Eugene Van Loan, Chairman of the Josiah Bartlett Center writes, on the state budget:
Oh, gosh, another crisis in Concord. The Governor says we need to steal another $150 Million to plug the hole in the budget. Otherwise, we will have to plug it with gambling (the Senate’s preference) or a capital gains tax (the House’s preference). What are we to do?
We have already robbed from multiple Peters to pay poor Paul. For example, we have stolen $110 Million from New Hampshire’s hospitals and doctors who naively thought that the surplus they had built up in the so-called Joint Underwriting Association due to their overpayment of malpractice insurance premiums was their money. Also, as Charlie Arlinghaus of the Josiah Bartlett Center recently pointed out in one of his columns, we are probably going to steal millions more from the payers of turnpike tolls to finance repairs to roads driven by people who don’t have to pay tolls. And then there is the State’s theft from our own towns and cities of some $ 50 Million in revenue sharing monies. And finally, our friends in Washington are sending us approximately $160 Million in one-time “stimulus” funds which they have stolen from the next generation of federal taxpayers (our children). And on, and on, and on.
But, as T.S. Eliot said, “Everyone steals; it’s what you do with what you steal that counts.” So, what are we doing with all this loot? Are we at least spending it wisely?
Unfortunately, posing such a question in the halls of the Statehouse – particularly to Democrats – would be an exercise in futility.
