Carol Shea-Porter: The Federal Governments Representative To New Hampshire CD- 1 - Granite Grok

Carol Shea-Porter: The Federal Governments Representative To New Hampshire CD- 1

I have long and often argued that Democrats, New Hampshire’s variety in particular, favor the top down model of governance.  The power and the resources (money) must descend from the point farthest from the person who is taxed for the privilege of being governed by progressives.

A prime example or proof of this “theory” is the desire to “get back” tax dollars from Washington DC.  Democrats argue that we need representatives to go to Washington who will work hard to get back the money we send to the nations capital as federal taxes.   But they have it exactly backwards.  We send representatives to the nations capital to do everything in their power to keep the money in New Hampshire in the first place.

The contrast between the two could not be more stark.

If the money never leaves the state it is more likely to stay in the hands of the person who earned it.   They, in turn, will take more interest in who seeks to deprive them of it, and for what state or local purposes.  The money may still be taxed, but it will never leave the state, always near to those inclined to ensure it is put to uses for which they find some value.

Democrats, on the other hand, would rather the money go to DC, where an elected ‘exert’ can then be lobbied to determine not just how much is returned but for what purpose.   Oddly enough, the purpose is almost always something that curries favor for the expert who earmarked it or advances some portion of their parties political agenda.

Further proof of my theory comes to us today from the Union leader–(with a shout out to Jane Aitken who forwarded me the text for a separate but equally important purpose, which I will not be addressing here today.)

In a May 6 editorial, we criticized U.S. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter for taking Washington’s side in the controversy surrounding the EPA’s nitrogen emissions standards for the Great Bay. Shea-Porter responded in a column we published on Monday, which we thought proved our point perfectly well.

The EPA has set a stringent nitrogen standard that will cost municipalities hundreds of millions of dollars, all told, to meet. Several municipalities have sued the EPA, saying the standard is far too restrictive. They want one that will reduce emissions, but not quite as much as the EPA demands.

We pointed out that Shea-Porter has not taken the local communities’ side in this dispute. Instead, she sides with the EPA, as she made clear during a forum on the issue in Greenland. In her response, she wrote, “I share concerns about the cost of these projects for local communities, and I have consistently fought for increased federal resources to address challenges surrounding environmental and water protection.”

She went on to blame Republicans in Congress, saying that if they had not banned earmarks, she could have secured some federal money for the towns and cities to help defray the costs of meeting the EPA’s standards.

Rather than question or even prevent an onerous Federal burden from redirecting local resources away from the state or out of the pockets of her constituents, she is more focused on how she might get money back after it has been lost or confiscated as a result of some Federal law or mandate.  One might argue that this is, in itself, an extra step; a waste of personal resources on the part of one congress-woman’s office and staff.  Resources she has admitted she must use to fight for federal money, to address the costs of federal regulations–that only exist because she will not act in her capacity as our congressperson to impede them.

 With that clever rhetorical trick, Shea-Porter dodges entirely the real issue: The EPA’s bullying. The EPA’s science is questionable, as the suing communities have shown. The issue is whether its tough nitrogen standards are necessary at all.  Shea-Porter ignores that central question and pretends that the real matter at hand is the Republican ban on earmarks.

By dismissing the suing municipalities’ contention, Shea-Porter makes clear that she sides with Washington, not New Hampshire.

Her own constituents are filing suit against standards that represent Federally mandated costs that will divert money from other uses in the state and all Carol can do is blame Republicans for not allowing her to serve her one true purpose in DC.   No, she was not elected to stand up for the property and sovereignty of the people of New Hampshire in the face of an oppressive Federal bureaucracy.   She is there to represent the Government in its distribution of New Hampshire’s own resources back to the people of New Hampshire–when that is even possible.  She is not there to protect us from the potential abuses of the Federal government.  She is there to encourage them for her own political advantage and to make sure that if any of the Federal tribute can make its way back home, that it goes to the people and things that matter most–not to New Hampshire–but to Carol Shea-Porter.

We didn’t send her, or any Democrat, to DC to stand up for us.  They go there to act as conduits that draw more an more away from New Hampshire, without whom we might never see any of our money again.

They could just as easily vote to make sure it stays here in the first place.  They could vote or act to ensure that we in New Hampshire get to decide more and more about how and where to spend our dollars;  for issues (environmental or otherwise) that are priorities to Granite Staters.  Instead, they vote to take more and more money and responsibility away from the state, and put it into the hands of some unelected Federal board, whose regulations we are expected to follow, with the caveat that people like Carol Shea-Porter, “will consistently fight to get back what she helped them steal from us in the first place.

 

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