By Paul Tuthill
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wamc/local-wamc-987886.mp3
West Springfield, MA – US Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts is rooting for the super committee to defy expectations and produce a deficit reduction plan that Congress will approve. Brown spoke with a group of veterans in western Massachusetts Tuesday about what the Republican Senator says is the nation's financial emergency. WAMC's Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill reports.
Senator Scott Brown warns if the 12 member bipartisan Congressional panel dubbed " the super committee" fails to do their job there will be a dire price to pay.
The bi partisan panel has to produce a plan for an up or down vote in Congress to cut the federal deficit by 1 point 2 trillion dollars. Failure would trigger automatic cuts to get to that figure with equal amounts coming from the defense and domestic sides of the budget.
Brown says he's spoken often with Massachusetts senior US Senator John Kerry who is a Democratic member of the super committee. Brown says he is deeply impressed by Kerry's willingness to reject the status quo in looking for ways to reduce the federal deficit.
Brown spoke with a group of veterans Tuesday at VFW post in West Springfield. He said 100 billion dollars has already been cut from Pentagon spending and he believes more can be found to cut in waste and inefficiency so there is no need to touch health care and other benefits for current veterans.
Brown said there may need to be changes in pensions and healthcare benefits for future military veterans, just as he says there will need to be changes in Medicare to protect the program for future generations..
Skip Hochreich, an Army veteran who served in Vietnam, says he fears federal budget cuts will impact veterans' health care services.
Brown also talked briefly about the two weeks he spent this summer in Afghanistan as part of his service in the Massachusetts Army National Guard. Brown said it was a different prespective than his official trips as US Senator. He said he supports the troop draw down plan and believes there will be a good outcome