The NH State Senate just voted on HB628, the So-called Family Medical Leave Insurance Bill (FMLI). (For the Grok archive on HB628 look here and here.)
It’s a bad bill, with bad mechanics, built to fail, and its only redeeming quality (and by that I mean if you happen to be a socialist Democrat tax and spender hell-bent on ruining the New Hampshire Advantage) is that it creates a pricey payroll taxing authority inside the Department of Employment Security.
That last point, in my opinion, is the only reason the bill exists, using warm fuzzy intentions and family friendly optics to plant a tax mole in the infrastructure of state government. A sleeper cell for future Democrat lead majorities to activate.
Governor Sununu stepped up last week to take the heat by saying as written that he could not support it. The Democrats and their media allies went nuts, pillorying the Governor about broken promises and flip-flopping.
I won’t say the governor hasn’t evolved his position on any number of issues but in the case of FMLI, he never said he’d break any other number of campaign process by signing whatever rubbish they shoveled onto his desk with “Family Medical Leave” tied to it.
And tax mole, sleeper cell, aside, the current effort is not in the best interests of Families or leave or anything else. I know, the humanity, the children, there’s so much need! What nonsense. This thing will do little to nothing even after the three years it will take to get it off the ground.
It is convoluted, risky, and anyone who claims it is stable is lying to advance other priorities. One of which may just be the political optics of forcing the governor to veto the legislation so Democrats can claim he hates families and children.
Which Republicans in the GOP Majority State Senate want that distinction? Anyone who is politically unwilling to wear that badge themselves.
Having said all that, how did the Senate Vote?
14-10 for Interim Study. For the casual observer that’s a death knell burying the bill that should never come back but inevitably will, especially if Democrats gain any seats or take back a majority.
Consider yourself warned.
A great deal of thanks goes to Stop HB628, a group of “Gray Sheilds” working hard to protect the interests of many at personal time and expense. Many of them made signs, went to the hearings and floor votes, and those who worked the AFP- phone banks to save the New Hampshire Advantage.
And a special thanks to everyone who submitted content for us to publish here.
