Ayotte Addresses Taxes, Budgets, Medicare and More at Town Hall Meeting

U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte filled about half of Merrimack High School's Little Theater on Thursday evening during a town hall-style meeting that focused primarily on a wide range of questions pitched to her by the audience.

In a 10-minute address to the audience before opening the floor to questions and answers, Ayotte touched on the debt crisis, the importance of passing a budget, Medicare and the looming sequestration that threatens hefty across the board cuts to defense programs.

Ayotte was in town at the end of July with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to discuss the sequestration at BAE systems, a company that could see layoffs if those across the board chops are made.

“I like to call the debt a bipartisan problem, because it really did take Republicans and Democrats to get us into debt,” Ayotte said showing a slide pointing out that it's been more than 1,200 days since the Senate passed a budget and that debt has grown $4.8 trillion since then. “Frankly it's going to take both parties to get us out of debt.”

“I have been so frustrated with this budget situation, I have co-sponsored a bill that says Congress should not get payed until there's a budget because I think it's that important to our country,” Ayotte said, meeting applause.

“I was impressed with the breadth of knowledge in her answers,” State Rep. Dick Barry, R-Merrimack said of Ayotte after the meeting. Barry also appreciated her restraint from making the hour about attacking Obama and the Democrats but instead giving well thought out answers to the questions lobbed her way.

“I'm tired of that kind of politics,” Barry said, “we don't need to pick on people.”

Barry said he expected Ayotte to have a lot to say on the budget, as she's on the Senate Budget Committee, but he appreciated Ayotte's depth of knowledge on other issues, for instance her response to Jerry Pageau, who became emotional asking Ayotte to do what she could to extend the years left that will be spent trying to recover the missing bodies of the 82,000 POW/MIA servicemen and women out there.

“Eighty-two thousand, that's Manchester's population, left behind like trash, forgotten,” he said.

Ayotte assured Pageau, a Vietnam-era veteran, that she hears his plight and thinks there are things that can be done. She said she would talk more with him following the meeting about his concerns, but she did tell a story about a cemetery in the Philippines that is full of about 7,000 bodies of dead American soldiers that was all but forgotten after Clark Air Force base closed out there and a volcanic eruption caused the cemetery to become neglected and overgrown. She said a group of citizens there tried maintaining it, but it became overwheming. There's a group that has responsibility for places like this called the American Battle Monuments Commission and she said she has a bill in that she thinks will get enough sponsorship to return some care to this cemetery.

“The least we can do is maintain it with the dignity and respect they deserve,” Ayotte said.

Pageau wasn't the only to get emotional asking his question. Jeanie Walton, of Amherst, a landlord to some tenants who rely on social services, also teared up asking how far the Republican party was planning to cut social services to people who rely on them.

“If social services are completely reduced to where the Republican Party wants to place them, these good people are literally going to be on the streets and I'm going to have to put them there because I can't afford to let them live there for free,” Walton said, choking up. She said she wanted to know if there is a safety net in place so the cuts don't go so deep that it leaves people like her tenants on the streets.

Ayotte said she hopes this is an issue where there should be a safety net and more oversight to make sure that money from social services is being spent appropriately.

But it also goes back to getting the economy on track and getting people like Walton's tenants into better paying jobs so they don't need to rely on these kinds of social programs.

It was a similar answer she gave to one young man who asked what can be done to make sure hardworking parents can afford child care.

“Overall, I think the best thing we can do is get our economy moving and get us in the position where people have the opportunity for good paying jobs,” Ayotte said. “To put us in the position where we can make enough money to sustain good child care.”

Moving forward, Ayotte said in order to get this country and it's economy back on track there are things that need to be done, and her priorities include passing a budget, reforming, not reducing taxes and preventing the imment January defense budget cuts.

If this sequestration hits, and spending is cut blindly, rather than through finding viable places to make cuts, Ayotte said, she thinks the government would be “undermining” it's number one responsibility to the country – to keep it safe.

“If we do them all, there's only one thing we need in Washington to do them all, from both sides of the aisle and that's courage, that's all,” Ayotte said of her three priorities. “... These are tough issues, we've got $16 trillion in debt. I could stand here and tell you that we're going to promise everything to you, that we can do everything you want to see happen no matter what your priority is. But we're going to have to make some tough calls, there's no question, but we make it worse when we don't make those calls.”