Democrat NH House Rep Cindy Rosenwald - About That 800 Million Dollar Deficit - Granite Grok

Democrat NH House Rep Cindy Rosenwald – About That 800 Million Dollar Deficit

We should expect more of this in the coming months.  More of what?  NH House Democrats pretending there never was an 800 million dollar deficit when they were shown the door in droves.  An example of this deficit-narrative popped up on Bedford Patch yesterday.  Nashua Democrat House Rep Cindy Rosenwald (Fiance Committee) penned an op/ed entitled ‘The 800 Million Budget Deficit Myth.

Rosenwald’s entire premise turns on the fact that the State has to balance it’s budget so how could there be a deficit?  But then she tries to explain it and things go horribly wrong.

[so] how did the Republicans turn the reality of the Democratic surplus into the myth of the Democratic deficit? Well, the answer lies in the additional federal stimulus money that flowed into New Hampshire for two and a half years through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.  This extra money, $802 million in total, helped maintain essential safety net programs for vulnerable residents hit hard by the recession. The federal money was one-time assistance. The Democratic majority knew all along it would not continue, and that budget cuts would have to be made during the following biennium so that there would not be a deficit.

Wait a minute?  You said the 800 million dollar deficit was a myth.  Then you admit that democrats needed $802 million in one time money the state did not have to pay for their spending.  Then you say the Democrat majority knew that budget cuts would have to be made during the following biennium so that there would not be a deficit.  Not be a deficit. Not be a deficit?

So…..If Democrats knew there was going to be an 800 million dollar deficit how can the 800 million dollar deficit be a myth?

And if Democrats knew we would have to cut (because of the 802 million in one time money), to make sure there would be no deficit, why did Democrats freak out when Republicans cut that spending so there wouldn’t be a deficit just like you claim Democrats wanted?

Now might be a good time to quickly revisit the NH Democrat Parties spending history of which Cindy (as a Democrat House rep) was an integral part, because that “helped maintain essential safety net programs for vulnerable residents hit hard by the recession,” that’s only remotely true if you understand why they NH Democrats needed the money in the first place.

Prior to January 2007, the New Hampshire’s State Budget was just over 9 billion.  The State budget Republicans inherited when they won the legislature back four years later was 11.5 billion.  So Democrats, when given complete unrestricted stewardship of the budget and a Democrat governor willing to sign off on it, ballooned the cost of your state government by 17.5% in the first biennium (before the fiscal crisis) and by as much as 25% over four years, without any consideration for how to pay for it before hand–unless they had something else in mind all along.

So to put that in perspective, it took 219 years (2628 months) to get the New Hampshire budget to just over 9 billion dollars a year.  New Hampshire Democrats added 2.5 Billion to that in just 48 months.  And Democrats had been warned in 2006 that business revenue estimates had probably peaked.  Despite that the Democrats piled on new spending.

Democrat leadership was quoted as saying things like “It makes sense to know how much you’re spending before you decide how much money to raise,” And “look to the sky when you do revenue estimates because we need the money.”  And still, Cindy would like us to believe that the Democrat Leadership knew there would be a Democrat driven deficit in the following 2011-2012 budget and that Democrats were prepared to cut the budget to close the gap.  So the deficit can’t possibly be a myth, can it Cindy?

You want to know what the real “myth” in Cindy’s story is?  The myth is that Democrats were ever planning to cut the budget.  The myth is that Democrats were responsible stewards of the peoples money.

The facts are clear as day.  New Hampshire Democrats needed the one-time money becasue they had over-spent, added over 100 new fees and taxes,  had crammed down pension costs to towns and cities, had raised the rooms and meals tax–and were trying to denying local municipalities their existing share of Rooms and meals revenue, all becasue they couldn’t balance the budget…and STILL needed another 800 million to hide the massive hole they had created.  The people of New Hampshire had finally rejected their tax and spend agenda.  They could not do what they wanted to do–raise even more taxes.

The Democrats began losing a handle on things well before the November 2010 wipe out.  Taxpayers were in revolt.   Democrats had to cut their own bloated budget, layoff state employees, and find new fiscal hoops to jump though to satisfy state law, which demanded the budget be balanced.

And Democrats never planned to cut anything.  No one adds a hundred taxes and fees, and then tries to pass a new broad based business tax with the intent of cutting spending.

They were planning to stay in power.  And the plan was to blame the economy and the wealthy, and greedy business owners, and then insist that the only possible way, th eonly “fair way” to close the large structural ‘deficit’ they had intentionally made a feature of every future budget, would be to institute on a broad based sales or income tax.  They would even promise tax relief in other places to sell the lie, but just like every other coven of leftist tax and spenders, it wold never quite work out that way, becasue it never does.

But that all fell apart.   Without one-time Federal money New Hampshire Democrats would have never even come close to balancing their last budget.  And without recurring one-time money or any plan to pay for the spending they left us with, there was a structural imbalance of at least 800 million more than we were ever going to take in without either raising taxes or cutting spending.  It actually worked out to be closer to 1.2 billion, but whose really counting.  Certainly not the John Lynch or the Democrats.

So Republicans cut spending, which according to Cindy, is what the Democrats had planned all along.

So maybe in her next op/ed Democrat Cindy Rosenwald will explain why the left lost their minds when Republicans did what Democrats–Cindy included–had planned all along?  To cut spending to eliminate the Democrats 800 million dollar structural shortfall.  Or is she lying about that?  Were they really just planning to raise more taxes?  Looking at the Democrat’s history you ought to be able to figure that out for yourself.

(NH Financial report ending June 2006, just so we all know how things were before the Democrats took complete control.)

 

Edit: 9:07am – Added ‘NH’ to ‘House Rep in the post title for clarity; fixed first paragraph after the jump.  It was not a quote.- SM

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