GraniteGrok: Make no mistake about it, their goal is your wallet!

empty pockets

During the radio program this past Saturday, Skip and I discussed the "anti-tax pledge" warrant article that found its way onto 89 town warrants this year throughout the Granite State (including the 'Grok's hometown) with Jane Aitken of the CNHT. In a February 14th posting at NH Insider, Jane sounded the alarm:

Once again it is that time of year when NH residents will attend town meetings, school meetings, and deliberative sessions to decide how their tax dollars will be spent...
There will likely be present operatives from a group going by the name of "Granite State Fair Tax Coalition". They may be offering any number of "resolutions" for approval in the form of warrant articles.

She then went on to describe what they will look like:

These citizens petitioned warrant articles may contain resolutions calling for our candidates for State Representative, State Senator, and Governor to reject the local "Taxpayers Pledge". This is an attempt to demonize the taking of the pledge by our fiscally responsible legislators to reject any broadbased new tax and to make way for a new state tax on our income. The article may even include the consideration of an income tax or be amended to include it.

Guess what? In the name of "fairness", here it comes. From today's NH Insider comes confirmation of Jane's admonition:

Concord, Feb. 18, 2008 -- Voters in 89 New Hampshire towns will vote on resolutions over the coming month urging state elected officials – the governor, state senators and state representatives -- to create a fairer tax system for the state, starting with a discussion of all the available options, the Granite State Fair Tax Coalition announced today.
These resolutions will be considered at Town Meetings throughout the month ahead or at the ballot box on March 11. Towns that include the Fair Tax Resolution on the warrant in 2008 are listed at the Coalition’s website, www.nhfairtax.org.

Translation: Income Tax. And as Jane rightly pointed out-- the goal of the warrant is one more step on the road to that end game.

...the reasoning behind this action seems purely psychological and simply a means to change the mindset, since freedom of speech dictates that one's right to take the pledge cannot be legislated away.

One must properly demagogue long held institutions before they can be torn down. So it is with the New Hampshire Advantage. Use the handy player below to listen to our discussion with Jane on this subject...

Comments

"Fair" Tax sounds just so nice doesn't it? There is nothing fair about it since studies show that there is no guarantee that an income or sales tax (broadbased) will lower your property taxes. Also, funding schools with property taxes at least keeps educational control LOCAL as it should be. But then, that brings us to our other subject; our educational system is now under attack by outsiders... Here are the pertinent links about the income tax: 15 Years of Folly - PDF File of 1.8MB [This file is very large so you are better off downloading the whole thing and viewing it in your PDF reader rather than opening it in the browser. Bring up the menu by pressing down on the link and choose 'download to disk'. Then find the file and click on it.] Yankee Institute's Main Website This is an excellent resource for tax studies.

Posted by: Jane | February 19, 2008 11:43 AM

I came up here from NJ about 12 yrs ago. People need to look at the Garden State as an example. Way back NJ used to fund schools based on property tax. Eventually "we need property tax relief". State income tax. Property taxes never went down. "we need relief". So in came the lottery. Now NJ has high property taxes, state income tax and there's "still not enough for the schools". Now if they wrote the law along the lines of: fixed at 0.5%, can be reviewed every 5 years, adjustments are by statewide ballot, must have 67% to pass, does not go into the general fund, 99.44% goes back to the school districts, all teachers contracts are the same (negotiated with the state), have performance measurements, no tenure, I may be able to think about supporting it. But the lawyers will never write a law that concise.

Posted by: mer | February 19, 2008 1:26 PM

First of all, the idea that anyone can outlaw the taking of the pledge is ludicrous. You cannot out law freedom of speech. Candidates will continue to take our pledge and be elected because of it. Secondly, these outside groups, directed by a UN agenda, have no business in local town meetings suggesting a state income tax. If a resident really wants a state income tax they should be calling their state legislator, not filing warrant article petitions in town meetings. But this is all about demonization.. What business do groups like THESE have in our town meetings, who do not pay taxes, advocating for more TAXES??? They do NOT pay and they are NOT local. League of Women Voters New Hampshire http://www.lwvnh.org/ New Hampshire Council of Churches http://nhchurches.org/ American Friends Service Committee http://afsc.org/ Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire http://nhepiscopal.org/ New Hampshire/Vermont District Unitarian-Universalist Societies http://nhvt.uua.org/ United Church of Christ, NH Conference, Commission for Witness and Action http://nhcucc.org/ New Hampshire UUA Network (formerly Faithful Democracy) http://www.uuactionnetworknh.org/

Posted by: Jane | February 20, 2008 5:39 PM

1 - The pledge is not ‘honored by the state’ as recently reported in an AP article, but by the candidates who take it. Our current governor took it as did many of our fiscally responsible local legislators. 2 - This attempt to pass warrant articles to 'dump' the pledge is nothing more than demonization of same and of those who would take it. You cannot legislate away the rights of those who wish to take the pledge, which is essentially a campaign promise to keep taxes low. Town meetings are for voting on spending, cutting spending, not for demonization. 3 - Studies (http://www.yankeeinstitute.com) prove that adding an income tax or sales tax does NOT lower property taxes as proven by Conn. which has both sales and income tax as well as high property taxes. So accusing pledge takers of keeping taxes high, is an unproven foregone conclusion. Show me ONE study that has property taxes going down as a result of an income tax. You can’t! There are lots of good tax studies on Yankee's website. 4 - The group known as GSFTC is NOT 'grassroots' as reported, but being run by national and international outside interests, who are tax-exempt themselves. (http://www.nhfairtax.org/aboutus/organizations.php) They DO NOT belong in town meetings looking to pave the way for more taxation at the state level. CNHT for example, is a true grassroots NH group, running on small donations from people the we assist. We do not take money from outsiders or other groups. THAT is grassroots. These folks should be exposed for who they are, then shown the door.

Posted by: Jane | February 22, 2008 5:28 PM

More on GSFTC: The Hippo Press, a liberal paper aimed at younger readers, was going to print my expose on the GSFTC's source of revenue, but it was suddenly spiked. I suspect that is because one arch-enemy publisher runs it.. Jeff Rapsis I've written to Amy Diaz to ask where my article is. They seem to want to rant about Sununu's 'outside' interests but don't care that the GSFTC's money and agenda is coming from the UN? Because that is the bottom line folks -- the promoters of redistribution of the wealth "within and among nations" is the UN. Period. They have a religious arm known as the World Council of Churches, and a 'religion' known as the UU church. THAT IS WHO IS PUSHING FOR YOUR MONEY.

Posted by: Jane Aitken | May 9, 2008 5:26 AM

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