A Talk with Senator John Sununu
Sununu 2 The Spectator Interview/John E. Sununu John Sununu stormed into the U.S. Senate last November, after three terms as representative for New Hampshire's First District and thirty-nine years...
...pounding, there's a big difference between 2 percent and 5 percent growth, and we're witnessing some of that negative impact today...
...How often do you read about 'moderate' Democrats...
...What's been frustrating to me has been the focus on the absolute size of the package, because that suggests that any $600 billion package is better than any $400 billion package, and I don't believe that...
...JS There are three very important issues where we can make progress over the next five years...
...TAS But what about the spending side...
...That made it more difficult for him to spend political capital on an issue so comparatively mundane as finding ways to control the growth of domestic discretionary spending...
...From a political standpoint—what it looks like to the voters—we have some provisions sunsetting in two years, others in four, others in six...
...I'm very proud to be a conservative...
...the death tax goes away and then rises from the dead...
...TAS The current White House isn't being amazingly helpful on this score either...
...We had Gramm-Rudman, we had budget caps, but in the end Congress is always able to find a way around them...
...TAS What would be the top two or three items on the agenda of the new Phil Gramm...
...If you don't have those basic pillars, it's very difficult to build an economy...
...JS: That's a term the liberal press uses to try to demonize Republicans...
...It's critical to economic growth in the developing nations, including the emerging democracies in the Middle East...
...And certainly welfare reform was the most important piece of social legislation passed in the last twenty years...
...TAS Speaking of third rails, how about corporate reform...
...JS Someone told me that it got sixty-five votes the last time around...
...like the forty-third president, he also has a Harvard MBA...
...TAS That fuels the cynics' argument—that the only way we'll ever focus everyone on cutting spending is to run up huge deficits...
...I don't agree with her, but I don't think she's making decisions based on polls...
...TAS You can't do both...
...TAS What about 'cleaning up' Wall Street...
...You can write a $600 billion package that makes the tax code more complex, that doesn't encourage investment, that doesn't cut marginal rates, and that doesn't do much to promote long-term growth...
...I said—I was being facetious-1 didn't realize there were sixty-five senators running for president!' TAS Are you happier about the way things work in Washington than you were when you came here...
...In 1978, New Hampshire had a Democrat governor, a Democrat senator, and a Democratic House member...
...Number two is tax simplification...
...No part of the electorate will support that kind of a hypocrisy for very long...
...JS If the objective is to get the strongest, most substantive economic-growth package possible, any senator is going to be part of the discussion...
...TAS New Hampshire is a red state in a sea of blue—how much weight do you give to the idea of two Americas...
...If provisions are disappearing in two or four or six or ten years, investors don't get the clarity they need to make good decisions—that's supposed to be the point of the whole exercise...
...Even looking around at our neighbors, there's a Republican governor in Vermont, a Republican governor in Massachusetts, a Republican governor in Rhode Island, a Republican governor in Connecticut...
...They're not talking about initiatives to clean up local waterways...
...TAS Now why does Uncle Sam need to get involved in such things...
...JS The problem goes back to the late nineties and to the behavior of Congress during a period of very significant surpluses, which made it easy for people to advocate initiatives that were important to their state or their district, and not worry about whether the growth of discretionary spending was 2.5 percent or 5.5 percent or whatever...
...Will thoughtful, qualified, tough business leaders still be willing to sit on boards...
...JS I think it's a little overdone...
...That's been one of the most frustrating aspects of federal budget policy...
...They're proud of that...
...TAS But it will sail through, right, because it's vaguely 'green' and the farm states love it...
...The United States has the largest and strongest economy in the history of the world, and as a result of that we've been able to do more than any country in the history of the world to clean our air, to clean our water...
...TAS You've been described—hopefully, I should add—as the next Phil Gramm, in the sense of someone who can lead the Senate on issues of the economy and finance...
...A favorite of the tax-cutting Club for Growth, he really, really, truly does not want to be tagged as "the next Phil Gramm...
...JS Well I certainly want to offer him my apologies...
...JS Having lived through the process I was just talking about, I would agree—deficits at least force some tough decision making...
...JS There's nothing 'almost' about it...
...At times, the process has seemed almost surreal...
...You can find many members of the House and Senate who have voted against every tax-relief package, going back to the Reagan tax cuts...
...TAS But how do the Democrats get away with presenting themselves as the party of fiscal probity...
...On the downside, federal spending continues to increase, even when you take out national security...
...But don't argue against a growth package because you're concerned about the deficit and then come back with a proposal for a hundred billion dollars of new spending...
...JS To be fair to the president, in the last two years he has had to spend his political capital dealing with Afghanistan, Iraq, and homeland security...
...Reforms in Social Security have the ability to empower millions of Americans, in a way that they've never been before, by giving low- and middle-income Americans access to retirement vehicles that they own and control and that they can leave to their family...
...Someone who's consistently for more spending can't then stand up and also argue for more tax cuts...
...Look at what's happening in the state budget debates right now—the vast majority of polling indicates that the public wants governors and state legislatures to balance their budgets by controlling spending, not by raising taxes...
...JS The goal has to be ensuring public conTAS You introduced a flat-tax bill in the House, didn't you...
...This is the kind of legislation that makes people outside the Beltway look at Washington and believe that we're not living in the same world...
...JS Sure, it's artificial, and this is an enormous concern for me...
...TAS The environment is also emerging as a 'third rail' issue...
...JS The national environmental groups have simply become advocates for centralized regulation...
...If you want to improve, "There is a crisis down the road if we keep making the tax code more complex...
...There are other issues too...
...I've said for four or five years that Congress is behind the electorate on modernizing Social Security and even Medicare...
...They're not talking about how much more we could be doing to clean up hazardous waste sites if the $2 billion a year that's going through Superfund were used as efficiently as I know it could be...
...JS Whether it's China or the former Soviet Republics or Iraq, they have to establish strong property rights, the courts necessary to enforce them, and an end to endemic corruption...
...JS I've been a proponent of tax simplification and reform since my first campaign for Congress...
...Senate last November, after three terms as representative for New Hampshire's First District and thirty-nine years as the son of one of the great names of conservative American politics...
...It should be the easiest thing in the world...
...JS You might well ask yourself that...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR talked with Senator Sununu in his new basement office in the Senate's Russell Building: The American Spectator We're keeping you away from the floor—what's up...
...John Sununu A bipartisan amendment to mandate five billion gallons of ethanol production, to be used as a gasoline supplement...
...protect, and conserve the environment—whether it's here or in Somalia—find a way to strengthen the economy...
...JS As an institution we're probably more timid than the electorate on spending...
...JS It's challenging—you don't have many Republicans who will step out there and say: `Today I want to talk about the environment: I think we've done a poor job framing the issue...
...That's an enormous compliment...
...The best you can say is that they act as a brake—they slow down the process of expanding government spending...
...Like his formidable father, he is an MIT-trained engineer...
...JS We need to watch very carefully how Sarbanes-Oxley affects corporate governance and behavior of CEOs—because, like any piece of legislation, it could well have unintended consequences...
...TAS Is there a Sununu plan for Iraq...
...Now we have an all-Republican delegation and a Republican governor...
...But as an institution we're reluctant to talk about it...
...TAS What about someone like Olympia Snowe, defying the White House on tax-cutting—is that her constituency pushing her...
...she's served in Washington for a long time, and it's not as if she's sitting on a marginal seat...
...TAS Your friends at the League of Conservation Voters have a different idea...
...TAS The president's proposed tax cut is finally staggering toward denouement...
...But given the effects of com3 2 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR • JUNE/JULY 2003 fidence in the markets...
...One of the big reasons people come to New Hampshire is because taxes are low and because of our historic commitment to local control and personal responsibility...
...TAS That raises the big-tent question: is the Republican Party right to 'tolerate'—if that's the right word—open revolt on a core issue like cutting taxes...
...TAS Still, couldn't someone have proposed 'paying for' the tax cut by whacking half a trillion dollars of spending...
...An offshoot was—'Well, New Hampshire is becoming more liberal because people from Massachusetts are moving up here.' This was never a very sound argument...
...TAS OK, blue sky: it's a second George W. Bush term—where would you want to go...
...TAS Why is cutting taxes such a hard sell...
...JS There is a core liberal constituency that will always argue for more government spending, period...
...I haven't talked at length with Olympia, but she is principled...
...JS I'm not the new Phil Gramm...
...And then you'll also find a lot of conservatives who will argue for government involvement in a particular area...
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...JS The fact that we've been able to pass tax cuts in 1997 and 2001, and that we're going to pass another one this year—that's a cause for optimism...
...We just had an ag bill signed by President Bush that is more of the same—counterproductive policies that actually hurt our competitiveness, and make it more difficult to negotiate down trade barriers...
...And with a straight facet JS It's worse than that...
...Is there any way for pro-growth policies to recapture the high ground...
...The most important part of Sarbanes-Oxley was strengthening the penalties for corporate fraud...
...And you can write a $400 billion package that does...
...I don't want to exaggerate, but there's a crisis down the road if we keep making the tax code more complex...
...If someone wants to argue against a growth package because they're not worried about double-taxing dividends, or because they think small businesses will start investing in new technology without any additional incentives—that's fine...
...TAS USA Today called you a 'moderate...
...If you defraud investors out of a billion dollars, you shouldn't be treated less severely than someone who stole a car...
...TAS We've had people talking seriously about 'ten-year costs' and 'sunsetting' tax cuts, and meanwhile something like dynamis scoring—which could inject a dose of reality—gets dismissed as voodoo...
...The fact that [Senators] Lindsey Graham and Elizabeth Dole and I can campaign on the issue of modernizing Social Security and still get elected—that's real progress too...
...They really believe in big and bigger government being better able to address the ailments of society, at every level...
...JS Free trade—the United States has to reestablish our role in the world as a proponent for and a beacon of free trade...
...JS I think it has to do more with personal conviction...
...I'm not sure how far we could go with that, but it's an interesting opportunity...
...JS Having served on the budget committee in the House for six years, if I had an answer, I'd give it to you...
...From what we're seeing at the grassroots level, it looks like Congress is actually trailing the voters on this...
...TAS: Number three...
Vol. 36 • June 2003 • No. 3
