By Mark Wineka
mwineka@salisburypost.com
If U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., could have addressed the protest crowds gathered Wednesday for modern-day “tea parties,” what would she have said to ease their concerns about growing federal spending and mounting deficits?
“In down economic times like we’re in now,” Hagan said Thursday afternoon in Salisbury, “this is the time for the federal government to step in and help the economy and help turn this economy around.
“And it’s about jobs, jobs, jobs.”
North Carolina already has 491,000 people out of work and a 10.7 percent unemployment rate, she noted. “This is when your tax dollars need to be put to work in a positive way,” she said.
Hagan has been a strong proponent of the almost $800 billion 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, also known as the economic stimulus package.
She has spent much of her two-week recess going to “shovel-ready” stimulus projects in the state and touring schools and hospitals, including Thursday’s visit to the Hefner VA Medical Center in Salisbury.
Hagan spoke with a Post reporter outside Building 42 on the VA campus after meeting with hospital officials, touring parts of the medical center and speaking with staff members.
To Hagan, the economic stimulus package will create or keep 105,000 jobs in North Carolina. She said $68 million will go into transportation projects alone, including a new $2.7 million bridge to replace a 97-year-old structure on N.C. 73 over Long Creek in Stanly County.
Hagan plans to visit the bridge site near Albemarle today. She also mentioned her visit to a housing redevelopment location in Wilmington.
“We’re seeing progress like that that is just now starting,” Hagan said.
Her office has released a 75-page resource guide related to the stimulus money. It breaks down the funds allocated to North Carolina and includes contact information where cities, counties, businesses and individuals can receive more information.
The book can be downloaded through her Web site at www.hagan.senate.gov.
Hagan’s office also has said the stimulus package will provide tax cuts to 95 percent of workers and their families, provide unemployment compensation to an additional 128,000 laid-off workers and help the state close its own budget gap.
As for the growing federal deficits, Hagan has joined the “Moderate Dems Working Group,” a coalition of 15 self-described moderate Democrats. The group says it formed out of a shared commitment “to pursuing moderate, mainstream solutions” on a wide range of issues, including fiscal responsibility.
In late March, the group urged leaders of the Senate Budget Committee to make tough choices aimed at reducing the projected federal deficit. The Congressional Budget Office had estimated that President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2010 budget would create deficits over the next 10 years that were $2.3 trillion higher than Obama’s first projections.
The moderate Democrats’ group asked the Budget Committee to set three priorities:
– Examine spending on programs that do not create jobs, improve the economy or meet critical needs.
– Address entitlement reform.
– Look at fundamental tax reform.
Hagan said efforts have been successful so far in reducing the increase in non-defense discretionary spending from 12 to 6 percent.
Hagan was one of the state’s chief budget writers for six years in the N.C. Senate. She said she is fiscally conservative and wants to watch where every penny goes, while cutting fraud and waste out of the federal government.
Asked to grade Obama’s performance, Hagan declined giving a letter grade.
“President Obama has been dealt an incredible amount of problems in the first several months into his job,” she said, mentioning the global economic crisis, two wars and escalating drug conflicts in Mexico.
“I think he has done a very good job,” Hagan said.
Hagan said she has concentrated on constituent service and thinks she has assembled a good staff to serve N.C. citizens. “On weekends, I’m coming back to North Carolina,” she added.
Former U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole’s extended absences from the state became an issue that Hagan used against the Republican in last year’s campaign. Hagan said she thinks she has been back to North Carolina every weekend except one since she was sworn in.
Hagan hopes to be opening a Greensboro office this week and also have offices in Greenville, Charlotte and Asheville.
It was Hagan’s first visit to the Salisbury VA facility. She said she wanted to see firsthand the medical treatment being offered and came away impressed by the quality of the staff and their mission to help veterans.
“It’s a gorgeous campus,” Hagan said.
Hagan is a cosponsor of the Veterans Health Care Budget Reform and Transparency Act which would appropriate veterans health care funding two fiscal years in advance, instead of the current one year.
Having the two-year advance would eliminate any funding shortfalls which often happen with delays in passage of the annual federal budget.
Hagan’s office says that in 19 of the past 22 fiscal years, funding for health care at the Department of Veterans Affairs has not been allocated by the start of the fiscal year, “creating avoidable challenges in planning and managing veterans’ care.”