WASHINGTON - New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg certainly irked the White House by accepting the nomination to be Commerce secretary and then withdrawing, but it seems he is still welcome at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

President Barack Obama on Monday will host a summit on “fiscal responsibility” at the White House which is aimed at addressing the long-term issues like the costly Social Security retirement program and Medicare health care system and Gregg said he has accepted an invitation to attend.
    
Gregg, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee,  withdrew last week as the Commerce secretary nominee because of fundamental policy differences with the Democratic Obama administration, particularly over the economy.
    
Even so, it seems that both sides have agreed to move on and even work together.
 
“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.
    
“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,” he said.

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young (Obama in early February with Gregg.)

KANSAS CITY, Missouri - Republican presidential candidate John McCain is tangling with taxes again.
 
The Arizona senator found himself in hot water with conservatives after telling ABC’s “This Week” last Sunday that “nothing is off the table” in trying to protect the Social Security benefits system for seniors.
    
At a town hall meeting in Aurora, Colorado, McCain said: “I want to look you in the eye: I will not raise your taxes nor support a tax increase. I will not do it.”
 
He added, “I am opposed to raising taxes on Social Security. I want to fix the system without raising taxes.”
    
That statement earned the praise of the conservative Club for Growth organization in Washington, whose president, Pat Toomey, called it “exactly what the country needed to hear.”
    
McCain, at a fundraising event for his campaign, returned to the subject. “I am opposed to raising taxes. I am opposed to raising taxes,” he said.
    
“And any negotiation that I might have when I go in, my position will be that I’m opposed to raising taxes. But we have to work together to save Social Security.”
    
“This young man standing right in front — Social Security beneifts won’t be there for him when he retires. Is this right for us to lay off to the next generation of Americans a burden that we imposed on them? No. And it’s not America, it is not America,” he said.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Mike Blake (covers of McCain and Obama biographies at ComicCon covention in San Diego)

CHARLES CITY, Indiana - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama tried on Thursday to win over members of one of his most skeptical audiences: senior citizens.

Those voters have tended to be a strong base for Obama’s rival Hillary Clinton, a former first lady and New York senator. At 60, Clinton is older than the 46-year-old Obama and is seen by many older voters as the more experienced candidate.

Visiting an assisted living center in Indiana, the Illinois senator shared stories about his grandfather’s service in World War II, his grandmother’s frugality and his mother’s battle with cancer.

He also expressed empathy for the daily struggles of older people worried about paying for prescription drugs and health care while trying to get by on a fixed income.

In a proposal that was popular with the group, Obama promised to try to eliminate the income tax on their Social Security benefits.

He also underlined his opposition to a temporary suspension of the federal gasoline tax — an idea proposed by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain  and also supported by Clinton.

Obama said the gas tax suspension “isn’t a real solution” because it would provide, at most, only a short-term fix to the energy problem. He also said it would divert money from the fund used to pay for highway repairs.

One questioner mentioned an idea that Clinton has proposed — suspending the gasoline tax and making up the difference for the highway trust fund with a tax on windfall profits of oil companies.

The questioner, an older woman, asked whether a short-term fix to the energy problem was such a bad thing, remarking jokingly that “a lot of us are nothing but short-timers.”

That drew laughter from the group, prompting Obama to say: “You look like you’re going to be around for a while.”

Obama seemed to impress the crowd after a nearly hour-long visit.

Lavera Schroeder, 82, said she found Obama to be a “normal person” who “talked on our terms” and did not use confusing words or jargon that the group would not understand.

“He said his mother tried to get by,” she said. “That’s how we grew up. We ate molasses and home-made bread.”

But Schroeder said she would not be able to vote for Obama in Tuesday’s primary election in Indiana because she had been in the hospital and not had a chance to register.

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- Photo credit: Reuters/John Gress (Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama campaigns at the CMW specialty metals factory in Indianapolis, Indiana, on April 30)