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The non-partisan Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, headquartered in Concord, leads the way with THIS ONLINE TOOL. State Senator Andy Sanborn has been agitating for some time for the state to do this in real-time, totally and completely. The cost will be trivial. The usefulness? It’s useful just to know that the members of … Read more
Pointing out let wing hypocrisy is easier than hitting water when you fall out of a boat so when we find an opportunity to point out acts based on some kind of consistent principle it seems only appropriate to reward them with public comment.
Live Streaming local and National News with opinion you could only get from GraniteGrok.(Event Speakers List on the Jump)
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Courtesy of Hot Air and the NRCC the Golfer in Chief (Fore!) demonstrates once more how to vote present on deficit spending, even from the oval office, in a montage of his own words on the subject.
In true class warfare passion the prominent democrat schemster Mike Brunelle saw his minimum wage bill go down in flames yesterday, which was exactly the point. But all the politicking and future sound biting aside, what is the point? Democrats either don’t give a damn about jobs or are to daft to know any better.
If the democrats in New Hampshire want anyone to take them seriously on why we should not lower the cigarette tax, they had best find a better spokesperson than House rep. Christine Hamm from the Peoples Republic of Hopkinton.(PRH)
From this mornings union leader..
Rep. Christine Hamm, D-Hopkinton, argued against the change. She said no state has seen tobacco tax revenue increase after a tax cut.
“This is yet another expensive exercise in futility,” she said. When it comes to tobacco, she said, “Every tax hike produces new revenue, and every tax cut reduces it.”
Oregon tried a 10-cent cut, and saw revenues fall by 10 percent, she said.
“To do the same thing would be fiscally stupid,” Hamm said
You know what else is stupid? Listening to Christine Hamm. Oh, and comparing Oregon to New Hampshire? There are almost no demographic similarities, the most important of which is the sheer size of Oregon and the proximity of neighboring states which are also huge.
No one is driving across Washington State, or up from California, or Idaho, or anywhere else to buy cigarettes in Oregon. Only Washington State taxes them more (the last I checked.) No incentive, no gain.
But here in New England, where people can buy almost everything cheaper in New Hampshire, the classic New England maxim does not apply–"you can get there from her," or here from there, and they do. People shop here from other states to save money. So reducing taxes on cigarettes (or anything else) gives them one more incentive to make the trip or to buy more while they are here.
Need proof?
Raising the tax already cost us revenue. Last August Maine announced that it’s sales had increased 20%. That is most likely money that used to get spent here but which the tax hike diverted back to Maine. (I wrote about it here)
And more Proof?
From Rasmussen: Pretty much, I follow this daily. Lately, it bodes ill for Obama for 2012 as it falls: it means that more people strongly dislike Obama than strongly like him – and it is getting worse. Instead of merely plying the political winds where ‘ere they blow, the Republicans in DC ought to be … Read more
Quick thoughts…. Have we changed as a country? Have we changed because of a collective moral loss? It used to be a steadfast stance to be self-reliant, or a reliance on family, then to friends and neighbors. Pride in doing for oneself was the rule and not the exception. It seems, over the last few … Read more
…that? Energy is the ability to work. I keep hearing all the time that we have to go clean, go green. Problem is, all of these energy sources have their own problems, least of which that they are so bad at what they do, nobody would be involved with them without massive government subsidies. Take … Read more
Just got this flash from Frank Guinta’s office: For Immediate ReleaseContact: J. Mark Powell(202) 226-8530 GUINTA CO-SPONSORS BILL TO RESCIND$45 BILLION IN UNSPENT FEDERAL MONEY “The money just sits there, doing nothing. It’s wasteful, it’s totally unacceptable and it must stop now.” (WASHINGTON – March 17, 2011) Taxpayers would save $45 billion under a … Read more
The left claims that the guilty party in a conflict is not the one who covets another’s goods but the one who defends his own. – Nicolás Gómez Dávila (aka Don Colacho) (H/T: Don Colacho’s Aphorisms)
Been meaning to put this up for a a bit; you want to know WHY we here at the Grok are in a peevish frame of mind about spending by the Feds? Let this provide a contextual framework to wrap your wallets around: Senate Democrats have drawn the line at $10 billion in cuts to … Read more
This Union Leader Editorial in today’s paper does exactly what we should all be doing. Pointing out the obvious hypocrisy of democrats who ignore actions by their Democrat governor. It used to be that the “essential” level of funding for state health and social services was whatever the commissioner of Health and Human Services said … Read more
Frank Guinta put out a press release yesterday that crowed about how his vote for the three-week continuing resolution "cut spending" significently. Uh…no it didn’t. It didn’t cut ANYTHING. This from RedState.com: A Note to House Republicans Patting Themselves On the Back Posted by Erick Erickson (Profile) Wednesday, March 16th at 10:19AM EDT 19 Comments There … Read more
But are they "real Republicans"? Real Republicans are supposed to oppose insane spending. Real Republicans are supposed to be against driving America over a fiscal cliff. Real Republicans are supposed to have "principles." Real Republicans are supposed to have the guts to stand up to the endemic corruption of Washington, DC. New Hampshire’s U.S. Reps are "real Republicans," right? … Read more
Yeah, I’m a granddad….just before the Youngest deployed with the 101st to Afghanistan, he got married and I now have 5 and a 6 year old grandsons (how did I get so old so quickly!). And that has brought home the mantra of the TEA Party even stronger than ever – how can I look … Read more
Mark Fernald is pimping for the misleadingly named Granite State Fair Tax Coalition (GSFTC). This is a group of tax and spend liberals (their fellow travelers and useful idiots) who are trying get an income tax.
To sell you on this Utopian elixir of piss, GSFTC argues that New Hampshire’s property taxes favor the rich, and most recently have sent out a pile of nonsense with some misleading graphs, through Fernald’s email list to make the sale. But as usual it is spun upside down and backwards and ignores one very unassailable fact. New Hampshire has one of the lowest overall tax burdens in the nation because it relies on property taxes. And the rich are not paying less for their share of State government.
Government is a necessary (preferably limited) evil, laid out like a salad bar. There are all kinds of services your tax dollars pay for. Some of them are for “just in case kinds of things” like public safety. Then there are roads and schools and clerks and so on. And then there are unemployment, welfare, heating aid, and a host of social support services, and the cost of the bureaucracy itself.
By law these services are made available to everyone equally based on need so the folks most likely to consume government services are lower income residents. Statistically, the less you earn, the more of the salad bar you are likely to need or eat from and the more trips you are likley to make in a given year. But no matter what you earn, or where you live, or how well you live, you still only get one plate–and you pay for that plate in the form of taxes.
The GSFTC would like you to believe that the rich are paying less for that plate. To perpetrate this deception they use "taxes paid as a percentage of income" to make their case. Their argument is that the rich only pay about 2% of their income as taxes while the poorer folks pay over 8% (Roughly), and that this is unfair. But is that really the case? Are the rich paying less money for a trip to the New and Improved State Government Salad Bar or is GSFTC just playing class warfare games?