Category: Alyssa Marcus
Breast Cancer – Fighting For a Cure
CANCER
New Hampshire Union Leader
Alyssa Marcus
Boston University Washington News Service
April 26, 2007
WASHINGTON, April 26 – A breast cancer diagnosis a few decades ago was a very different experience than it is today. Times have changed, and so has this disease that used to not leave much choice for the women involved, and was often a death sentence as well.
“The reality is that every year the drugs get better and chemo gets easier,” said Katie Paine of Durham, whose cancer has been in remission for more than three years.
But obstacles remain for breast cancer treatments, which is why breast cancer survivors and their allies deployed in late April to Capitol Hill to lobby Congress.
Rebecca Gray, the former president of the Vermont-New Hampshire affiliate board of “Susan G. Komen for the Cure,” a breast cancer foundation that is celebrating its 25th year, joined other representatives in taking their message to members of Congress.
Gray, a breast cancer survivor of 10 years, said there are four specific issues that the foundation is lobbying for. The first is to have Congress fully fund the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program, an allocation of $225 million for the next fiscal year. This program, established in 1991, provides low-income and uninsured women with access to services for early detection. Currently, the funding for this program is $204 million.
The foundation also is requesting that Congress spend $5.8 billion for the National Cancer Institute for 2008, or at least a minimum of $5.1 billion, which would be an increase of approximately six percent from the last fiscal year.
The third issue is Patient Navigator Services, a program that helps patients who may have barriers such as language or being uninsured to “navigate” their way through the system of getting breast cancer care, including hospitals, insurance and support organizations. The legislation for this, which authorized $25 million over five years, was passed in 2005. But so far, no funds have been appropriated for the services.
Finally the group is lobbying Congress to amend a 2000 to make more women eligible for care.
Gray said that in Vermont and New Hampshire, the women who fall through the cracks are low-income women. “In lower-income areas of New Hampshire, like the Claremont area, the death rate is much higher than in other areas of New Hampshire,” she said.
For the women who are lucky enough to receive treatment, there are many ways to treat breast cancer, and the treatment a woman receives depends on many variables.
Jacqui Bryan of Rye, whose cancer has been in remission for almost four years, said that one of the best advances in breast cancer treatments is discovering the different “personalities” of tumors.
“What they do is they look at the personality of the tumor and they determine the treatment based on the personality of the tumor,” she said.
Because of this focus on tumor “personality,” Paine and Bryan got different treatments because their diagnoses, although both breast cancer, were not the same.
Until the 1950s, breast cancer treatment consisted of mastectomy, the removal of the entire breast. The lumpectomy, an alternative method that removes the cancer from the breast, was developed and by the late 1980s it—along with radiation—was the standard treatment, according to Dr. Katherine Alley, medical director of the Suburban Breast Center in Maryland
Chemotherapy has also been used since the 1960s. There have been other advances since then, including a number of drugs likeTamoxifen that have been developed over the last 20 years, Alley said.
“In the past five to seven years, aromatase inhibitors have also been a big advancement,” Alley said. “Also, the newer drug Herceptin has now been around for five to seven years.”
A large part of cancer funding goes towards clinical trials. Paine participated in one as part of her treatment. She took the drug Xeloda, which was being tested as a substitute for Taxol, a common chemotherapy drug. The doctors administering the trial kept track of the results, and so far she said, the only difference between her and other women whose cancer is in remission is that she sees her doctor every six months, rather than once a year.
In terms of the alternate drug being the better one, Paine is not sure. “You don’t know until it doesn’t come back for five years,” she says. “But it was easier because it was a shorter period of time, and frankly, what they were trying to see too was what the side effects were, and I did have some side effects… and that tells them something.”
Although Bryan did not participate in a clinical trial as part of her treatment, she did receive the latest in breast cancer treatments, which is a chemotherapy regimen called Dose Dense. The difference between this regimen and the normal one is that with Dose Dense the patient goes in for chemotherapy sessions every two weeks instead of every three. It was relatively new when Bryan was being treated, but it’s now much more common. Shannon Morin of Milford also did Dose Dense only six months ago.
Of course, these advances in treatment have not come without a cost – literally: According to the National Cancer Institute’s Web site, cancer prevention and control would get $572 million in the proposed 2008 budget, which would be an increase of approximately 10 percent from 2007.
Alan Eastman, professor of toxicology and pharmacology at Dartmouth, said there is not enough money for cancer research. “Only ten percent of requests get funded,” he said. “The money has dried up, gone towards other resources. There are too many good ideas going to waste at the moment because there isn’t enough money.”
Paine, Bryan and Morin, three women who have gone through treatment for this disease, agree on two things. One is the fact that doing these tests on women of a variety of ages is a major factor in helping to find new treatments and, eventually, a cure.
“We don’t have much research for people in their 20s and 30s,” Morin said. “Right now, when I talk to doctors, I’m kind of in a gray area because they don’t know much about this age range.” Morin was 27 years old when her cancer was diagnosed in August 2006.
The other is the importance of being proactive. “It can strike at any age,” Bryan said. “It’s not a menopausal woman’s problem anymore. It can strike young, so be aware.”
And early detection is key, Alley said. “The most important thing about curing breast cancer is early diagnosis.”
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Sununu Assistant Chosen Cherry Blossom Princess
PRINCESS
New Hampshire Union Leader
Alyssa Marcus
Boston University Washington News Service
April 6, 2007
WASHINGTON, April 6 – When New Hampshire State Society president Michael McBride called Crystal Dollins to tell her that she was chosen as this year’s New Hampshire Cherry Blossom Princess, it was “a very happy moment,” Dollins said.
“Being from New Hampshire, and going to school in New Hampshire and growing up there, I thought I would be a great person to represent New Hampshire,” she said of the reasons why she applied to be the Granite State princess.
The princess selection committee at the state society agreed with her. “We felt that Crystal was above and beyond what we were looking for and she was a good fit for the role,” said Stephanie DuBois, secretary of the New Hampshire State Society.
Dollins grew up in Bedford and graduated from the University of New Hampshire in 2005. She now works as a staff assistant in the Capitol Hill office of Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.).
The princesses, of which there are 47 this year, participate in all of the activities of the week-long Cherry Blossom Festival, which starts this weekend.
Some of the events are a sushi and sake tasting, a dinner cruise, and a Japanese street festival. The biggest is the Congressional Ball on April 13, where a queen will be chosen by the spin of a wheel. The Cherry Blossom Queen gets to spend 10 days in Japan representing the United States, just like the Japanese Cherry Blossom Queen will be doing here during the festivities.
The tradition of the Cherry Blossom princesses first came about in 1939. It’s sponsored by the National Conference of State Societies, and each state society chooses its princess.
The Cherry Blossom Festival itself began in 1912, when Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo gave Washington a gift of 3,000 cherry trees to celebrate the friendship between the two cities.
Dollins also says that she’s hoping to make friends in the competition. “I’ve noticed that a bunch of the other girls… are living here in D.C., are kind of in the same situation as I am, working here either in Congress or representing their state somehow,” she said. “I’m looking forward to meeting a lot of people who are similar to my situation.”
Each princess gives a present to each of the other princesses. Dollins collaborated with the New Hampshire State Society to decide what their state gift would be. “We were thinking of ideas of what to give… we just shopped around New Hampshire and found cute little bottles of maple syrup that we thought would be the best way to represent New Hampshire,” Dollins said.
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New Hampshire Participates in Congressional Art Contest
ART
New Hampshire Union Leader
Alyssa Marcus
Boston University Washington News Service
April 3, 2007
WASHINGTON, April 3 – When Victoria Bouchard, a student at Manchester Memorial High School, traveled to the nation’s capital for the first time last year, she was more than another tourist -- she arrived as an artist helping to decorate “the people’s House.”
As one of the winners in an annual art contest for high school students sponsored by the House of Representatives, Bouchard got to see her work gracing the halls of Congress – an experience other New Hampshire high schoolers could share this year.
Since the contest, “An Artistic Discovery,” was started in 1982, more than 650,000 students have participated in the competitions that are held in congressional districts nationwide every spring. The deadlines for entries in this year’s competitions in New Hampshire’s two congressional districts are in April.
The winning entries from each district are displayed for a year in the tunnel that leads from the Capitol to the House office buildings before being sent back to the artists.
“We walk those halls all the time, and I know we discover new things about the incredible art that our young people are making,” Rep. Paul Hodes (D-N.H.) said. “Each showcase is such extraordinary talent.”
In addition to having their art displayed on Capitol Hill, each winner is eligible for a scholarship form Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia. Although the $5,000 scholarship is contingent on the student’s applying to and being accepted into the college, it’s renewable all four years for a total of $20,000, according to Erin Banks, the college’s
director of scholarships.
Banks said the contest is “a wonderful way to identify the most talented art students. It’s a good way for us to find students who might be a good fit for the college.” Many students also are eligible for other tuition discounts, she said.
According to the Web sites of Reps. Hodes and Carol Shea-Porter, eligible media for the competitions are paintings, drawings, collages, prints, mixed media, computer-generated and photography. In the 2nd Congressional District entries can be no larger than 32 inches by 32 inches. In the 1st Congressional District the dimensions can be no more than 30 inches by 30 inches. The deadline for entries is April 6 in the 1st District and April 25 in the 2nd District.
Harry Gural, Shea-Porter’s chief of staff, said that entries for the 1st District can be sent to the Manchester office. For the 2nd District, entries can be submitted to the Concord office, the Keene office or the Nashua office. Students in the North Country, Rep. Hodes said, should call his Concord office at 603-223-9814.
Bouchard’s winning entry from the 1st District, done in pastels, is entitled “Math and Me.”
“I had never experienced something like that before,” she said of her trip to Washington last May. “It was brand new. It was great.”
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Pig Book Reports Drop in Pork in Federal Spending
PIG NH
New Hampshire Union Leader
Alyssa Marcus
Boston University Washington News Service
3/7/07
WASHINGTON, March 7 – For the release of the Citizens Against Government Waste Pig Book 2007, anyone walking into the first-floor ballroom of Washington’s Phoenix Park Hotel would have come upon an interesting scene.
There were three porcine guests in attendance for this annual press conference. One of them was Porky, the organization’s mascot, played by a man in a furry, fluorescent pink pig outfit. The other two were Winnie and Dudley, Vietnamese potbellied pigs on leashes who performed tricks to the delight of their many watchers.
Each year Citizens Against Government Waste, a private, non-partisan, non-profit organization whose announced goal is to erase waste and mismanagement in government, issues the Pig Book detailing pork-barrel projects in the federal budget.
This year’s Pig Book identifies 2,658 pork projects that are costing a total of $13.2 billion, including at least one in New Hampshire. Scientific Solutions, a research and development facility based in Nashua, received $1.8 million to fund an integrated marine mammal monitoring and protection system.
The Pig Book defines pork as spending that meets at least one of seven criteria: requested by only one chamber of Congress not specifically authorized not competitively awarded not requested by the President greatly exceeds the President’s budget request not the subject of congressional hearings or serves only a local or special interest.
David Williams, vice president of Citizens Against Government Waste, said New Hampshire projects have consistently been on the list, although it doesn’t necessarily mean that the state has a lot of pork. It means that they have a lot in comparison to states of similar size.
“New Hampshire has been in the top 15 or top 20,” Williams said. “I think it’s mainly just because of their small population.”
The 2007 Pig Book has the smallest amount of pork spending since 1999. Unlike previous annual reports, this year’s was confined to the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security. Spending bills for those two departments were the only ones Congress passed last year. Money for all other agencies and programs was included in one “omnibus” spending bill enacted this year after congressional leaders imposed a moratorium on earmarks, or money Citizens Against Government Waste considers to have been inserted inappropriately in a spending bill.
Tom Schatz, the president of the organization, said, “This is the Chinese year of the pig, and fortunately for taxpayers, it’s a much smaller pig.”
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Sununu, Clinton Reintroduce Child Car Safety Bill
SAFETY
New Hampshire Union Leader
Alyssa Marcus
Boston University Washington News Service
February 27, 2007
WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 – Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., reintroduced Tuesday a bill to require vehicles to have safety features to reduce the incidence of child injury and death in non-traffic accidents.
Sununu and bill co-sponsor Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., held a press conference on Capitol Hill with family members of seven children who were either killed or injured in a non-traffic car accident.
“The only way you’re going to prevent these accidents from happening is to design [new safety measures] on the cars,” said Packy Campbell of Farmington, N.H., whose son Ian was killed in his driveway in April 2004.
Ian Campbell was killed when his four-year-old brother accidentally set a truck in motion.
The bill would require manufacturers to add three features to all vehicles: a backup warning system for drivers; windows that would automatically go down if there were an obstruction, to prevent children from being trapped or strangled; and emergency brakes that would have to be engaged before the car could be put in park.
Sununu says that there’s no question that the bill is going to go farther this time than it did in 2005 when, he said, it was introduced too late in the session for meaningful consideration.
“The only challenge is making sure that we don’t just go further, but we actually put it over the finish line” he said. The bill is more likely to get through this Congress because it is being introduced early in the session, he added.
Campbell agreed with Sununu’s assessment. “We’re very optimistic,” Campbell said. “I think last year we broke a lot of momentum on this issue, we educated a lot of folks on it… we got a lot of commitments from folks who support this bill and support safety of children.”
According to Kids and Cars, an organization whose mission is to make sure that children are no longer killed in non-traffic vehicle-related accidents, at least 50 children are backed over by a vehicle each week. Of these children, two die.
Since 2000 more than 1,000 children have died in non-traffic accidents, according to Kids and Cars.
“Great parents are suffering great tragedies,” Campbell said. “These are not unreasonable requests from consumers to say that we should not be making these options.”
Clinton added: “These small steps will help protect the smallest among us and I cannot stress strongly enough how we all feel that this has to be a priority.”
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Money Isn’t Everything in Shea-Porter Campaign
FEC SHEA-PORTER
New Hampshire Union Leader
Alyssa Marcus
Boston University Washington News Service
February 20, 2007
WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 – There are many theories on why Democrat Carol Shea-Porter defeated incumbent Republican Jeb Bradley in New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District.
Shea-Porter won because Republican turnout was “drastically lower” than in other elections, according to Andrew Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. The center’s polling found that in 2004 Republican turnout was 38 percent while Democratic turnout was 37 percent, Smith said. In 2006, Democratic turnout was up to 43 percent and Republican turnout dropped to 31 percent.
Smith said that a repeat face-off in 2008 would be an interesting race. Shea-Porter’s being the incumbent will make it difficult for Bradley to defeat her, Smith said, but nevertheless, Bradley has a “pretty good chance” of winning, since the district is still mostly Republican.
Fergus Cullen, chairman of the New Hampshire GOP, said that during the last election the people of New Hampshire “weren’t voting against Jeb Bradley, they were voting anti-Republican.” The election in 2008 will be completely different, he said.
Shea-Porter doesn’t share Cullen’s opinion. She said that change was made across the nation, not just in New Hampshire. But she doesn’t agree that the country was anti-Republican. After all, she said, “Republicans who listen to their constituents did win. I go there [to the House] every day and I see Republicans on the floor. Do I need to say anything else?”
Regarding a potential rematch in 2008, Shea-Porter said, “I hope he does run. He said he is, and I look forward to it.”
In the 2006 race, money, or the lack of money, was big news. According to filings with the Federal Election Commission, Bradley raised $1,111,590 as of Dec. 31, 2006. This is over $750,000 more than Shea-Porter’s $360,380. Bradley currently has $71,995 in the bank, while Shea-Porter has $68,714.
The money disparity was one of the reasons Shea-Porter’s victory caught so many people by surprise, according to Susan Mayer, her campaign manager.
“What the media did was ignore us because we didn’t have money,” Mayer said.
Bradley received 52 percent of his campaign money from Political Action Committees, and 48 percent from individuals. Shea-Porter, on the other hand, received 85 percent of her money from individuals and only 14 percent from PACs, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan, non-profit group that tracks money in politics and political campaigns.
Shea-Porter’s campaign donors included Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat whose campaign committee donated $3,000. Democracy for America, a liberal grassroots activism group founded by Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, gave $1,000 to Shea-Porter’s campaign, and Women’s Action for New Directions, an organization that attempts to reduce military spending favor of social priorities, donated $100 through its political action committee.
Bradley’s campaign contributors included the Anheuser-Busch PAC, which donated $2,500, Oklahoma GOP Rep. Tom Cole’s Conservative Opportunity Leadership and Enterprise PAC, which gave $5,000, and fellow New Hampshire Republican Sen. Judd Gregg, who donated $2,500 through the Judd Gregg Committee.
Bradley received most of his money from within New Hampshire, with only 32.3 percent coming from out of state, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. For Shea-Porter, 82 percent of her money came from in-state.
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Hodes on List of Vulnerable House Members to Receive Aid
FRONTLINE
New Hampshire Union Leader
Alyssa Marcus and Renée Dudley
Boston University Washington News Service
15 February 2007
WASHINGTON, Feb. 15-- Rep. Paul Hodes (D-N.H.) is on a list of Democratic House members who are already considered vulnerable in 2008 and are being tapped to receive extra fund raising and organizational help by a Democratic campaign organization trying to insure their re-election.
“Frontline” is a program devised by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) which aims to keep incumbent Democrats in their House seats. The committee has selected Hodes as well as nearly 30 other members of Congress, mostly freshmen, to participate in the program.
A spokesman from the DCCC, said the members were chosen for the program because they ran successful campaigns in 2006 despite coming from competitive districts and are likely to have competitive races again in 2008.
“Frontline’s success in the last cycle speaks for itself,” said a party spokesman. “By the fall of 2005, half the seats on the [2006 election] Frontline program were considered safe.”
The spokesman said that the program has been running since 2002. “All the candidates on the list know this is a competitive program,” he said.
The spokesman explained that the candidates are selected and interviewed by the campaign committee, but once they agree to be on the Frontline list, they are required to meet demanding fundraising goals.
“The candidates are chosen based on how competitive their races were, but they enter into this exclusive program of their own accord,” he said. In exchange, the DCCC provides them with fundraising and organizational support.
Another spokesman from the DCCC said that the organization has a significantly larger Frontline list this year than in previous election cycles because the Democrats won more seats in the last election, and therefore have more incumbents to support.
When asked if any of the members are offended at being tagged as vulnerable, the spokesman said: “Absolutely not, it’s just to show that there is strong support for them and that the party is backing these individuals.”
“The whole point is that the candidates know they’re in a vulnerable situation, we at the DCCC know, and the Republicans know,” he said, adding that members agree to be part of the Frontline program before the list is publicly released. “The point is to make sure they know they’re not alone.”
He added: “We’re preparing to back them up, but we don’t want the efforts to be one-sided. It gives us that warm feeling that both sides are working together for the same purpose to accomplish the same goal.”
Jennifer Crider, the committee’s communications director, said that the members are expected to raise between $600,000 and $1 million in campaign funds by the end of June.
Bergen Kenny, Hodes’ press secretary, said the freshman congressman is pleased to be on the list. “We think it’s a sign that Paul’s a serious candidate,” she said. “We’re thrilled to have help and support.” Hodes says that it’s an honor to be included on the list. But he also says that he’s not focusing on campaigning right now. “I’m focused on representing New Hampshire and making sure my constituents’ voices are heard in Washington,” he said. Kenny also said the members on the list had tough races last year and all did good jobs and earned the support of the party.
Other House members from New England on the Frontline list include Rep. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.). More than 80 percent of the members on the list are freshmen.
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Sununu Gets Funding for Women’s Business Centers
Sununu
New Hampshire Union Leader
Alyssa Marcus
Boston University Washington News Service
January 25, 2007
WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 —The Senate has accepted Sen. John Sununu’s amendment to the minimum wage bill to preserve federal funding for a Women’s Business Center that serves parts of New Hampshire and two neighboring states. But the amendment’s fate depends on whether the Senate decides to approve the wage bill itself.
The New Hampshire Republican offered his amendment on Tuesday, and the Senate unanimously approved it the same day. But the following day, a move to bring the minimum wage bill up for a vote was stymied, with critics contending that it must be amended to offer offsetting tax breaks to business.
The Women’s Business Center was established in 1995. Its main location is in Portsmouth, but its programs and services are offered across southeastern New Hampshire, northern Massachusetts and southern Maine. The center has received federal funds since 1997, when it started being supported by the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Women’s Business Ownership.
The center provides support for businesswomen who want to start, expand or improve their businesses. Some of the programs it offers are specialized training, networking opportunities and outreach to both economically and socially disadvantaged women.
“We have to ensure that there’s a program in place to continue having a place for women that has a history of performance like the one in Portsmouth to continue meeting the needs of the community,” Sununu said in an interview.
Under current law the center and similar organizations receive federal funds for an initial five years, after which they may receive sustainability grants for five years. But a center in its final year of such eligibility, when they are known as “graduating centers,” risked closure as they were forced to begin operating without federal funds.
Sununu said it was important to address the subject now because about a dozen such centers around the country are at the end of their five-year cycles but must continue to meet the needs of businesswomen.
Sununu’s amendment would create a renewable, three-year competitive grant program for graduating centers, provide centers with up to $150,000 in matching federal funds per fiscal year and fund existing centers under money already designated for them.
His amendment also would add privacy protections for the centers and makes centers that have exhausted their eligibility newly eligible for funds under the proposed new program.
In a statement released by Sununu’s office, Ellen Fineberg, the executive director of the Women’s Business Center in Portsmouth, said, “I could not be more pleased with Senator Sununu’s initiative to ensure funding sustains the New Hampshire center in our second decade of work promoting women’s business ownership in the Granite State.”
This is not the first time that Sununu has shown an interest in programs for women business owners. He worked on and supported the issue during his stay in the House and when it came up last year as well. During the 109th Congress, Sununu also co-sponsored the Women’s Small Business Ownership Programs Act of 2006, offered by Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine).
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Delegation Split on the State of the Union Speech
UNION
New Hampshire Union Leader
Greg Hellman & Alyssa Marcus
Boston University Washington News Service
1/23/2007
WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 – Members of New Hampshire’s congressional delegation split along party lines in their reaction to President Bush’s State of the Union speech last night.
The state’s freshmen House Democrats criticized the president’s plan for continuing the war in Iraq and his domestic proposals while Senate Republicans hailed the economic growth of the last year and gave their continuing support for the Bush Administration’s handing of the Iraq war.
In his first appearance in front of the newly elected Democratic Congress, the president focused the first half of his speech on domestic issues —energy, education and healthcare – and turned to the war in Iraq for the second half.
The president called for a reduction in dependence on foreign oil and said he aimed to cut gasoline use by 20 percent by 2017. He stopped short, however, of proposing mandatory fuel economy levels.
While reiterating his commitment to continuing to fight in Iraq, the president proposed creating a bi-partisan special advisory counsel for the war on terror.
“This is not the fight we entered in Iraq, but it is the fight we are in,” Bush said. “Let us find our resolve, and turn events toward victory.”
“His proposal assumes there is a functioning Iraqi government; that is not the case at all,” said Democratic Congressman Paul Hodes. “Inserting 20,000 troops into a city of 10 million is too little too late. We need a new course.”
In a statement, Republican Senator Judd Gregg said he would continue to stand with the president on Iraq and support the plan to send an additional 21,500 troops.
“It is my intention to continue to give our troops in the field the support they need to do their jobs and to maintain their safety and to support efforts which will allow us to find the terrorists, especially those who subscribe to Islamic fundamentalism, before they attack America or American citizens,” Gregg said.
Both GOP senators expressed support for the president’s ideas to improve health care while recognizing they only represented a starting point for reform.
“There is no single policy that can address all the concerns regarding cost and access to quality health care, however these ideas are a step in the right direction,” Sen. John Sununu said is a statement.
“I’m at a loss to understand how raising taxes is going to give people more coverage for health care,” said Hodes.
“I think the problem is that most small businesses simply cannot afford health insurance. A tax deduction will not help them,” agreed Rep. Carol Shea-Porter in an interview following the speech.
Gregg, the ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee, said pursuing energy independence and getting the federal budget under control are two areas highlighted by the president that hold the greatest potential for reform.
“It is incumbent upon us to choose areas where positive results can be accomplished and aggressively pursue resolutions to those issues,” Gregg said in a statement. “This is most likely to occur in the areas of energy independence and fiscal responsibility.”
Sununu said in an interview following the speech, “We will definitely be able to eliminate the deficit in the next five years, maybe even sooner.”
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