Sen. Cohen defends GOP’s actions to cut federal budget

FORT KENT — Maine Sen. William Cohen explained and defended budget cutting theories and actions of Washington Republicans Wednesday during a whirlwind tour of the St. John Valley.

“We’ve been squandering the future on a massive scale,” Cohen told a group of about 60 at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon in Fort Kent. “We need a rational balance between income and expenditures … because financial responsibility has been lacking for the last 30 to 40 years” in Washington.

During his annual tour of the St. John Valley, Cohen made quick stops at a high school-middle school in St. Agatha, met with municipal officials at Fort Kent, spoke at the luncheon and visited the Northern Trading Co. manufacturing plant at Madawaska.

Between sessions, Cohen said he is running for another term in the U.S. Senate despite reports he will forego politics for a bureaucratic post in Washington. He said he was attending several fund-raisers this week in preparation for his next campaign.

“I’m busy preparing for the election and raising funds” with another campaign in mind, he said.

Washington, he said, is busy with the job of balancing the federal budget by the year 2002. “Unless we get serious about money in Washington, there will not be a future for our young people,” he said.

President Clinton’s budget would have added $1 trillion to the national debt, he said.

With that in mind, Cohen said, it is evident the budget must be balanced. “Budget reductions, no matter what they are, hit someone,” he said.

Medicare and medical services are at the forefront of efforts in Washington. Medicare is a service vital to the survival of the elderly and if nothing is done “it is going bankrupt,” Cohen said.

He explained that Medicare will be spending more money in 1996 than there is coming into the fund. At that rate, the fund will be bankrupt by the year 2002.

People were told that options for the program are few: Increase payroll taxes or repair the fund.

Payroll tax increases, which were raised two years ago, said Cohen, “Don’t do anything to take care of the problems in the Medicare fund.”

He said the Republican proposal is not to cut Medicare but to limit its growth over the next several years to 6.4 percent a year. Medicare growth has been tabbed at 10.4 percent a year. The president’s proposal, he said, is to limit growth to 7.5 percent a year.

Medicare and Social Security, said Cohen, are volatile issues elected officials are “reluctant to touch,” because they remember what happened to elected officials who did that in the early 1980s.

He said something has to be done and votes will be cast on proposals to assist Medicare in the next two months.

“It will be tough because many groups are fighting to protect their turfs. It will be hard because we have a democratic system and it demands consensus,” Cohen said.

The senator also said some people “say there isn’t a problem. There is a problem and it is a serious problem.” Compounding the problem, said Cohen, is the fact “that we are close to an election.”