Starting with the downfall of the Casino bill in the New Hampshire House, voices started peeping about how this was really some progressive plot to pass an income tax. I guess the two were being connected somehow? The Democrats voted the Casino bill down so they could use its death as an excuse to summon up a new broad based tax.
Fortunately for us the same House that voted down the casino bill never included the assumed Casino revenue in their budget. The State senate never included any casino money in their budget either. No one except the governor did and her budget has now been through the House and the Senate sans Casino revenue of any kind.
So relax.
Yes, many Democrats want an income tax. Yes, the Jackie Cilley wing of the party may well have refused to support the phantom casino money to spite Hassan because she bowed down to the no tax pledge while they were trying to drive a stake in its heart in pursuit of broad based taxes. And despite what Kathy Sullivan has been bloviating–about the most recent casino quandary being a Republican failure, the simple fact remains that the Republican Senate passed a Casino bill that would have provided Hassan with Casino revenue but they never included it int heir budget and it is the Democrat majority house killed the Democrat governors self-admitted signature mesure this session.
So the Left is having an auto-erotic-revenue hissie fit with itself, desperate to add hundreds of millions in state spending but conflicted over how to get there from here. Their other efforts to tax unemployed or underemployed residents dry in a flat economy failed; the Republican Senate is standing with the wage earners and tax payers–let them keep their money, they say, they know better how to spend it than we do. This leaves the democrats with an itch they can’t scratch because they’ve tied their own hands; perhaps the only intelligent thing they’ve done legislatively since I started paying attention.
