Climate Didn't Ruin Tourism so NH Democrats Want to Add a New Tax That Might Do It - Granite Grok

Climate Didn’t Ruin Tourism so NH Democrats Want to Add a New Tax That Might Do It

boy skiing

For two decades, Democrats have predicted that our loose energy lifestyle would doom New Hampshire’s tourism industry. As it turns out increased CO2 improves tourism revenue, but Democrats are persistent.  They are proposing a new tax that will suppress tourism.

Related: Damn You Global Warming – NH Tourism Experts See Increase Again This Year

2020-2578 would include ski area ticket sales under the meals and rooms tax and dedicating the revenue to the governor’s scholarship program for New Hampshire resident students.”

The proposed bill’s sponsors are Craig Thompson, Lee Oxenham, Jennie Gomarlo, Joe Schapiro, and Michelle St. John.

The governor’s scholarship program (from the 2018-2019 executive summary) state that,

“The state’s higher education system is a critical part of ensuring New Hampshire’s students have an opportunity to learn beyond their high school years, and this budget creates the Governor’s Scholarship program with $5 million to directly assist the state’s high school students to attend New Hampshire colleges and universities. … the Governor’s Scholarship is designed to provide aid to no less than 1,000 students.

The program is fully funded for two years at 6 million, dollars so why create a tax? Because Democrats want to spend that 6 million on something else without looking like they are against their own education funding advocacy. But Republicans have already said no way. 

 House Republican Leader Dick Hinch, of Merrimack, called it “an unprecedented attempt to single out an industry.” “It will be a cold, snowy day in hell before we let Democrats pass a ski tax,” Hinch said in a statement earlier this month.

Governor Sununu also opposes it. As the former CEO of a ski resort, he’s got a veto pen ready.

“If, God forbid, this bill were to reach my desk, I would veto it immediately, and I have no doubt it would be sustained,” said Sununu, who once ran a ski resort himself. The bill amounts to an imposition, Sununu said in an interview – “another example of extremism of this Legislature, trying to tax anything and everything they can get their hands on.”

Democrats have invested a lot of political capital lying about education funding in New Hampshire so this cog does fit into that machine. But the machine is broken. One of our most significant education expenses has nothing to do with teachers or students. It is administrative overhead. What people who have to produce something to stay in business refer to as overhead or non-productive expenses — the cost of just doing business.

Government entities have no incentive to operate efficiently. It’s not their money, and there are no price signals, so they have no incentive to drive down cost or increase quality. And Democrat politicians backed by union money defend their monopoly. Every effort at introducing competition is met with hurdles or roadblocks. 

In the absence of competition or price signals, that overhead cost presents an opportunity at both K -12 and in higher education where a sliver of efficiency or reorganization could free up thousands or even millions of dollars across the state.

Democrats are never going to allow that, so while it takes a school to bankrupt a town it takes a Democrat to make sure it happens.

The Scholarship program is just another excuse to add a tax that will do what their climate fearmongering has failed to do – negatively impact our precious tourism industry.

| Concord Monitor

 

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