Republicans took over the U-S Senate at the beginning of the year, and New Hampshire’s Senator Judd Gregg has, through seniority and skill, become a leader.
One measure of that success – millions of dollars in federal aid to New Hampshire.
N-H-P-R political correspondent John Milne prepared this profile:
New Hampshire’s Senator Judd Gregg is frequently described these days as “a player in Washington.”
He chairs the Senate committee that controls the big domestic issues of the decade: Health … education … pensions.
Just this month Gregg was named to a new panel overseeing the fight against terrorism.
He’s described as close to President Bush … a friendship forged in the New Hampshire primary campaign.
He chairs a subcommittee of the one committee that really decides where the money goes – Appropriations.
This has brought millions of dollars in federal aid to New Hampshire.
Gregg knows the levers of power, and he knows how to pull them.
Gregg/Track 1 /7:48:
(Gregg 1)
My appropriations committee I use aggressively to remedy
issues in New Hampshire that affect people on the ground, in New Hampshire. Whether it’s buying the IP land or getting the Great Bay protected, or completing the Lake Tarlton protection or getting the police forces up to speed, doing the street sweeper program in Manchester, or the Internet child porn effort over in Portsmouth or helping the university become a world-class university in the area of marine biology, which I think they have been, and I’ve played a role in helping them fund that, a significant role,
Gregg’s success plays well in New Hampshire, but it draws criticism from government watchdog groups.
David Williams is vice president of Citizens Against Government Waste.
This bipartisan group once praised Gregg’s voting record as fiscally conservative.
Williams/ Track 1 / 2:06:
(Williams 1)
In the past, Senator Gregg has actually fared very well. He has a lifetime rating of 83 per cent, which actually puts him in the taxpayer hero category. His 2001 rating was only 80 per cent, so we’re concerned that he’s going the wrong way, numbers-wise.
Williams says there are few taxpayer heroes in the Senate, measured by votes to cut spending, to reduce taxes and to eliminate expensive regulations.
He believes that Gregg’s success contains the seeds of a problem. His rise in the leadership ranks calls for too many costly compromises.
(Williams 2)
3:50: We believe that the longer a member stays in Congress, the more beholden they become – not to their constituents, but to other members of Congress. Because in order to attain a chairmanship, in order to rise up through the ranks, you have to support a lot of other peoples’ legislation. And legislation, typically, increases spending.
Last month President Bush signed a $400-billion dollar spending bill that Gregg helped write.
Linda Fowler, director of Dartmouth’s Rockefeller Center on Politics and Government, says that legislation is a case study in Washington’s worst behavior.
Fowler / Track 1 / 4:06
(Fowler 1)
Anybody whose fingers are on this appropriations bill ought to be embarrassed. It was a travesty. There were a record number of what are called earmarks, which are individual lawmakers designating funds specifically for their own districts. As a result, the budget request for homeland security came up short, and a number of key national priorities on education and health were seriously under-funded.
Senator Gregg acknowledges that his subcommittee’s $55-billion dollar slice of that spending bill contains tens of millions of dollars for New Hampshire. But he says he stayed within the assigned spending limits.
(gregg 2)
13:00: And so yes, I do target the money, but I do so within a disciplined budget procedure. And so I don’t see myself abandoning my basic philosophy of government, which is frugality and being efficient with tax dollars.
Gregg rejects the critics’ contention that spending decisions involve trading votes with other lawmakers.
(gregg 3)
20:20 Most earmarks come because the person comes to you and says, listen, this is a project that’s important to me and it’s in my district. This is why it’s important. Will you support it? There’s a certain number of dollars that are set aside for getting earmarked, and you say either yes or no depending on the viability of the person’s presentation.
There’s another – powerful – player in this game: The White House.
The administration has its priorities too.
But in this particular spending bill, Congress allowed local priorities to trump the president’s ability to set a national spending agenda.
Williams of Citizens Against Government Waste says that’s one thing wrong with this bill.
(Williams 3)
6:40: Whether you call them constituent specials or earmarks, these are projects that circumvent the checks and balances in the system to make sure the money is spent wisely. And, you know, most earmarks aren’t requested by the administration.
Gregg disagrees. He argues that Congress is exercising its political responsibility to help states and communities.
Gregg 4
17:15: Do we let the White House apportion it or do we let the Congress apportion it? That’s been a tug o’ war that’s gone on for a long long time.—who makes the spending priority decisions. And as a member of Congress I feel we have a role in making spending priority decisions. The fact that the White House would rather make those than us is natural, but I think we have a role, too.
In the future, when the balance of power shifts toward the administration, Gregg says New Hampshire will get its share of the funds.
He says he has friends in high places … the White House.
Gregg 5
6:45: they call me and I call them and as a result, I think I have a fair impact on policy, maybe disproportionate to some others, but it comes from having a personal relationship that was built up during the hard times.
Gregg had his state political organization go all-out for Bush in the 2000 primary and election. In the fall of 2004, they expect to be together on the ballot again, when each seeks re-election.
For N-H-P-R news, I’m John Milne
