Granite Grok has already endorsed Bill O’Brien for Speaker of the House, and you can see our video interview of Bill to get some idea of his priorities. But since we happen to be here at the NHGOP convention we have the opportunity to find out what the other candidates for speaker deem as priorities for the next session.
I’ve grabbed some of their literature–everyone is in the convention at the moment–to get a taste of their priorities and one in particular caught my attention–and not in the most flattering way. Susan Emerson’s hand out to the GOP delegates includes the following bullet points which I have taken to be so important to her in her quest to get the job that they have received this much prominence.
I would…like to continue establishing bipartisan relationships to work collectively on bills that will include the following.
-To provide equal opportunities for students.
-To provide access to adequate health care
-To create and promote tax relief incentives for businesses.
Given the wide range of damage done by liberals this is the best we can expect from Susan Emerson as Speaker of the House? Given her otherwise impressive voting history, this is not impressive at all.
Equal opportunities for students? I like to think that I have some sense of the political problems facing the state but I confess that this is not anywhere on my radar. Yet Ms. Emerson leads with it. Nothing about the structural deficit hidden by one time federal money? And what about the unfunded pension problem? Spending has far exceeded the rate of inflation, revenue estimates have been overestimated as a matter of policy in the past two budgets, and the legislature is overburdened with pointless bills by the thousands, (to barely scratch the surface) and Emerson thinks this is more important?
Providing access to adequate health care? Eh. Uh. Umm. What? (sigh) I guess Susan Emerson feels that government has a role here and it isn’t the role of getting the hell out of the way to let the market do what it does best–to find and fulfill needs in the most efficient and cost effective way possible. Perhaps someone should look for a zipper to see if this is Jeanne Shaheen wearing a Susan Emerson suit.
Finally, we get to something that might actually emerge from the lips of a Republican running for any office–though we have to remember that this is arguably the most powerful position in state politics– ‘To Create and Promote tax relief incentives for businesses.’ Is it me or does that have a ruling class vibe to it? You know, a sort of ‘Tax’ is my verb kind of a mojo. It’s almost liberal-speak, to be honest…sort of a "hey, you know what, I’m a compassionate monarch, so jump through these hoops and if I am properly amused, we’ll talk about how you can get you some of your money back."
Personally, and maybe this is just me, a Republican running for dog catcher might be more successful attracting the attention of their own caucus if they said something about actively removing bureaucratic road blocks, if they were in fact trolling for votes from….New Hampshire Republicans. So maybe that’s not the intended audience, even though these were on a table at the NH GOP convention.
So on the whole this is not encouraging for Susan unless she is looking to grab votes from the RINO’s who survive the culling process, and liberals who would love to have a pushover of a House Speaker willing to…how did Susan phrase it…."continue establishing bipartisan relationships to work collectively on bills."
That’s a mighty thin board trying to ride the wrong kind of wave.