Gregg's baby boomer task force plan gets backing
By JORDY YAGER
Special to the Union Leader
6 hours, 4 minutes ago
WASHINGTON – The country's budget crisis is a "fiscal cancer'' that threatens the nation's economic health, a leading expert told a Senate panel yesterday.
Republican Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire has offered legislation to tackle the crisis by forming a bipartisan task force that would recommend to Congress ways to resolve the nation's spending and revenue imbalance.
The Senate Budget Committee heard testimony from experts yesterday in an attempt to identify weaknesses in the proposal and solidify support for the task force, which Gregg said would address "the single biggest domestic issue which we face as a nation as we move into the next 10 to 20 years."
David M. Walker, the U.S. comptroller general, told the committee, "We have been diagnosed with a fiscal cancer. We do not face an immediate heart attack, but that cancer is growing in us and it threatens our nation's economy, our standard of living and our national security."
Panelists at the hearing said the task force must deal with all of the issues surrounding the country's fiscal policies, including the rising cost of health care, Social Security costs, Medicare and Medicaid costs, retirement benefits and the need for Congress to take action.
"Everything has to be on the table," said Leon Panetta, former chief of staff to President Clinton and former chairman of the House Budget Committee. "If you make exceptions, if you try to exclude certain areas from being considered, then you're dooming the process from the beginning."
With the national debt already more than $9 trillion, the first of an estimated 70 million baby boomers filed for Social Security benefits Oct. 15. Social Security spending will grow by an estimated 50 percent over the next 40 years, according to a report earlier this year by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
But many politicians are wary of addressing the country's fiscal problems with legislation, which is why Gregg and Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota proposed the task force.
"You can understand why politicians are so fearful of the issue because if they do put a proposal on the street, it's so easily demagogued, and you can easily convince the elderly they'll be eating dog food because of this person's proposal," said Rudy Penner, a former Congressional Budget Office chief who is currently a senior fellow with the Urban Institute, a nonprofit think tank based in Washington.
The task force would be made up of seven senators and seven House members, the Secretary of the Treasury (who would chair the panel) and one other member designated by the president. In each chamber, four of the panel's members would be chosen by the majority party and three by the minority.
"There's very little dispute that the current fiscal policies are unsustainable and that future generations are at risk from inaction," said Robert L. Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a bipartisan fiscal advocacy group, at the hearing. "Too few of our elected leaders in Washington are unwilling to acknowledge the seriousness of the long-term fiscal problem and even fewer are willing to put it on the political agenda."
The task force would submit long-term policy recommendations by Dec. 9, 2008, and Congress would be given just five legislative days to accept or reject the proposals without change and on a three-fifths vote of approval in each chamber.
"The public is angry at the Congress, the administration, and basically what they're saying is enough is enough,'' said Bill Novelli, chief executive officer of AARP, an advocacy group for senior citizens. "And so I think extraordinary means are necessary. Business as usual is not going to get it done.''
Jordy Yager is an intern with the Boston University Washington News Service.
