News

Burr touches on education, health care
Burr tells AP he'd accept VP nod on McCain's ticket
Burr gets a look at the center his bill created
Burr prominent in running-mate talk
Senator Visits BAE

Burr touches on education, health care: U.S. senator speaks at Forum Onslow
BY HEATHER GALE
2008-02-21
DAILY NEWS STAFF

Nikko Carlson met his first politician Thursday.

Carlson, a 16-year-old from Swansboro, attended Forum Onslow and was interested in seeing how Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., reached out to people.

"I was pleased to hear him talk about health care and the problems growing with that," he said. "I was going to ask him about the happenings in Cuba with Fidel, but the senator ended (the question and answer period)."

Forum Onslow is a program dedicated to educating people on governmental affairs in the Jacksonville and Onslow County areas. Carlson attended with Swansboro High School Assistant Principal Jay Strope at the invitation of the Jacksonville-Onslow Chamber of Commerce. The chamber, which hosted the forum, wanted to see at least one administrator and one student from Onslow County Schools attend the event.

The three main topics Burr discussed were education, health care and veterans' health care.

"I am, of course, glad that (Sen. Burr) talked about education," Strope said. "I am also glad that he talked about the veterans' health care issues. I believe the issues are very relevant to our region."

Burr said higher education in North Carolina is an asset.

"Annually, we put more kids from higher education into the work force than any state but California. ? Our kids and the ones we attract to higher education are the cream of the crop in the country," Burr said. "We have got the No. 1 asset that industry needs."

Burr said he is concerned about how many students are dropping out of high school and suggested that students be taught differently.

"We expect them to open a book and absorb the information like we did," he said.

However, he added, in the time it takes publishers to print a textbook, students can look up whatever information they need on their cell phones or computers. Information in that text book, he said, would be obsolete and not up-to-date.

With health care, Burr said every American should have the resources they need to choose the health care they want.

"We can't continue with double-digit inflation and health care with an employer-based system of health care providers and go indefinitely into the future and continue to be competitive," he said. "I am not for universal health care. ? If we can eliminate the uninsured in America ?, we would free up $200 billion a year that it currently costs us for those who can't pay or are not covered."

For veterans' health care, Burr said the country needs to enhance outpatient care clinics rather than building a Veterans Affairs hospital.

"(The government) has got to get out of the business of building $700 million hospitals that can't pick up and go where the veterans are," he said "We need to enhance outpatient clinics that are located where our veterans are ? where the rest of their family is located."

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Burr tells AP he'd accept VP nod on McCain's ticket

Associated Press

North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr said Monday that he would accept a spot on John McCain's presidential ticket if asked by the Arizona senator.

Burr has joined McCain on the campaign trail several times over the past year, stumping for him in places like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. He and his wife were with McCain on Super Tuesday, and the two senators often discuss strategy and policy together.

Burr said McCain is focused on winning the nomination and that the two haven't discussed teaming up for the November election. But the first-term senator said he would agree to run as a vice president if McCain asked him.

"You're not going to say 'no' to a future president," Burr said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Though the two senators disagree on some policy issues, such as campaign finance reform and some aspects of illegal immigration, Burr said McCain is a true conservative with the experience to deal with the key issues facing the nation, such as the war in Iraq.

The Southerner said he's not planning on joining McCain on the ticket, adding that he doesn't expect McCain to choose a running mate until "much later in this calendar year."

"People mistake my intent, which is to get (McCain) elected, versus a belief that this is an audition," Burr said.

Should the two join forces on a ticket, Burr would provide McCain some distinct accents. McCain, who has been in Congress for 26 years, would be the nation's oldest president on inauguration day at age 72; but Burr, a fresh face on Capitol Hill, is only 52. And the North Carolina senator provides some roots in the South for McCain, who has so far lost most primaries in the region to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

Burr was elected to the Senate in 2004, after spending 10 years in the House of Representatives. He serves as the ranking member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, and sits on several other committees including the Senate Intelligence Committee.

He will be up for re-election in 2010.

Burr also has some vice presidential blood. He's a distant cousin of Aaron Burr, who nearly became the nation's third president before taking the vice presidency behind Thomas Jefferson.

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Burr prominent in running-mate talk

Winston-Salem Journal

With the contest for the Republican Party's presidential nomination all but locked up for John McCain, one of Washington's favored political parlor games - running-mate speculation - began in earnest yesterday.

Dozens of names have been floated as possibilities for the No. 2 spot on McCain's ticket this fall.

Some, such as U.S. Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, have been singled out as potential vice presidents by McCain himself. Other names, including Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, have come from pundits and party insiders.

"McCain has a million directions in which he could go," said Norman Ornstein, a political scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative research goup in Washington. "Any logic we employ to determine who he's going to pick at this point would be very shaky logic."

Yet the speculation rolls on. McCain could use any number of factors to trim the list of possible running mates. Vice presidents are often chosen to bring geographical or ideological balance to a ticket, or to make up for inexperience in certain areas.

For example, George W. Bush had little national security experience when he entered office, and selected Dick Cheney for his familiarity with defense issues and foreign affairs.

McCain, of Arizona, would be the oldest person elected president. He would be 72 the day he took office. He has also taken fire from the conservative wing of the party for his less-than-hard-line stance on illegal immigration.

Choosing a young Southerner such as Burr, a conservative darling, would balance the ticket nicely, said Ferrell Blount, a former chairman of the N.C. Republican Party who endorsed McCain last year.

"He's a staunch conservative, he's young and attractive, and he's from the South," Blount said. "He's a shining star in our party."

The fact that Burr spends much of the year in Washington could hurt his chances, Orenstein said. He predicted that McCain, who has been in Washington for years, would choose a governor to balance the ticket.

Of course, balance does not always play a role. Bill Clinton chose Al Gore although both were moderate, middle-aged Southerners. Gore's career was centered on Washington, and Clinton's on Arkansas.

McCain, who is known for his willingness to buck conventional thinking, could choose another elder with strong national-defense credentials.

Yesterday, he suggested that picking someone from the South, a strong Republican base, would not be the main consideration.

"I think America is such now that quote regional differences don't play the role that maybe they did ... earlier," he said, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Or, he could select a de facto Democrat, his friend Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, an independent who endorsed McCain.

Lieberman's frequent campaigning with McCain has fed that speculation. In fact, many names on the list of potentials are there in part because they campaigned so frequently with McCain.

Burr and his wife campaigned alongside McCain in several early primary and caucus states.

But he is also one of the few politicians that McCain has identified as a possible vice president by name. In an October 2006 television interview with Hardball host Chris Matthews, he named Burr, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Sen. John Thune of North Dakota and Sen. John Sununu of New Hampshire as possibilities.

Publicly, Burr has played coy when asked about the possibility. "I won't be the vice president," he told the Winston-Salem Journal after endorsing McCain last year.

Though many politicians want the job, few are willing to say so publicly, since actively and publicly campaigning for the vice presidency is considered gauche in Washington.

"Sen. Burr has been proud to campaign for John McCain because he has long believed McCain is the best candidate to be president. Burr's focus remains on serving the people of North Carolina in the U.S. Senate," said Mike Fenley, a spokesman for Burr's campaign committee.

Burr gets a look at the center his bill created

Raleigh News & Observer

U.S. Sen. Richard Burr received a personal tour Tuesday of the Health and Human Services emergency operations center that he helped create a year ago.

The center in Washington, staffed Tuesday by nearly 20 people, is charged with maintaining a constant vigil on the nation's health -- monitoring weather, news, health crises and the international path of the bird flu virus.

It is part of the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act that Burr wrote. President Bush signed it into law a year ago. The bill aims to help the federal government work with local and state governments in responding to crises. Among its provisions was the hiring of a new assistant secretary, Navy Rear Adm. Craig Vanderwagen.

Tuesday morning, Vanderwagen offered a briefing on the center, housed inside the Health and Human Services agency about a block from Capitol Hill. Nine big, flat-screen televisions ringed the room on three sides. On the fourth, an entire wall displayed Web sites ranging from a weather radar map to the National Drought Monitor.

On one screen, Vanderwagen had displayed a Google Earth satellite image of Burr's Winston-Salem office.

"I think in a year, since you spearheaded getting that act through, we have done amazing things," Vanderwagen told Burr.

Also on the tour were Leah Devlin, North Carolina's public health director, and Bill Atkinson, president and chief executive officer of the WakeMed medical network in Raleigh.

Burr based much of his bill on the emergency preparedness of North Carolina's public health system. And one of the first grants awarded by the new program went to WakeMed, which is building the nation's first hospital-based emergency operations center.

The agency will include a smaller office also created by Burr last year: the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. The office will manage private and university-based research on vaccines and drugs for national medical emergencies.

Burr said that the authority already has begun making grants for drug research but that this week's omnibus spending bill in Congress threatens to cut that funding.

The Senate had $189 million for the biomedical research agency for next year; the new omnibus bill cut the amount to $103 million. Burr said the cut would reduce the amount of grants the agency could award for research.

"It means we've got to pick and choose potential threat areas," Burr said.

The biomedical research authority also might be close to hiring its first director, Vanderwagen told Burr during the tour.

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Senator Visits BAE

Union County Enquirer Journal

I always am amazed at how much N.C. companies play in national defense.

So said U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., during a visit Monday where he complimented the staff of BAE Systems for its work in producing Tensylon, a specialty fiber used for military body and vehicle armor.

"This is just another example of technologies that are unique to this specific plant that play a very important role in our security," he said.

BAE Systems vice president and general manager Lisa Owen guided a tour through the plant and pointed to several innovative methods used to produce the bullet-resistant material.

"BAE Systems greatly appreciates Senator Burr taking the time to visit our Monroe operation and showing great interest in the products and services we develop to keep the men and women of the armed services safe," Owen wrote in an e-mail. "This will protect against any threat in Iraq or Afghanistan."

Tensylon material is lighter than previous defense materials but is more resistant and cheaper to produce. "We are really excited by the overall value Tensylon products offer in survivability as well as non-armor applications," Owen wrote.



"The downside is change," she said as the only negative. It is difficult to get the military to trust something new before it proves itself in real-time war situations.

Tensylon is produced by starting with a specialized polyethylene polymer that is compressed and stretched under extreme controlled heat. A total of 70 or 80 sheets, which are very thin, are adhered together to form the highly resistant material, Owen said.

Throughout the tour, Burr asked several questions and was very interested in the production process. "I am always impressed with the expertise of the people working on it," he said.

Speaking in support of the war, Burr said that "we would make a huge mistake long-term if in fact we left before the Iraqi people could handle their own security, and for anybody that doesnąt believe that instability in that region would force us to go back with a larger force for a much more expensive in dollars and lives mission later on just has not studied the history of the region."

In response to a report that he would accept the role of vice president if Republican presidential front-runner John McCain asked him to be his running mate Burr said, "Well nobody turns down the future president, but that is a hypothetical question that only John McCain can answer.

McCain has a long list of very qualified candidates to chose from, he said. I would tell you that I am very comfortable in the job I got."

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