Gregg: Obama's Budget a 'Clear and Present Danger'

Wednesday, April 1, 2009 12:13 PM

WASHINGTON - Judd Gregg sounds particularly tough in ripping into President Barack Obama's proposed budget -- considering the Republican U.S. senator nearly joined Obama's Democratic administration last month.

"This budget ... represents a clear and present danger to the financial health of our country," Gregg said of Obama's $3.55 trillion spending blueprint.

"This plan spends too much, taxes too much, borrows too much," said Gregg, who first accepted and then rejected Obama's offer to be his commerce secretary.

Gregg was chosen as part of Obama's effort to break down partisan divisions in Washington, but he eventually said he had decided he could not fit in with Obama's largely liberal team.

Gregg issued his budget warnings when he gave the Republicans' weekly radio address on Saturday, and again in the past two days in the Democratic-led Senate, which is expected to approve the plan this week on a largely party-line vote.

"There isn't much we can do to stop it," Gregg said in an interview in his office, noting Democrats have the votes to defeat amendments and pass the bill with a simple majority.

"I don't think we can do much but expose it for what it is -- which is a massive expansion of debt, an unsustainable level of spending and a deficit-generating machine that will bankrupt the country," he said.

"Hopefully, we can build some public awareness at just which direction this government is taking us," Gregg said.

Obama argues the budget is needed to end the recession. Gregg said he "respects and admires" Obama in many ways, but disagrees with much of his economic philosophy.

Still, he said he would like to work with Obama on the troubled Social Security retirement program and Medicare health program for the elderly, but doesn't see the president tackling either issue anytime soon.

JUST "LIP SERVICE"

"Just a lot of lip service," Gregg said.

Gregg is a respected voice in Congress and a power in the Republican Party who crosses the political aisle when he sees fit. The New Hampshire senator is also among a dwindling number of Republicans representing states in the increasingly Democratic northeast.

Although he opposed many of Republican President George W. Bush's big spending plans, Gregg backed Bush tax cuts that Democrats have blamed for boosting the national debt.

Last year, Gregg joined Obama in backing a $700 billion bailout out for the U.S. financial industry.

He has also defended Obama's embattled treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, and supported the administration's efforts to stabilize the financial system, including a new plan to buy "toxic" assets from financial institutions.

Democratic Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad rejects Gregg's claims that Conrad is using "gimmicks" to show a two-thirds drop in the federal deficit over five years.

Yet as the Senate opened debate on the budget on Monday, Conrad saluted Gregg "as somebody that has credibility."

"If everybody in the room thinks the same way, nobody is thinking very much," said Conrad. "Senator Gregg is thinking."

Back in his office, Gregg said he erred in failing to adequately consider Obama's offer to join his Cabinet before he initially accepted it.

"I'm a fiscal conservative, as everybody knows, a fairly strong one," Gregg said on the day he withdrew. "And it just became clear to me that it would be very difficult, day in and day out, to serve in this Cabinet or any Cabinet."

Seated beneath a stuffed moose head amid other memorabilia from his home state of New Hampshire -- whose motto is, "Live free or die," -- Gregg said it was difficult to say no to the popular new president.

"It's a euphoric period. You think, 'Yeah. Let's do it. Let's try it.' Then you wake up and think, 'This isn't going to work. I've been my own person too long.'"

Gregg has announced he will not seek reelection in 2010 to what would be a fourth, six-year Senate term -- after four years as governor, eight in the U.S. House of Representatives and two on the New Hampshire executive council.

"I've been in government for 30 years. That's a pretty big chunk of my life," said Gregg, 62. "I enjoy the job. I enjoy the people. But it is time to move on."

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