Week in Review - March 20, 2009

Statement

Week in Review - March 20, 2009

Posted by: Sen. Richard Burr

This week in Washington, I introduced legislation to help medical students as they start their medical residency. The Medical Economic Deferment for Students Act (MEDS Act) restores the medical student loan deferment program. With recent reports indicating the United States is facing a shortage of physicians in the future, reinstatement of the student loan deferment could prompt students who could otherwise not afford medical school to give a career in medicine a second look.

There has been a lot of political theater and finger pointing this week in Washington regarding AIG's decision to give out hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses to its executives after receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer bailout funds. The situation is proof-positive of why the federal government should not have an equity stake in private companies.

Finally, the Congressional Budget Office has released a review of the budget outline issued by the President in February. While the budget outline itself is somewhat short on detail, and CBO will issue a further review when the entire budget proposal has been issued, it has enough information to determine that the President's budget proposals would double publicly held debt in five years and nearly triple it in ten years.

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