Fearing budget cuts, interest groups take lobbying local
WASHINGTON -- Sam Burnett, a retired school administrator from Toledo, is an unlikely lobbyist.
But next week, the 79-year-old will drive his blue Mercury Marquis 200 miles to Cincinnati to meet with aides to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Republican Sen. Rob Portman, one of 12 lawmakers on a congressional "supercommittee" charged with cutting at least $1.2 trillion from the federal deficit over a decade.
"I just want to re-emphasize the importance of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in the lives of our seniors," said Burnett, one of dozens of older Americans on the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare who are crusading to protect these programs from the budget ax.
As interest groups scramble to protect their cherished programs, many are taking their lobbying local, turning to business leaders or community activists such as Burnett to plead their cases with home-state lawmakers who sit on the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction or others in Congress they hope will influence their deliberations.
"In my 40 years in Washington, no single group of members of Congress has ever been given so much responsibility to propose so many changes in the funding of the federal government," Howard Marlowe, president of the American League of Lobbyists, said of the deficit panel.
"If you haven't already established a relationship with a supercommittee member or know someone with a close relationship to that person, anything you do now as a lobbyist is secondary," he said.
The panel has broad power to suggest sweeping changes in federal spending and must act quickly. Its recommendations are due by Nov. 23, and congressional failure to approve the plan would trigger automatic, across-the-board cuts.
Entitlement programs, such as Social Security, would be spared from deep cutbacks if Congress fails to pass a plan.
"We're not lobbying for a stalemate, but it may turn out to be better than what they might produce," said Max Richtman, president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, which has launched a $2.6 million advertising and direct-mail campaign to fight cuts.
But across-the-board cuts would be "devastating" to defense contractors already grappling with $350 billion in defense cuts over a decade, said Richard McNeel, the CEO of LORD Corp., which supplies the Pentagon with aircraft parts.
McNeel said he has held five meetings with lawmakers, including Portman and Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, another Republican on the panel. The company employs 1,100 people in Pennsylvania and another 250 in Ohio. The company already has shed jobs at its Cary, N.C., headquarters.
"We are trying to point out the impact the cuts are already having," he said.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat on the deficit panel, said recently on C-SPAN's Newsmakers that he has heard from "grass-roots organizations, doctors, hospitals and others." Among them: the Maryland Hospital Association.
Carmela Coyle, the association's CEO, said Van Hollen has been no stranger to the state's hospitals in his eight years in office. And now that he's a member of the supercommittee, her association talks to Van Hollen on behalf of hospitals around the country.
Her message: Hospitals have already contributed to deficit reduction, taking $155 billion in cuts over 10 years in reduced payments.
Coyle wouldn't say what information Van Hollen has relayed back about the supercommittee's discussions. "Conversations we have with the congressman are private conversations. He has shared the process," she said.
For his part, Van Hollen said the role of a congressman is to "get a whole range of ideas and views" and then to exercise "my best judgment on behalf of my constituents and the country."
