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The Obama administration is considering ordering a debt commission after Sens. Gregg and Conrad proposed a similar move last week.

Washington (CNN) - CNN has learned President Obama is seriously considering an executive order to create a bipartisan commission that could weigh sweeping tax increases and spending cuts to popular programs like Social Security and Medicare in order to try slash the soaring federal deficit.

Documents obtained by CNN show that top advisers to the President have been privately weighing various versions of a commission and there are differing opinions about how to structure it. Officials say that some inside the administration are pushing for a narrow mandate because it's too complicated to tackle reform of the tax system and various popular federal spending programs all at once.

"Each major category of fiscal policy - Social Security, Medicare, discretionary spending, revenues - raises a complex and idiosyncratic array of policy problems and prescriptions," according to the documents detailing some of the administration's deliberations. "Achieving consensus on any one of these issues - much less all of them simultaneously - may be more than the political system can reasonably accommodate."

But officials told CNN that other advisers to the president are pushing for the commission to have a broad mandate to put all of these big issues "on the table" at the same time.
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Sens. Gregg and Conrad are proposiing a bipartisan task force that would help Congress tackle runaway growth in federal spending.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - The push to address the United States' long-term fiscal problems - and to remove the debate from the partisanship in Congress - took a step forward Wednesday.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and the committee's top Republican, Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., introduced legislation that would create a bipartisan task force charged with making recommendations to Congress for reining in runaway spending growth that threatens to overwhelm the federal budget.

Noting that the country's debt as a percentage of gross domestic product is on track to double by 2019, and grow more than three times that size thereafter, Conrad told reporters, "there is not a serious observer who would conclude that that is a sustainable circumstance for the United States."

The commission's main goal would be to figure out what the country needs to do to get its budget back on a more balanced track.

Specifically, the commission would suggest ways to curb spending growth - especially in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security - and to boost tax revenue.
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(CNN) - The field in the race for New Hampshire's open Senate seat is growing.

Conservative activist Ovide Lamontagne, a 52-year-old Manchester attorney and 1996 GOP gubernatorial nominee, will officially become a candidate Monday for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by fellow Republican Judd Gregg, who is not running for re-election next year.

Lamontagne is filing a statement of his candidacy with the Federal Election Commission. His campaign also unveiled a new Web site, Ovide2010.com, which highlights his anti-establishment and anti-Washington bid for for the Senate.

"I am running for Senate because I am ready to fight for New Hampshire taxpayers, families and businesses," says Lamontagne in a statement on his website. "I am not the establishment candidate, but, as the independent minded conservative, I am ready to lead the effort to bring fiscal sanity and fundamental reform to Washington once and for all."

Lamontagne becomes the fourth official candidate in the race for the GOP nomination, joining former state attorney general Kelly Ayotte, businessmen James Bender of Hollis and William Binnie of Rye. Rep. Paul Hodes, who represents New Hampshire's 2nd district, is the only Democrat in the race.

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“This deficit is driven by us,” New Hampshire Republican Sen. Judd Gregg candidly said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union when asked about the federal government’s projected $1.42 trillion operating deficit for the 2009 fiscal year.

“You talk about systemic risk. The systemic risk today is the Congress of the United States,“ the Ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee told CNN Chief National Correspondent John King, “that we’re creating these massive debts which we’re passing on to our children. We’re going to undermine fundamentally the quality of life for our children by doing this.”

“Now you can’t blame that on [former President] George [W.] Bush,” Greg said, noting that using the Obama administration’s projections the budget deficit for the next ten years is $1 trillion per year. And Gregg said that during the same ten-year period, public debt as a percentage of gross domestic product would increase from 40 percent - which Gregg called “tolerable but still too high” - up to 80 percent.

The figures, Gregg told King, “mean we’re basically on the path to a banana-republic-type of financial situation in this country. And you just can’t do that. You can’t keep running these [federal] programs out [into the future] and not paying for them. And you can’t keep throwing debt on top of debt.”

“Standards of living will drop if we keep this up,” Gregg also said.
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WASHINGTON (CNN) – Sen. Judd Gregg, R-New Hampshire, noted Thursday that the $17 billion in cuts President Obama proposes in his 2010 budget would equal the operating budget of his own state for a few years. But Gregg, who almost joined the Obama administration, added the cuts are not enough.

The cuts represent "less than one half of one percent of the federal budget which will be approximately $3.5 trillion this year," Gregg, the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, said in Senate floor speech.

"It's as if you had a vast desert of sand," Gregg said. "It's as if this were the Gobi Desert or the Sahara Desert and you came along and you took a few pieces of sand off the desert – it literally will have virtually no impact on the deficit and the debt as we move forward into the out years [of federal fiscal planning] because of the fact that while you are taking these few dollars out, which I congratulate the President for trying to do – they are adding back in massive amounts of spending."

Gregg also used an aquatic metaphor to describe the new administration's cuts.

"So, you are taking a little teeny spoonful of water out of the ocean while you are dumping a whole river into the ocean so the water levels go up and the debt levels go up and burden on our children goes up and the cost of the government and the debt of the government is and remains an unsustainable event for our nation and for future generations."
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Sen. Judd Gregg says Obama's budget is excessive.

(CNN) - Sen. Judd Gregg said the proposals in President Obama’s budget “represent an extraordinary move of our government to the left.”

“It is our opinion that this plan spends too much, taxes too much and borrows too much,” said Gregg, R-New Hampshire, in the weekly Republican address.

“The president to his credit is not trying to hide this; in fact he is very forthright in stating that he believes that by greatly expanding the spending, the taxing and the borrowing of our government, this will lead us to prosperity,” he said.

Gregg said he believes the way to run a sound government is by “working on limiting the growth of government” in a manner that is sustainable.

Gregg said he appreciates the president’s efforts but was concerned about where they would take the country.

“Our nation has an exceptional history of one generation passing on to the next generation a more prosperous and stronger country, but that tradition is being put at risk,” he said.

Obama chose Gregg as his pick for commerce secretary, after New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson withdrew his nomination. Gregg later withdrew his name, citing "irresolvable conflicts" over the administration's stimulus bill and the upcoming 2010 census.

Full text of Republican address after the jump

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GOP Sen. Judd Gregg warned Sunday that the country might be headed for a fiscal crash if spending isn't controlled.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Even though he was almost a member of the new Obama administration, New Hampshire Republican Judd Gregg Sunday slammed President Obama’s approach to handling the country’s fiscal outlook.

Watch: Gregg warns of fiscal 'crash'

“The practical implications of this is bankruptcy for the United States,” Gregg said of the Obama’s administration’s recently released budget blueprint. “There’s no other way around it. If we maintain the proposals that are in this budget over the ten-year period that this budget covers, this country will go bankrupt. People will not buy our debt, our dollar will become devalued. It is a very severe situation.”

Gregg, known as one of the keenest fiscal minds on Capitol Hill, also told CNN Chief National Correspondent John King that he thought it was “almost unconscionable” for the White House to continue with its planned course on fiscal matters with unprecedented actual and projected budget deficits in the coming years.

“It is as if you were flying an airplane and the gas light came on and it said ‘you 15 minutes of gas left’ and the pilot said ‘we’re not going to worry about that, we’re going to fly for another two hours.’ Well, the plane crashes and our country will crash and we’ll pass on to our kids a country that’s not affordable.”

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Just two weeks after withdrawing his name from consideration for Commerce Secretary, Sen. Judd Gregg has finally accepted an invitation from President Obama.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Just two weeks after withdrawing his name from consideration for Commerce Secretary, Sen. Judd Gregg has finally accepted an invitation from President Obama: The New Hampshire Republican will attend the Fiscal Responsibility Summit at the White House at the end of the month.

“Reform is urgently needed, especially as long-term entitlement spending threatens to strangle our economy, and action must be taken sooner rather than later,” Gregg said in a statement released Wednesday. “I will certainly do everything I can to work with the President and others in Congress to set a course for the long-run that addresses the issue of how we pass on to our children a government they can afford.”

Gregg, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, will join other members of Congress to help the administration develop a plan to reduce the costs of entitlement spending programs like Social Security and Medicare.

Last week, Gregg cited “irresolvable conflicts” with Obama administration policy for his decision to pull out of the nomination process.

Gregg is opposed to Obama's first major piece of legislation.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Republican Sen. Judd Gregg is putting a final exclamation point on his withdrawal as Barack Obama’s designee for Commerce Secretary with a promise to vote against the president’s economic stimulus package.

Gregg’s office confirmed the decision Friday.

The New Hampshire senator cited the stimulus package as a primary reason for backing out of the job offer, calling the bill and potential changes to Census oversight “irresolvable conflicts for me.”

“We are functioning from a different set of views on many critical items of policy,” Gregg said in a statement Thursday.

The House approved the stimulus plan Friday afternoon, and a Senate vote is expected later in the day. Two weeks ago, Gregg voted against the Senate version of the bill.

Gregg said he will leave the Senate after three terms.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Judd Gregg made clear Thursday he would rather serve in the Senate than in the Obama administration, but the New Hampshire Republican said he “probably” will not seek a fourth term next year.

“Will I run? Probably not,” Gregg said at a press conference after withdrawing from the Commerce post. Gregg also told the New Hampshire Union-Leader earlier in the day that he does not intend to seek re-election.

If that’s true, it likely comes as good news to New Hampshire Rep. Paul Hodes, the Democratic congressman who emerged as a frontrunner for the seat after Gregg first decided to take the Commerce job. Hodes announced his intention to run for the Senate seat last week.

But if Gregg has a change of heart and decides to run again in 2010, Hodes has a tougher road ahead. According to an American Research Group poll released in late December, Gregg held a 47-40 lead in a hypothetical match-up with the congressman.

Even before Gregg said Thursday he won’t run again - but after he turned down the president - Hodes made it clear he still wants the seat.

“I will be a candidate for the United State Senate in 2010,” Hodes said in a statement Thursday afternoon. “I look forward to working every day to stand up for New Hampshire as we come together to confront the economic crisis facing our nation.”

Hodes would still need to secure the Democratic nomination, and may face a primary challenge from Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, who is mulling her own bid.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - A source close to the process says that the idea of removing the census from Commerce and having it “run” out of the White House was taken as a slap in the face by Judd Gregg. “It was like saying they don’t trust you” with such a political issue, says the source.

This source says those who wanted Gregg - including chief of staff Rahm Emanuel - believed that in choosing him, the Obama team would be "taking the opposition’s quarterback off the field.”

“They have to take some of the blame for this," says a Democratic source close to the White House. "They almost humiliated him by taking the census away from him.”

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WASHINGTON (CNN) – A Republican aide familiar with Judd Gregg's decision to withdraw from consideration says the New Hampshire senator has been privately consulting with GOP leaders about this move for the “past couple of days” before making final decision today.

And a Republican source close to Gregg says the "census tipped things," adding to increasing "worries about his seat at the table" - that Gregg might be marginalized “basically if on any issue important to Democratic constituencies they are on one side and Judd is on the other, he is muted.

Full story

WASHINGTON (CNN) - A Democratic source close to the Obama White House said Thursday that Judd Gregg "campaigned for the job" - that the New Hampshire senator had asked Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to approach the president about the Commerce post.

Gregg "sat with [Obama], said he wanted the job, knew his policies and erratically dropped out without warning," said the source, minutes after the Republican senator announced his withdrawal from consideration.

UPDATE: A Democratic source confirms to CNN that Harry Reid approached White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel about Gregg for Commerce Secretary.

And White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Thursday Gregg had initiated discussions over the position.

“Senator Gregg reached out to the President and offered his name for Secretary of Commerce. He was very clear throughout the interviewing process that despite past disagreements about policies, he would support, embrace, and move forward with the President’s agenda," said Gibbs in a statement.

"Once it became clear after his nomination that Senator Gregg was not going to be supporting some of President Obama’s key economic priorities, it became necessary for Senator Gregg and the Obama administration to part ways. We regret that he has had a change of heart”.

President Obama's decision to nominate Sen. Judgg Gregg as Commerce Secretary has sparked concerns about who will control the 2010 census.

WASHINGTON (CNN)– President Barack Obama’s decision to cross party lines and nominate New Hampshire Republican Sen. Judd Gregg to run the Commerce Department has set off a partisan battle over the 2010 census.

African-American and Latino leaders are concerned that the Census Bureau, which is part of the Commerce Department, might lack sufficient resources under Gregg’s leadership to accurately count ethnic minorities.

And in response to statements from the White House that it will work closely with the bureau’s next director, some House Republicans are suggesting that the Obama administration could manipulate the 2010 tally to achieve a longer-term political advantage for Democrats because congressional redistricting depends on census results.

The Census has been the topic of political debate in the past. Many experts believed that the door-to-door approach used in the 1990 Census count missed 1 to 2 percent of the total U.S. population, with many of those uncounted Americans thought to be minorities who lived in urban areas. To address that concern, Census officials proposed using some basic statistical techniques to fill in the gaps. Democrats tended to favor this approach, which were expected to increase the population count in areas of Democratic strength; Republicans tended to oppose the new techniques for similar reasons. The controversy even reached the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1990s.

Gregg, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and of the subcommittee that oversees the Commerce Department, cast a vote in 1995 to abolish the entire department, and in 1999 opposed emergency funding for the 2000 census.

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New Hampshire Rep. Paul Hodes, a Democrat, will announce this week that he plans to seek Judd Gregg’s vacated Senate seat in 2010.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - New Hampshire Rep. Paul Hodes, a Democrat, will announce in the coming week that he plans to seek Judd Gregg’s vacated Senate seat in 2010, according to a source close to the congressman.

Gregg was appointed by President Obama to head the Commerce Department on Tuesday. New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch is likely to appoint Republican Bonnie Newman to fill out the remainder of Gregg’s term, setting the table for an open-seat contest in 2010.

Hodes, an attorney from New Hampshire’s 2nd congressional district, has been on Capitol Hill for just two years. He was first elected in 2006, after unseating Republican Charlie Bass.

He released a statement Tuesday cheering Obama’s selection of Gregg to head Commerce.

“President Obama promised to turn the page and enter a new post partisan era,” said Hodes. “His appointment today of Senator Gregg shows his commitment to that goal. Senator Gregg has a long history of service to New Hampshire and the appointment today is good news for the State of New Hampshire as we now can expect to have a strong advocate for our state in the cabinet.”

UPDATE: A Democratic source told CNN that New Hampshire Rep. Carol Shea-Porter is also considering a run for Gregg's seat, but has not made a decision. She is, however, "keeping the door open."

In a statement, Shea-Porter said she is focused on her current job in the House of Representatives.

"It is still very early and I am focused on my work for New Hampshire and the country," she said.

Obama formally nominated Sen. Judd Gregg to be the next commerce secretary.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - President Barack Obama nominated New Hampshire Republican Sen. Judd Gregg to head the Commerce Department Tuesday.

Watch: 'This is not a time for partisanship,' says Gregg

If confirmed, Gregg will be the third Republican to join Obama's cabinet, following Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

Obama first nominated New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to be commerce secretary. But Richardson withdrew in early January, citing the distraction of a federal investigation into ties to a company that has done business with his state.

Gregg confirmed Friday he is under consideration to be the next Commerce Secretary.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Two senior administration officials say Judd Gregg has accepted an offer to be Commerce Secretary. An announcement will be made Tuesday morning at the White House.

UPDATE: Late Monday, political sources in New Hampshire confirmed to CNN's John King that Lynch will name Bonnie Newman, former chief of staff to Gregg, to fill out his term in the Senate. Sources from both parties confirmed the move.

Full story

New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg, center, is Pres. Obama's likely pick for Commerce Secretary.

(CNN) – It looks like Democrats may not reach 60 votes in the Senate after all.

In a statement released Monday, New Hampshire’s Democratic Governor John Lynch all but promised to replace Republican Judd Gregg with another Republican in the very likely event that President Obama names the New Hampshire senator to lead the Commerce Department.

“I have had conversations with Senator Gregg, the White House and U.S. Senate leadership,” Lynch said in the statement published on his official Web site. “Senator Gregg has said he would not resign his seat in the U.S. Senate if it changed the balance in the Senate. Based on my discussions, it is clear the White House and Senate leadership understand this as well.

“It is important that President Obama be able to select the advisors he feels are necessary to help him address the challenges facing our nation,” Lynch also said Monday.

In recent days, Gregg has risen to the top of the list of likely picks for Commerce Secretary, a cabinet post that has remained open since New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson withdrew himself from consideration.

Gregg confirmed Friday he was under consideration to be the next Commerce Secretary.

WASHINGTON (CNN) –Republican Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire is the leading candidate to become commerce secretary and a decision could come as soon as Monday, an Obama administration official told CNN Saturday.

Gregg said in a statement Friday that he was among those being considered for the post, but White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Friday that "a final decision had not been made."

"I know that's something that he [President Obama] hopes to make a decision on and announce shortly. But until the President tells me to make a personnel announcement from this podium, I'll refrain from getting into individual names on that," Gibbs said at Friday's press briefing.

The administration official Saturday spoke on the condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss administration deliberations.

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