The Granite State Fair Tax Coalition claims to be a non-partisan, non-profit group whose mission is to convince the people of New Hampshire that we need a broad based income tax.
What that works out to is using percentages and formulas with a focus on deception, misdirection, and Alinsky-like class warfare rhetoric, to corral (see also ‘Guilt’) enough support to dismantle a system that for years has made the state of New Hampshire one of the best places to live and work in the nation; for quality of life, low overall tax burden, health, safety, low crime rates, job opportunity and freedom.
You might ask yourself why someone would start a non-profit to mess with that kind of success? What kind of crank sees a state ranking on top in almost every category and decides, let’s mess that up? The answer? Democrats and social justice junkies who can’t advance a a massive and nearly irreversible spending agenda without a broad based tax.
So to get to Moscow on the Merrimack the partisan, left leaning, New Hampshire Council of Churches formed what is now known as the Granite State Fair Tax Coalition (GSFTC). It is run to this day by social justice-activist clergy and radical leftists and progressives ‘attracted to the idea’ of pretending an income tax would not ruin the New Hampshire Advantage.
Of course the only people it “attracted” were tax and spenders.
There is not one person on their staff, their advisory board, or leading their list of affiliated groups that is not either a democrat, working for the democrat social-justice agenda, or who is not a large dollar donor to democrat candidates or causes. How you can possibly claim to be ‘non-partisan’ under these circumstances defies belief, yet they continue to make that claim and it is time to call them out on it.
My mission here, and in posts to follow, is to show you who runs this scam so that you can grasp what their real motivations are. To grow the size and reach of government by defining ‘fair’ to mean more taxes and more spending on the radical left wing agenda.
Part I The GSFTC advisory Board: “More Progressives than you can shake a stick at.”
The GSFTC advisory board members listed on the GSFTC web site, as of 6-29-2011, are as follows.
Hilary Cleveland is the wife of Republican New Hampshire Congressman James Cleveland but like any good university professor is a proper progressive no matter what anyone else may try to tell you. While she did support moderate and progressive (r)epublicans prior to 2004 since then Hilary has dropped the veil and donated $1,000.00 to the mad socialist Howard Dean, supported John Kerry after that, and recently gave $500.00 to New Hampshire’s own leftist from the left side of the state, Ann McLane Kuster (McKluster).
She justifies this change by blaming George W. Bush, which the left and media hailed at the time as a coup, but regardless of her reasons-to which she is entitled–just because you have or had an (R) next to your name, it does not make you a Republican. Hilary has always leaned progressive by the look of things. As a founding member of the New Hampshire Chapter of the the League of Women Voters a left wing political advocacy group pimping womens issues to advance the democrat socialist agenda that should seem obvious. So I’m happy that she’s finally come out to embrace who she really is.
Marilyn Mahoney is a lawyer and democrat donor. She supported the McKluster campaign in 2010 and liked her so much she gave twice. If actions matter and associations are relevant, Mahoney is more like McKluster than not which is almost as far left as you can go without falling off the scale.
Former Governor Walter Peterson, may he rest in peace, was another token small ‘r’ republican with a history of progressive tendencies. He had a soft spot for left wing groups posing as moderate groups like the Live Free or Die Coalition and republicans for Lynch. He was succeeded as Governor by Meldrim Thompson. Governor Peterson’s donation history includes fealty to New Hampshire’s political first-families; Bass, Gregg and Sununu. But Lynch wasn’t the only democrat he stood behind. He donated $500.00 dollars to Maine’s Democrat State committee back in the 90’s, $500.00 to NH Democrat Dick Swett, and to another democrat in Tennessee. His wife is well known for her recent support of Obama. While honored and respected, it is a well know fact that Mr. Peterson was a progressive republican and his association with GSFTC only makes that more obvious.
Philip Dale Pregent is Mayor of the liberal ghetto we call Keene and acts the part of the proper progressive. My favorite quote so far has to be this, in regard to the launch and support of Michelle Obama’s obnoxious Let’s Move campaign …
“This is a long-term plan,” notes Mayor Pregent. “If we start with the kids, we can get to the parents and, ultimately, move toward a healthier lifestyle.”
Social justice is also a long term plan. Let’s Move is just the “Happy Meal” with water and a fruit cup. Get the kids, then you get the parents. This is probably not the only instance where this kind of thinking follows the Mayors mind. He’s got plenty of left leaning environmentalist tendencies as well so more evidence is just sitting out there somewhere waiting to be discovered.
Mary Rauh was a Democratic candidate for Congress in the second Congressional District in 1998, has been a consultant for the Public Policy Initiative for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, has been or is the secretary for the New Hampshire Women’s Policy Institute, and the Chair of Women’s Fund of NH. Her husband is John Rauh, 1992 Democrat candidate for the US Senate from New Hampshire, and between them they have donated thousands to democrats over the years. Their relentless partisan support of the left wing agenda is without question.
Ellen Shemitz is the Executive Director of the New Hampshire Association for justice (NHAJ) is the least obvious democrat on the list if you ask Google, leading a group that seeks to defend constitutional rights and keep the justice system accessible. But don’t be fooled. She embraces the lefts social justice scheme to advance her personal cause.
Ellen is now putting her skills as leader to work for the Obama campaign as a member of our New Hampshire Child Advocacy Task Force. “Barack Obama is a committed advocate for children.
He embraces the essence of the American Dream—that every child should have the chance to reach his or her full potential,” she said.
…
Ellen was born in Connecticut, but moved to the Granite State after law school.
She was drawn to the study of law because of its power to protect the vulnerable and advance social justice.
NHAJ looks like little more than the New Hampshire chapter of the American Association of Justice (AAJ). AAJ is one of the NHAJ’s partner organizations and they share very similar legal goals. AAJ is the largest association of ambulance chasers, out to screw business owners and industry in their quest to advance “social justice” through democrat lawyers suing everything that moves. AAJ is also linked with “Working For Us,” an Andy Stern/ SEIU’s pressure group, with a manifold of links to some of the lefts most prominent political and union power brokers and democrat policy objectives.
Don’t let Google fool you. This explains why Ellen would be advising alongside a group of redistributive pro-tax social justice advocates disguised as non-partisan coalition concerned about taxes.
The last two names on the ‘Advisory board’ for this so-called “non partisan” group are also democrats (Surprise!), Doug and Katie Wheeler. They have together donated thousands of dollars to democrats to advance the lefts tax and spend agenda. Here are Katie’s large dollar donations, and also here. And here are Doug’s paltry left wing contributions–paltry in comparison to his wife’s, and still more than the sum of every donation I have ever made in my life to candidates. Doug even made a donation to-GSFTC adviser Mary Rauh as well. 
; Awwwww.
All tolled these ‘Advisers’ for the so-called, would-be, ‘Fair Tax’ coalition have plunked down plenty to support the left wing agenda, have all supported left wing candidates publicly, and most of them are democrats or have been democrat candidates for public office.
It is fair to say that they represent an ideological block that wants the same thing as the left wing in New Hampshire–more taxes. The entire democrat tenure (of the past few years at least) was about spending us into a broad based tax. GSFTC is just more of the same advocated by democrats and progressive republicans who support state confiscation of your property to spend on their partisan agenda.
That’s fine as far as it goes when you are up front about it. And to the last–as much as I disagree on policy–they are entitled to those choices and I take no objection with their right to make them or advocate them. But to suggest that this list of people can be called non-partisan is patently absurd.
They are all Statists; a wholesale voice for bigger government, more regulation, a more powerful centralized national government, diminishing state sovereignty, and the right of the “State” to extract as much money from the people as it feels it needs to fund it. This is the ideology these folks have backed, supported, and have been a part of for years and years.
And we are just talking about their advisers.
It suggests that the GSFTC is little more than another watering hole for leftists; a “non-non-partisan” front group to advance the democrat party pro-tax agenda, wealth redistribution, and all the state meddling and nanny state nonsense that newer and larger streams of revenue are needed to produce and maintain, under the idea that what they want is ‘fair.’
It is nothing of the sort.
But you know what makes it better? They could admit to being partisan because the Board of directors just paints a bluer picture. That post is next.
