Great! Except IT’S A LIE. Here’s how they "did it." The following is from Republican State House Rep. Bob Rowe:
New Hampshire has a two year budget, not one year, and one side is talking about the first year of the budget and the other about the total two year budget. Yes, the Governor and Legislature balanced the first year budget ending June 31st, and yes, the State will be seriously in the hole at the end of the second year on June 31, 2011; by about 14 to 19%. We will be starting the next budget on July 1, 2011 with a $600 to $800 million revenue shortfall. We did balance the first year budget, but at the expense of the second year and later years. Here are some, not all, of the methods used to break even or have a surplus at the end of the first year:
First we used much of the one-time $500 million stimulous money received from the Feds for the first year. (I don’t think we will get second cash infusion to help us in the second year.)
We added 41 increased taxes and fees for an additional $150 million. Did you note the increase in fees to register your car?
Then we used second-year money to pay bills for this past year (the budget ending on June 31, 2010). Now we don’t have the second-year money that was supposed to go to paying for the second year of the budget.
We bonded and paid school building aid and state road construction from borrowed money (rather than from current income as we have in the past). Now we have to pay this money back in the future.
We short-changed and shifted about $100 million in costs down to the counties, cities, and towns for pensions, reduced rooms-and-meals taxes, and other revenue sharing funds. Now the locals get to pay those bills through increased property taxes, not the state.
And we used the very last of the 2009 surplus and rainy-day fund to balance last year’s budget. We have no reserves.
Yes, we borrowed from Peter to pay Paul to balance the first year of the budget, ending June 31, 2010. And now in the second year, which ends on June 30, 2011—as well as in future budgets—we must pay our current bills AND ALSO pay back Peter.
Comment from Tim: THANKS A LOT, GOV. LYNCH AND YOUR MAJORITY DEMOCRATS. You’ve spent us into a hole, and the forthcoming Republican majority is going to have to CLEAN UP YOUR MESS. (But this is the way it ALWAYS is: Irresponsible Democrats create a fiscal crisis, and the Republicans are supposed to clean up after them…whereupon the Democrats then say that "the Republicans are destroying the government by reducing spending." What a scam.)