielded questions ranging from Medicare cuts to prescription drug costs on a teleconference call with 5,900 New Hampshire AARP members Thursday morning.
The legislation, which the Congressional Budget Office said would cost $848 billion over 10 years and extend insurance coverage to 31 million uninsured Americans, would also impose higher Medicare payroll taxes on couples making more than $250,000 a year and trim various aspects of Medicare, including $118 billion over 10 years from Medicare Advantage spending.
Joanna from Canaan, one of the AARP members calling in and a self-described “big supporter” of a government-run insurance option, urged Shaheen to convert some of her Republican colleagues into getting behind the so-called public option in the Senate bill, which would allow individual states to opt out.
“The government has shown with Medicare that they know what they’re doing with health care,” Joanna said, “and I have more confidence in a government-run program than private companies.”
Shaheen responded that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s bill would spur competition through its public option, but that the legislation was only a “starting point” and would change as it faced vigorous debate.
The senator also suggested Joanna call Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., to help convert him herself.
Gregg said recently about the opt-out government-run insurance plan: “Assuming that the states will opt out of a federally subsidized government-run plan is like assuming your children will opt out of their allowance.”
Barbara from Salem said she is a diabetic and wondered about the Senate’s fix for the Medicare Part D “doughnut-hole” prescription drug coverage gap, in which she finds herself every year.
“There are some changes in the bill that I think will help with this,” Shaheen said. The legislation would provide a 50 percent discount on brand-name drugs and provide a better path for generic drugs to get to the market.
“It’s a good start. Obviously we need to keep working,” Shaheen said.
Donna from Merrimack, who said her son pays $700 per month in premiums to a private insurer, asked if the measures before Congress would alleviate the financial pain people like her son face.
“There are changes in the bill to help folks with the cost of insurance coverage,” Shaheen said. “It provides subsidies so you only have to pay a certain part of your income.”
On the cost-cutting front, Fred from New Ipswich said he was a senior and very concerned about Medicare cuts in the health reform bills.
“How can you comfort me that Medicare will not be diminished in the future?” Fred asked.
Shaheen responded by calling attention to an aspect of the bill she introduced in September that would help senior citizens with follow-up care after leaving the hospital, significantly reducing the cost to Medicare of re-hospitalization.
“There are real savings we can provide by doing a better job providing health care to people,” Shaheen said.
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UNH Professor’s Love of the Ocean Brings Him on Course to Help White House
ROSENBERG
New Hampshire Union Leader
Joseph Markman
Boston University Washington News Service
11/12/09
WASHINGTON – University of New Hampshire professor Andrew Rosenberg’s trip to the Galapagos Islands to survey sea turtles when he was 17 may not have sparked his desire to work on the ocean, but it certainly helped cement it.
“His focus was always on the water and on marine stuff, ever since I met him,” said Peter Thomas, a friend of Rosenberg’s since high school and now an official with the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission.
“As his friend I probably didn't realize how intense he was academically,” Thomas said.
Rosenberg, a marine sciences professor and former deputy director of the National Marine Fisheries Service, is working as a temporary adviser to a White House task force on the use of the nation’s coastal waters and the Great Lakes. The Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force, which President Obama created in June, is working to set rules for marine spatial planning, which many officials refer to as ocean zoning, to deal with disagreements among commercial, recreational and conservation interests competing for use of the nation’s waters.
Sailing with his father at an early age helped Rosenberg develop a strong connection to the sea.
“I always knew that I wanted to work on the ocean,” he said in an interview at a Washington hotel between meetings of the nonprofit environmental group Conservation International. “I liked science. I definitely didn’t want to be a lawyer like my father and my sister and my brother.”
Rosenberg, who is 54, was born in Boston and grew up in Newton, Mass., where his father, brother and sister live today. His mother, a speech therapist, died a few years ago.
As a teenager visiting his family’s home on Cape Cod, Rosenberg said he found himself fascinated with marine biology when he helped a neighbor analyze invertebrate samples and examine oil dispersion on a man-made lake.
That neighbor was Dr. Shields Warren, known for leading a team to Japan after World War II to study and aid atomic-bomb survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Though the experiments were “small-scale stuff,” Rosenberg said, the time working with Shields was very influential.
Rosenberg graduated with a bachelor of science degree in fisheries biology in 1978 from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and earned a master’s in oceanography in 1980 from Oregon State University and a doctorate in biology in 1984 from Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia.
He will be working in Washington part-time, commuting back home to Gloucester, Mass., his wife, Marian, and his UNH graduate students for part of the week. He is also taking on the position of senior vice president for science and knowledge at Conservation International, where he will oversee 70 scientists in 40 countries.
Paul Sandifer, who served with Rosenberg on the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, said Rosenberg is a good negotiator.
“He tends to push for as much conservation in order to sustain a resource,” Sandifer said. “But he’s also very realistic about what we need to do to make sure people still get to use the resource.”
The commission’s findings are now being used to help the Ocean Policy Task Force, which Rosenberg will be advising, to set up a transparent, public process for deciding how the ocean can be used, depending on the environmental, economic and social effects of proposed projects. Rosenberg said that there are a number of federal agencies that deal with the ocean and that the task force will try to figure out how they can work together.
Lynn Rutter, a program coordinator at UNH’s Ocean Process and Analysis Laboratory, said that she started working in the field just as ecosystem-based environmental management first began to take off, and that it has thrived in large part because of Rosenberg’s efforts.
Rutter has worked with Rosenberg both as a student and a co-worker at the university, and said she is constantly amazed by his ability to connect with and drive students to succeed.
“He gets people to really work to their greatest potential with a lot of autonomy,” Rutter said. “It’s a very special skill to both be able to personally do well with people and have success with [analysis].”
“I don’t know how he manages to do everything he does,” said Lindsey Fong, a UNH graduate student who studied for a degree in natural resources under Rosenberg. “He is the reason for all my success in graduate school.”
Christine M. Glunz, a spokeswoman for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in a statement, “His experience as a member of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, as well as his expertise on many relevant ocean-related issues, makes him a valuable addition.”
At the end of the year, when his advising duties come to an end, Rosenberg will take a leave of absence from the university and continue to work in Washington for Conservation International, where, he joked, he is “in charge of all knowledge” though not necessarily wisdom.
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Republic Campaign Leadership Pulls Away From Senate Primaries
NRSC PULLBACK
New Hampshire Union Leader
Joseph Markman
Boston University Washington News Service
11/05/09
WASHINGTON – An announcement by the National Republican Senatorial Committee that it will not give money or support to the Senate campaign of Kelly Ayotte or any other Republican Senate candidate running in a primary contest in 2010 makes no difference to the campaign, according to an Ayotte spokesman.
NRSC Chairman Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told ABC News that endorsements are “overrated” considering their potential for negativity and that his committee “will not spend money in a contested primary. There’s no incentive for us to weigh in.”
As both parties scrambled Thursday to react to Cornyn’s statement, they disagreed sharply over the impact of his words.
New Hampshire Democratic Party spokesman Derek Richer argued that the announcement was “devastating” for Ayotte and that her four potential primary opponents “must now smell blood in the water.”
Cornyn’s statement came on the heels of the GOP’s Tuesday defeat in upstate New York, where a historically reliable Republican House seat was lost to a Democrat after a fight among Republicans over who should be their party’s candidate. The moderate Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava quit the race at the last minute after conservative grass-roots organizations and national figures such as Rush Limbaugh rallied around a more conservative candidate.
Brooks Kochvar, the campaign manager for Ayotte, who stepped down as state attorney general in July to run for the Senate seat, said the NRSC’s announcement will not change what’s going on in New Hampshire.
“It doesn’t have any impact on our race at all,” Kochvar said. “Her campaign has been focused on New Hampshire.”
New Hampshire Democrats, in a statement Wednesday night, called the announcement a “serious blow” to Ayotte and questioned whether Cornyn should ask Ayotte to return the $10,000 he has donated to her campaign from his leadership political action committee.
“He can’t say on the one hand he isn’t involved in the primary while giving Ayotte $10,000 with the other hand,” Richer said on Thursday. “Half of that money is earmarked for use in the primary.”
Kochvar said that if individual senators want to help or contribute to Ayotte’s campaign, she welcomes their support, but she’s focused right now on New Hampshire voters.
The Senate seat is being vacated by Sen. Judd Gregg. Rep. Paul Hodes, currently in his second term in the House, is currently the only announced Democratic candidate.
“Paul Hodes and the Democrats can say what they want, but the fact is Kelly Ayotte has significantly more support from the state of New Hampshire,” Kochvar said. “Paul Hodes’s campaign is desperate. He’s trailing in the polls, and they try to manufacture stories about her being a Washington candidate when Paul Hodes has never met a liberal special-interest group he doesn’t like.”
Sean Mahoney, a Porstmouth businessman and one of Ayotte’s potential primary rivals, said the national committee’s action will not affect his decision-making as he explores a possible Senate candidacy.
Nevertheless, Mahoney said, he appreciated Cornyn’s remarks.
“New Hampshire has a long tradition of campaigns rooted in retail, grassroots campaigning, and I’m heartened to see the Washington elite recognize the vital role that grassroots Republicans will play in the primary next September,” he said in a telephone interview.
Republican businessman Bill Binnie of Rye, declared his candidacy for the seat on Wednesday and said Thursday that he also supported Cornyn’s decision.
“The NRSC recognizes this campaign will be competitive and ultimately needs to be decided by the people of New Hampshire,” Binnie said in a statement. “This is the right thing to do.”
Rep. Shea-Porter Among House Members Announcing Health Bill
HOUSE BILL
New Hampshire Union Leader
Joe Markman
Boston University Washington News Service
10/29/09
WASHINGTON – Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, D-N.H., joined fellow lawmakers Thursday in unveiling the House Democratic leadership’s version of a health care reform bill that the full chamber could vote on before Veterans Day.
Shea-Porter lined up beside Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on the steps of the Capitol overlooking the National Mall to announce the compromise legislation, a combination of bills that three House committees had approved.
The bill includes a public health insurance plan that would compete with private insurers, though the plan is less expansive than some more-liberal members would have preferred. The plan—the so-called public option—would negotiate insurance rates with doctors and hospitals, similar to what private insurers do, rather than be based on the generally lower Medicare rates, a step that did not have enough support in the Democratic caucus.
“What we have here is the effort of every member in the House of Representatives,” Shea-Porter said after the press conference in response to a question about the public option’s rate structure.
“We will be delivering great service at great value to the American people,” she said. “Insurance companies will still be able to make a profit, Americans will be healthier and it’s really a win-win.”
Lawmakers were flanked by a crowd of people disenchanted by aspects of the current health care system. Shea-Porter introduced Priscilla King, a senior citizen from Bow, N.H., who said she is struggling financially because she and her husband often fall into the Medicare prescription drug plan’s so-called donut hole.
“We have gone into debt because of the times we’ve fallen into the donut hole,” King said. “Can you imagine buying a meal at a restaurant and getting an empty plate?”
The donut hole is a coverage gap that exists in nearly all Medicare Part D prescription drug plans. After a Medicare beneficiary surpasses a specific coverage limit, the beneficiary must pay for the entire cost of patented prescription drugs and, in many cases, the full cost of generic drugs until the out-of-pocket cost reaches the catastrophic coverage threshold.
King’s husband Ernie is in a New Hampshire hospital and could not attend. She said they have 13 prescriptions between them and live off their monthly Social Security checks. When in the coverage gap, King said she and her husband rely on generic drugs.
For 2010, according to Medicare, once recipients have spent $2,830 for covered drugs they must pay for all their drug costs until they have spent $4,550. After that, they are responsible only for a small co-payment on each prescription. Thus the cost of the gap is $1,720.
Shea-Porter said that King’s was an “all-too-familiar” story and that the House bill would fix the problem by shrinking the gap in coverage over time and providing seniors a 50 percent discount on brand-name prescriptions when they are in the donut-hole.
Other highlights of the House bill are expanded coverage for 36 million Americans, elimination of gender and pre-existing condition discrimination, a ban on dropping coverage when people get sick and a higher, 27-year-old age limit on children remaining on their parent’s plans.
The bill would cost $894 billion over 10 years, according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office. It would be paid for by cutbacks in Medicare and a tax on individuals making over $500,000 a year and couples making over $1 million.
Sen. Gregg Questions Cost of Health Care Reform
GREGG COSTS
New Hampshire Union Leader
Joe Markman
Boston University Washington News Service
10/28/09
WASHINGTON, Oct. 28–Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., has spent much of his time on the Senate floor this month criticizing the official cost estimate of the Senate Finance Committee’s health reform bill.
Gregg has said that Obama administration proposals, particularly health care reform, “swindle our children's future,” and he called far too low the estimated 10-year, $829 billion cost that the Congressional Budget Office has assigned to the Finance Committee bill.
The fiscal conservative contends that the actual cost of reform will be closer to $2 trillion, and that about $1 trillion of that would be added to the federal deficit.
“If we’re going to do health care reform we should do it in a fiscally responsible way,” Gregg told the Senate on Wednesday.
But some health care experts say Gregg’s numbers may be motivated more by opposition to big government spending and expensive insurance reform than by a quest for accuracy.
“The Congressional Budget Office offers an independent analysis,” said Judy Feder, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank. “Sen. Gregg is an opponent of reform. I’m confident in the CBO.”
She went on to say, “It is my understanding that the CBO has not only found the first decade of health reform legislation adequately funded, but finds that revenues grow faster than spending in the second decade.”
Gregg, in speaking on the Senate floor, described the CBO cost estimates as “Bernie Madoff accounting” and said, “You’d go to jail if you did that in the private sector.”
The $829 billion, 10-year Congressional Budget Office estimate of the Finance Committee bill starts counting costs next year, five years before many of the most expensive benefits would kick in.
Gregg’s estimate of $1.8 trillion over 10 years was put together by minority staff members of the Senate Budget Committee, on which he is the senior Republican. They calculated costs beginning in 2014, when many of those new benefits would start.
Under the CBO estimate, Gregg argues, revenues are counted for five years during which new health care costs, such as tax credits for low-income individuals or families to buy mandated health insurance, would not be included. In short, he says, the estimate includes 10 years of revenue but only five years of costs.
The CBO’s policy is that it does not question nor analyze estimates of others because that is not appropriate work for its analysts. Gregg’s Budget Committee staff is able and entitled to frame the numbers however it likes and is not required to follow the same guidelines as CBO, according to the nonpartisan office.
Some skepticism of the cost-savings measures in the Finance Committee bill is warranted, said Henry Aaron, a health care expert at the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy group.
Aaron said the bill may wrongly assume that annual payments to hospitals and other non-physician Medicare providers would be scaled back from current levels based on an increase in productivity.
“Nobody makes the claim that in the first 10 or 15 years we’re going to completely turn around the trend… that health care spending grows more quickly than income,” Aaron said.
But, he added, “Throwing out a number like $2 trillion does not add to public understanding.”
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To Republicans and Democrats, House Seat Appears Vulnerable
EFFICIENCY
New Hampshire Union Leader
Joe Markman
Boston University Washington News Service
10/23/09
WASHINGTON – Money from Democratic leaders has poured into the campaign chest of Rep. Carol Shea-Porter at the same time that congressional Republicans have targeted her seat in next year’s election, indicating an overall sense of vulnerability for the two-term incumbent.
Shea-Porter’s latest campaign finance report to the Federal Election Commission indicates that her top two donor groups are leadership committees—political action committees that members of Congress set up to support other congressional candidates—tothe tune of $30,500, and other candidates’ committees, at $23,000. She has raised $392,000 so far, and has $296,000 left in her coffers.
Among her top donors are the leadership committees of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., which has contributed $4,000, and majority whip Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., which has given $5,000, according to the Web site OpenSecrets.org, an arm of the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that reports on and analyzes campaign finances.
Leading Republican candidate Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta, meanwhile, has been identified by the National Republican Congressional Committee as one of its “Young Guns,” a program identifying Republican candidates seen as potential conquerors of Democratic incumbents. He has raised $236,000 as of October, mostly from individual contributions, and has $180,000 left to spend, according to his filing with the Federal Election Commission.
“We've seen a very strong grassroots engagement at this stage of the game,” Guinta said in a telephone interview, “which is good because most people argue that my opponent had a good grassroots organization and we’re not only going to match that but exceed it.”
Guinta has raised 90 percent of his money from individual contributions.
Political analysts and Republican opponents say that Shea-Porter has largely left behind her grassroots origins since being elected on a wave of anti-war sentiment in 2006. Back then, she was best known for protesting the war in Iraq at many of then-House Republican Jeb Bradley’s town hall meetings.
“Congresswoman Shea-Porter has always received strong grassroots support and financial contributions from the people of New Hampshire, and for Frank Guinta to suggest otherwise is just plain laughable,” said Derek Richer, spokesman for the New Hampshire Democratic Party.
Richer emphasized Guinta’s struggle to keep up with Shea-Porter’s fundraising efforts, saying that this has made the Republican desperate to go on the offensive. Richer also called claims that Shea-Porter is disconnected from her constituents inaccurate, pointing to the fact that Shea-Porter still raises the majority of her money from individuals.
Yet during the 2006 election cycle, Shea-Porter raised 85 percent of her money from individual donations, according to OpenSecrets. By 2008 that was down to 61 percent and today stands at 55 percent.
“I think she’s vulnerable because of the district. It’s competitive. It can be susceptible to the national environment,” said Nathan Gonzales, political editor of the Rothenberg Political Report, a nonpartisan political analysis group. “Whoever the incumbent might be, they are going to have a level of vulnerability.”
New Hampshire Democrats should certainly feel targeted going into next year’s election, Gonzales said, because the state, lately neither too red nor too blue, has swung pretty far Democratic, with Republicans losing House and Senate seats.
Political action committees, organized to elect certain candidates, are major donors to the incumbent, totaling 40 percent of the $392,000 she has raised so far, according to OpenSecrets.org.
“Political action committees are often used as vehicles to shore up vulnerable incumbents and to come to the aid of members who face stiff competition,” said Dave Levinthal, spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics.
Republican Robert Bestani, coming in a distant third in fund-raising efforts, had $44,000 in his campaign chest as of Sept. 30. Currently a visiting global business scholar at Stanford University, Bestani was formerly a director at the Asian Development Bank, dedicated to alleviating poverty in the region.
Shea-Porter has also been highlighted by her national party leadership for reelection. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee lists her as a “Frontline Democrat,” a partnership between members and the committee to expand fund-raising efforts.
‘There’s an uncertain political environment heading into next year,” Gonzales said. “[Shea-Porter] is in an increasingly different situation because she is an incumbent.”
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New Hampshire Moves up List of Energy-Efficient States
EFFICIENCY
New Hampshire Union Leader
Joe Markman
Boston University Washington News Service
10/21/09
WASHINGTON – The Granite State has been getting greener, according to a state-by-state study released Wednesday.
The 2009 State Energy Efficiency Scorecard, released at a press conference in Washington by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, ranks New Hampshire 13th in the country in implementing efficient use of energy, five spots higher than last year.
Experts say investing in energy efficiency – such as home weatherization, higher vehicle emissions standards and more-conservative electrical use – is the easiest way to both trim costs and help the environment.
“It’s an exciting time for energy,” Mary Downes, an energy efficiency specialist at the New Hampshire Office of Energy and Planning, said in a telephone interview. “We are getting an enormous amount of funding and attention and education.”
All the New England states got high marks on the scorecard, which judged states in six categories, including state government initiatives and transportation policies. Massachusetts came in second and Connecticut third, while every state in the region was in the top 10 except New Hampshire.
California ranked first overall and Mississippi pulled up the rear.
New Hampshire has been making a concerted effort over the past few years to be more energy-efficient. Two state agencies have been working with private companies and individual volunteers to put into practice environmentally conscious ideas.
The Department of Environmental Service’s Climate Change Policy Task Force and the Public Utilities Commission’s Energy Efficiency & Sustainable Energy Board are working in various areas, including agriculture, forestry and government leadership.
Ocean Bank in Portsmouth is one company that is working to lower energy costs at small businesses through reduced-interest loans.
“I’m pleased to hear that we’re improving despite some of the issues that stand in the way,” said Janet Brewer, vice president and director of community development for the bank.
One obstacle to New Hampshire’s appearing at the top of the scorecard is the reluctance of individuals and businesses to invest in energy-saving measures whose costs will not be immediately recouped.
“Rather than make a bad decision they make no decision at all,” Brewer said.
A possible fix for this is pending in the state legislature. Russell Aney, a member of New London’s energy committee, said legislation introduced by Rep. Beatriz Pastor, D-Grafton, would enable towns to provide loans that would be paid back through an additional property tax.
Such loans would spur people to invest in greening their buildings, Aney said. The loans would cost less because municipalities can borrow at reduced interest rates, and would be more secure than typical loans because only those projects whose costs would be covered through energy savings would be eligible.
A further barrier to energy efficiency is making people aware of the benefits.
At Meadowbrook U.S. Cellular Pavilion, a concert center on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee in Gilford, marketing director Chris Lockwood said visiting artists often bring with them a lesson for the audience about becoming greener.
The center itself has made strides toward becoming more energy-efficient, inviting local students to audit one of its cafés. The students found the café needed more insulation because it started out as a two-car garage.
“We’re feeling our way with our green efforts,” Lockwood said. “But I think green is here to stay. It’s a positive thing all the way around.”
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