Nethercutt Plans Run For Third House Term He Supports Higher Defense, Research Budgets, Tax Reform

George Nethercutt wants another two years in Congress to try to beef up the military, double the amount of money the federal government spends on medical research and reform the tax system.

Inflation is low, the economy is strong and the stock market is growing, the Spokane Republican told some 650 supporters. Taxes were cut in 1997 and the nation has its first budget surplus in decades.

Nethercutt contends that’s all due to Republicans like him who took over Congress in 1994, not to Democratic President Bill Clinton.

“It wasn’t his doing, it was our doing,” he told the partisan crowd gathered at the downtown Doubletree Hotel ballroom for scrambled eggs, ham and campaign speeches.

Supporters should “stay the course” by sending him back to Washington, D.C.

The announcement was no surprise - he’s been raising money for his re-election campaign throughout his term - but the breakfast started a full day of appearances that allowed Nethercutt to be both office holder and candidate. He attended the opening of the Vietnam War Memorial Wall exhibit, a special Senate hearing in Spokane and a press conference on medical research.

Nethercutt considered running for the Senate last year but decided instead to accept a job from House Speaker Newt Gingrich to review the National Institutes of Health. That review is nearly complete, and is prompting him to move away from his normal “budget hawk” attitude for one type of federal spending.

“We need to double the research dollars spent in the federal government in order to cure diseases,” Nethercutt said. Cures for diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease and cancer are all possible if research increases, he said.

He also called for more spending on the military.

“I pledge to having defense systems that will defend you and me from those who have different value systems around the world in terms of their thinking about how life is and the value of life,” said Nethercutt, who took the podium just hours after Pakistan had exploded five nuclear devices in response to similar testing by India. “I pledge to you to work very hard to shore up our defenses, to give more money to the Defense Department.”

Nethercutt, 53, is seeking his third term in Congress, but has refused to say if it will be his last if he wins. Elected in 1994 by criticizing then-Speaker Tom Foley’s opposition to term limits, the 53-year-old attorney recently said that six years probably isn’t enough to accomplish all the things he wants to do.

That has drawn criticism from Brad Lyons, an Odessa farmer and businessman who is the only announced Democratic opponent. Lyons said he doesn’t support term limits but thinks Nethercutt should stick to his promise to return to Spokane after six years and live under the laws he passed.

Term limits groups who campaigned for Nethercutt in 1994 also are saying his refusal to commit to making this his last campaign is a sign that Washington, D.C., has changed him.

Nethercutt joked at the campaign breakfast that he had changed in his 3-1/2 years in Congress. He now enjoys C-Span, the cable television shows of congressional votes and thinks special independent prosecutor Ken Starr is “the funkiest guy in Washington.”