NH Legislation

Majorie Smith cutting the budget reads like a prisoner forced to read a prepared statement just prior to their execution, that impugns their home country of ills for which they are about to be executed.

Then there is this.

"There are a lot of people who would not have believed the people in this room are supporting some of these cuts," [Smith] said. 

(Quoted from this mornings Union Leader.)

Unfortunately there were more cuts available but then there were not.  Democrats desperate to take whatever federal money Obama offered, to add to their three year spendapalooza--never in their wildest dreams thinking they'd actually have to cut back--got their buds nipped by Bud Fitch.

What do you get when you mix 124 Donkeys and one RINO?  A list of NH House reps on the wrong side of a bill to repeal another stupid tax.

It takes commitment to vote for a new tax, even one whose cover story was as unlikely to have any affect as HB 1679.  But there are those who like to tax and those who love it, and the supporters of the 'Soft Drink Tax' drew a line in the High Fructose Corn Syrup and stood their ground.

Last week the New Hampshire House voted against a bill to let tax payers adopt charter provisions establishing limitations on the growth of budgets and taxes.  The actual short text reads as follows:

This bill authorizes cities and towns to adopt charter provisions establishing limitations on the growth of budgets and taxes.

This Wednesday the New Hampshire House may get the opportunity to vote on HB 1343, AN ACT establishing a joint committee on the constitutionality of acts, orders, laws, statutes, regulations, and rules of the government of the United States of America in order to protect state sovereignty.

Whenever I see Republican’s offering up “creative” ways to collect revenue I get suspicious.  Their first inclination—particularly given the recent liberal spending binge in Concord—should be to get rid of the spending not find ways to justify it.  So SB 385 struck me more as an excuse rather than a reason, and when you come right down to it it’s just another tax.  But then a little bird asked an important question.  What if it was free market driven? 

In one of those eponymous political moments we all cherish, the NH House Education subcommittee, charged with reviewing legislation to retool the states Bullying Laws, says it was bullied itself.

Rep Judith Reever (D-Laconia) Vice Chair on the Education Committee does not disagree with the idea that the subcommittee bowed to prejudice, this quoted from the Sunday Union leader. 

Rep Rachel Burke (D-Strafford Dist # 3) also on the committee, is reported by the UL to have been crying during a phone interview as she claimed to have been intimidated by the idea that opponents would defeat the bill if controversial language was not removed.

Just this past week Rep Jeff Goley refused to prohibit lobbyists from serving on a public agency or public body where the lobbyist gains from the activity of the public agency or body.  He also refused to return revenue to the towns, and voted against returning the revenue sharing rules back to pre 2009 levels. That would be the rules before the state spent so much in two consecutive budgets that they had to screw the towns out of even more revenue to try and balance their bloated state budget. 

What does this say about Rep Goley?  That he is all in on spending without knowing how to pay for it, but all out when it comes to giving money back to the people who earned it.