HILLSBOROUGH: So close, yet so far apart

Gentleman neighbors Lance, Holt at ends of political spectrum in Congress

By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
   Rush Holt came to Congress via a background in physics.
   Rep. Leonard Lance concentrated on history and the law.
   Mr. Holt, a liberal Democrat from Hopewell Township, and Mr. Lance, a conservative Republican from Clinton Township, co-exist as neighbors in adjacent Central Jersey Congressional districts, yet are respectful opponents when it comes to public policy.
   The fact that the two are so close geographically, yet distant philosophically attracted Eagleton Institute to pair them in a “conversation” at the Rutgers University public policy center on April 15.
   Their similarities in style and personal respectfulness were on stage as much as their contrary views on issues. Eagleton Director Ruth Mandel, who moderated the evening, called them “gentlemanly in a Congress increasingly combative.”
   Ms. Mandel asked each how their backgrounds influenced their present work. Mr. Lance pointed out that the “issue matrix is somewhat different” on the state versus federal levels, but on the whole he was still involved in the law-making branch of government, his first love.
   Mr. Holt observed that his “whole life has straddled world of science and politics,” noting that his seventh-grade teacher reminded him years back that he then simultaneously had subscriptions to both The Washington Post and Scientific American.
   ”When you come down to it, the job as a congressman is all about how the world works and how people all get along,” he said. “I have learned an awful lot about what makes people tick and what motivates people,” even if it was something like the point at which taxes maximize revenue while not discouraging work and enterprise.
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   Mr. Holt, the only research scientist in Congress, said, “Training in science is good training in framing questions,” he said.
   Mr. Lance, the son of a longtime state senator who helped rewrite the state constitution in 1948, argued that he thought it important that members have a sense of history, to remember that “the day one enters Congress one does not reinvent the wheel.”
   They also must “decide whether there is a constitutional dimension to the laws they pass,” he said.
   Mr. Holt’s district centers on Mercer County, and includes the Princetons, South Brunswick, Plainsboro, Cranbury and West Windsor. Mr. Lance represents an area roughly along Route 78 from the Delaware River nearly to the Hudson.
   Varied backgrounds and viewpoints are needed in the Congress to bring expertise to issues, the two said. When Congress passed laws to move the country wholly to electronic voting machines, the scientific world saw the potential wrinkles and was aghast, said Mr. Holt, whereas lawyers and others saw no problem.
   Mr. Holt and Mr. Lance came to Eagleton just a week after the federal government had almost ground to a halt for lack of an agreement on continued funding of the current year’s budget. The previous Friday night, the two had been on the House floor until after midnight, preparing to vote on the compromise that cut $38.5 billion from the remaining months of the current fiscal year’s budget.
   ”I didn’t think anyone wanted to shut down the government, yet there were new members saying that or implying it on the floor,” Mr. Holt said. “They had spent the last year campaigning against government and now they were government and they didn’t quite know what to do,” he said. “If it weren’t so serious, it would have been amusing.”
   Rep. Lance said the 87 freshmen Republicans, the largest rookie class since 1948, he noted, came into office sincerely motivated and passionate in their belief of the need “to right the fiscal house of this country” and demanding a cut in federal spending.
   Both drew a difference between the continuing resolutions to fund the government and the upcoming debate on raising the debt ceiling — certifying the nation’s ability to borrow money.
   The upcoming debt ceiling vote is a matter of preserving the credit worthiness of the U.S., not affecting its day-to-day operation, Mr. Holt said. The imminent clash was not a time to rehash economic theory, or review how the U.S. had sunk into its debt, or to pit defense spending versus food stamps. “Now is not the time to fix that,” he said.
   ”A sizable minority (of the Congress) see it not as a matter of credit principally but as an opportunity to extract changes that have to do with their view on how we got here,” Mr. Holt said.
   Mr. Lance, who said he had been more optimistic there would be no shutdown over the continuing resolution gridlock, said that Speaker John Boehner has tied the upcoming debt ceiling vote to other policy matters. Mr. Lance said Republicans are interested in a constitutional component to the argument and predicted future debates would likely revolve around measures — perhaps even a constitutional amendment — to limit future debt to a certain percentage of the nation’s economic output. Mr. Lance said the number would be in limiting the nation’s debt to 20-25 percent of its GDP.
   Later, he said, “I’m of no illusion that we can bring the debt down to what I’d might like. If only we could have a deficit of a trillion dollars this year, instead of a trillion and a half … and I never thought I’d be saying that.”
   Mr. Holt agreed that “deficit attention disorder can be dangerous,” but the GOP was only willing to deal “with a fraction of a fraction” of the budget in attacking the issue. It’s a bigger problem, he said, but the Republicans have defined it — and many Democrats have bought into the argument — that it is a spending problem.
   ”The word ‘investment’ has vanished from the vocabulary,” he said. “Investment is absolutely necessary to our future survival.”
   The two had more common ground on the issue of social entitlements.
   Social Security, even though actuaries say the U.S. won’t be able to pay100 percent of the benefits it promises today, “is not a program that is fundamentally broken, but one that needs adjustment,” said Mr. Holt.
   Medicare is a different story, he said. Its fiscal shakiness is not because it’s a government program but because of the skyrocketing cost of health care in general, he said. At increases of 8 to 10 percent a year, no insurance program can survive, he said. Last year’s health care debate was principally about holding costs down, he said, although conceding there’s a debate if it’ll work.
   Mr. Lance agreed Social Security can be adjusted without massive, albeit significant, changes. “I have told the 24-year in my house that he will have to work until he was 70,” Mr. Lance said, bowing to what he saw as a rise in the life expectancy as well as fiscal realities. “I given him many decades of advance warning.”
   Mr. Lance said his main philosophical problem with the health care legislation was the mandate that everyone must buy insurance (in order to pay for other provisions, like eliminating lifetime limits, and keeping children on parents’ policies well until the children are 25.
   He saw it as a significant constitutional question, and said he has sponsored a resolution “respectfully” asking the Supreme Court to take up the issue immediately, so that it could be resolved before the 2012 election. He foresaw a close vote in the court, perhaps 4-4 with Anthony Kennedy as the tiebreaker.