Clever Politicians and Tax Grab End-Arounds - Granite Grok

Clever Politicians and Tax Grab End-Arounds

Why didn't we address this during the session?  Uhh...Ummmm..
Why didn’t we address this during the session? Uhh…Ummmm..

Charlie Arlinghaus in the Union leader.

Some clever politicians, though, have figured out what might be called an end run. One way they can see more money but not technically vote to raise taxes is to get an administrator to “close a loophole” or “clarify the application of the tax.” Both of these things seem reasonable, but both are open to abuse.

A loophole may exist because of an error in language that didn’t capture legislative intent. But more often, the tax was applied to certain things, with other categories intentionally left out. What gets described as a “loophole” is merely an attempt to extend the tax to things the original law was not meant to tax.

Charlie’s larger point is that this is not how it should be done, but that it is neither new nor necessarily nefarious.

Would that make it politics as usual?  And as an afterthought, how many instances of this sort of bureaucratic end-arounding have occurred  under the willful guidance of Democrat Governors?


Democrats love taxes (except, perhaps, one on Unions) but they know that passing them requires either political capital or stealth.   As an example, RGGI is a broad-based stealth tax on everyone that can rise or fall, (Democrats expected it to rise) without any legislator or governor every having to vote on the increase.  It fell, but it is s till sitting there, idling on a false bottom, waiting to rise  for the benefit of the tax coffers without as much as a yea or nay.

While suggesting that the Hassan tax grab may just be a feature of government is diplomatic, I do not have to be so polite.

As I pointed out yesterday, if there was even an inkling that this was coming up (and I’m sure there was–Democrats do love their taxes), and any serious concern that it needed to be re-certified, clarified, or acted upon because it was murky, unclear, or troublesome to the parasitic bureaucrats who feed upon that tax, why wait until after the legislative session was over to address it?

Because it was a backdoor, executive branch, administrative end around to increase taxes without the usual attention (and possible blow-back)  in an election year. …

I’d add that it is a tax most people would never really think much about, the kind that does not show up in a bill, in your mailbox, in sums that make otherwise inattentive voting age adults ask questions of their elected officials.

And given that the budget has had a few holes punched in it while the Hassanistas control the ‘Big Chair’ a quiet little tax grab probably looked like an easy way to shore up the management cred.

It is sneaky politics and it was planned.  Deliberate.  For all the failings of the Progressive Rogue Republicans in the New Hampshire state Senate, this–at least–is something they managed to do right.

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