Senator Kerry has built his career on foreign policy issues (he now chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee), so membership on this debt and deficit panel is a bit out of the box for him. Still, he is said to have lobbied Senate majority leader Harry Reid hard for the appointment, and he is not without economy-related credentials. He previously chaired, for instance, the Small Business Committee, obtaining $100 million in credit help for small businesses added to the 2008 stimulus bill.
Though tagged as a "Massachusetts liberal," Kerry favored a balanced budget amendment back in the Clinton days and voted for overhaul of the welfare system. Kerry voted against the original Bush tax cuts, but for extending them for two years in a bill passed on Dec. 15, 2010.
Kerry is veteran of the Vietnam War, and some have noted that his home state of Massachusetts is a beneficiary of US defense spending – a likely place for the super committee to look for cuts. He is a protecter of mental-health benefits and of health benefits for poor children, but some have criticized him for what they see as a willingness to adjust Social Security.
