ken..Must still be some room under the dem/liberal/commie obama bus for this stupid democrat?
Debt is 'the issue of the decade'
By JEANNE CUMMINGS & JAMES HOHMAN
2/15/11
politico.com
Sen. Mary Landrieu says getting control of the ballooning debt will require substantial spending cuts, tax increases and structural changes to Medicare.
In an interview last week for the POLITICO video series “The Economic Outlook,” the Louisiana Democrat even raised the possibility of politically treacherous cuts to Social Security.
“Sending a signal that America and the leaders of America are willing to take on some sacred cows ... is an important signal to send,” she said. “I’m not saying put Social Security cuts first. I’m not saying it created the mess that we’re in. But I am saying that it’s going to take a combination of reductions in spending and freezing federal spending, as well as on the revenue side.”
“Anything we do that’s meaningful is going to be controversial because this is not going to be easy,” she added.
The third termer pushed back on those who fault the stimulus, the health care law or President Barack Obama for the debt. Former President George W. Bush’s tax cuts, two wars and an economic downturn account, in her view, for 85 percent to 90 percent of the gap, although she did acknowledge having voted for the tax cuts.
Landrieu worries that there’s no consensus on how to address “the issue of the decade,” but she noted a “growing recognition of the severity of the problem.” The budget that Obama unveiled Monday, for instance, projects a $1.65 trillion deficit in the current fiscal year.
“The numbers should jolt us into action,” she said. “They are unsustainable, and America cannot be the kind of strong, innovative and creative country with debts and deficits that high.”
The senator is not a fan of small-bore or one-size-fits-all solutions. She said temporary salary freezes for federal workers and holding the line on discretionary domestic spending do not address larger structural problems.
As chairwoman of the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, she’s pushing for Congress to simplify the tax code, get rid of tax havens and ease onerous regulations on small businesses.
She doesn’t like the president’s moratorium on earmarks, saying that it doesn’t affect the deficit and only gives the executive branch the power to decide how to spend dollars that would have been spent anyway.
Here’s what Landrieu said on other matters:
Turning back to the issue of jobs, your home state has been hit now twice, with Katrina and the oil spill. Is the job market improving? What is the state of affairs in Louisiana?
Louisiana’s job market was improving until the oil spill hit, and now we’ve been hit again by the moratorium on offshore oil and gas drilling, which lasted over six months, and now it is a weak recovery of drilling taking place. ... Eighty percent of the offshore drilling in the nation is done off the cost of Texas and Louisiana, so we’re very hard hit, not only by the spill but also by the moratorium.
We’re coming back slowly from that. Interestingly, after a disaster like Katrina, while there is an immediate loss of literally tens of thousands, if not a hundred thousand, jobs, there were jobs created in the cleanup and rebuilding and recovery.
So Louisiana is somewhat fortunate that, even with the storms and the hit with the spill, that our economy is still a little bit stronger than nationally, but America has to create more jobs in the private sector. That’s why I led the effort on the small-business jobs creation bill.
Education has been an area where some bipartisan work has been achieved. Are you hearing signals on that, that maybe something can be produced and passed?
Yes. Actually, I think this might be one of the most promising areas where Democrats and Republicans could come together, in the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
There will be some changes, but the good news is the federal government’s 10 cents on every dollar we contribute, we want to leverage that 10 cents to make sure that the schools in every state, in every county, are doing the very best they can to provide a quality, high-caliber education for every child. ... There is a consensus growing about the reauthorization of [No Child Left Behind] that some of the models of reform that are working, taking those models and scaling them up.
Were you surprised or given any kind of heads-up that the president was going to take that kind of a firm stand on earmarks?
No, we weren’t. ... The president hasn’t been a fan of earmarks. I mean, he gets to earmark the whole budget. ... So he decided the 1 percent that we do, he wanted to eliminate it. That’s his prerogative, but I think ... it’s going to be a real detriment for Louisiana, because there are two of us in our delegation who are on the Appropriations Committee, and we appreciated the opportunity and, most importantly, our constituents appreciated the funding that we were able to send to them.
But ... it’s just beyond overturning. ... So we’re going to have to be creative and find different ways to help our states through more grant-oriented, competitive-oriented programs, but it’s unfortunate, because I think there were some excellent earmarks that have helped Louisiana prosper and grow in the past, and they won’t be available this year. |
