Steve MacDonald

The Progressive view care of the Concord Monitor.

The state still doesn’t know the full impact of a recent cut in business tax rates, but the Legislature is already considering another reduction. A Republican-backed Senate bill would further lower the business profits and enterprise taxes in 2020, resulting in an estimated loss of $81 million in revenue.

The conservative view is that Republicans propose letting New Hampshire Businesses keep an additional $81 million they earned, that the state is opting not to plunder those earnings. So why not say, state lawmakers propose giving $81 million back to New Hampshire’s business owners? Flavor it with some “hard working families” or “engines of the economy.” Look, free stimulus!

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Gov. Sununu signed HB103 today, a bill that allows parents to review and opt-out of sex-ed curriculum. More specifically, it is AN ACT relative to school district policies regarding objectionable course material.

IX-c. Require school districts to adopt a policy allowing an exception to specific course material based on a parent’s or legal guardian’s determination that the material is objectionable. Such policy shall include a provision requiring the parent or legal guardian to notify the school principal or designee in writing of the specific material to which they object and a provision requiring an alternative agreed upon by the school district and the parent, at the parent’s expense, sufficient to enable the child to meet state requirements for education in the particular subject area. The policy shall also require the school district or classroom teacher to provide parents and legal guardians not less than 2 weeks advance notice of curriculum course material used for instruction of human sexuality or human sexual education.

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Should an article titled “Revenue Stream: How An Environmental Law Creates Jobs In Coal Country” set off red flags? It’s about how thanks to environmental regulations jobs are being created in coal country and employing former miners.

More red flags.

I haven’t had time to dig into the financials or to follow the money but its big business. Equity firms buy up tens of thousands of acres and “hire” eco-restoration companies to fix broken streams that bring “natural” water ecologies back into these areas. The work builds credits in mitigation banks which can be purchased by developers to offset damage to streams or wetlands caused by development.

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Senator Dan Innis (R-UNH) sponsored SB41 to recruit STEM candidates to New Hampshire Schools. As originally written it would have given $5,000.00 in taxpayer debt forgiveness to STEM students for showing up but not graduating or sticking around to thank taxpayers; by putting that knowledge to use in the Granite State. This prompted me to call it UNH Enrichment Legislation.

I’m happy to report that SB41 was revised and then tabled.

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If you were not aware, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) hands out loans and grants for things (link fixed) that have nothing to do with agriculture. Who among you is honestly surprised? Very few in this audience.

Here’s another one. There are town officials in Henniker, NH who have Barack Obama’s “a phone and a pen” mentality when it comes to things they want versus following the law as written. Laws or rules that get in the way of getting things done can be ignored for the sake of progress or in the words of Henniker Town Selectboard Chair Kris Blomback, to move the town forward.

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The University of Missouri has had an interesting couple of years. The hoax. The meltdown/protest and Melissa Click antics and termination. On Campus 1984esqu Social Justice Civil War. Declining enrollment followed. And here comes the ax.

Leaders at the four University of Missouri System schools have less than a month to bring forward budget proposals that outline how they’re going to handle their share of budget cuts for the coming year.

Layoffs and program cuts are among the items that school leaders should consider, according to a budget planning webpage set up Monday by the UM System.

According to the statement, the budget cuts will range from 8 to 12 percent across the four campuses, which are the University of Missouri-Columbia, University of Missouri-St. Louis, Missouri University of Science & Technology, and the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Dr. Melissa Click still has her job at Gonzaga. Maybe she can put in a good word.

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If you hadn’t heard a man in Salem shot himself in the basement of a home that exploded. Searchers discovered some weapons, obviously. And while the media has reported on the explosion, the suicide, the man’s debts, a few booby traps, the opinions of neighbors, and other circumstances, the weapons are featured in most if not all the reporting, amplified this morning by the Union Leader headline (c/o NewHampshire.com), “Police: Armed to teeth, Salem homeowner killed himself.”

Did they, and was he? No, and no.

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