Inflation takes center stage in CD2 race between Burns and Kuster

Nov. 1—Republican congressional candidate Robert Burns relies on an old cartoon called "Duck Tales" to illustrate a point about excessive government spending.

In an NHPR debate last week with his Nov. 8 opponent in the 2nd Congressional District, five-term incumbent Democrat Annie Kuster, Burns discussed an episode in which Huey, Dewey and Louie got their hands on a machine that could replicate money.

"You could imagine what happened in Duckburg afterward," Burns, 44, said. "Everything went up in price where, you know, a haircut was costing $50,000."

His point is that the federal government has kind of acted like the animated ducks by injecting trillions of dollars into the economy through pandemic relief spending.

Economists often describe inflation as too much money chasing too few goods and services, something that has been happening around the world. The pandemic and the war in Ukraine has disrupted supply chains.

U.S. consumer prices in September were up 8.2 percent compared to the previous year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The corresponding rate for the 19 countries that use the Euro as their currency was 9.9 percent, according to the European Commission.

For her part, Kuster, 66, a Hopkinton attorney, says price gouging by oil companies has contributed to inflation. She also says the federal spending was needed to avert a potential economic collapse when the pandemic hit.

"You have to take yourself back to March of 2020 when all of these businesses would have closed their doors. We would have had rampant hunger. We would have had people living in the streets," she said in an interview last week with The Sentinel's editorial board.

Early in the pandemic, Congress approved the federal Payroll Protection Program under the Trump administration. It offered forgivable loans to businesses that retained their workforce. Billions of dollars in fraud have been reported in this and pandemic unemployment benefit programs.

Burns complains that there was insufficient oversight in federal aid programs during the pandemic.

"There was way too much grift and graft," he said during the debate. "There was too much lost to corporations that never existed. There was this rush just to throw out money for the sake of doing something."

Burns, of Pembroke, considers himself a fiscal conservative. He worked on Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and is a former Hillsborough County treasurer.

He has a pharmaceutical quality control company in Bedford, Burns Automation, which received $87,409 in CARES Act Coronavirus Relief Funds, according to the Governor's Office for Emergency Relief and Recovery.

Burns says Congress can help reduce inflation by reducing excess federal spending. Kuster, on the other hand, said the Inflation Reduction Act, enacted in August, will lower costs for families and bring down medication costs by allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices for consumers while limiting the cost of insulin for Medicare beneficiaries to no more than $35 per month.

Burns and Kuster disagree on a range of subjects, including:

Abortion. Burns said he favors a federal ban on abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy. New Hampshire law now prohibits most abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy. Kuster would like to see federal protection for women to have the right to an abortion before a fetus is considered viable. Viability is generally considered to be about 24 weeks.

Drug treatment. Kuster said that medically assisted drug recovery programs deserve support. Burns said he thinks a "boot camp" approach that limits the use of medication is more effective.

Climate change. Kuster supports increased utilization of renewable energy such as solar and wind to limit carbon emissions. Burns describes green energy initiatives as a boondoggle.

Find information about the candidates, voting, sample ballots and more for the upcoming election at www.sentinelsource.com/vote/

Rick Green can be reached at rgreen@keenesentinel.com or 603-355-8567.