Let’s import jobs into New Hampshire

LET’S IMPORT JOBS INTO NEW HAMPSHIRE

In a time of high unemployment, why isn’t NH doing more to promote job creation?

Despite all of our problems, America remains the most attractive market in the world for almost every product imaginable. In large part, this is why most American businesses don’t immediately think of exporting their products abroad – a major failing of ours. But foreign companies are well aware of the opportunities that exist in the U.S. markets. Anyone doubting this should immediately look at the auto industry. The U.S. still produces some of the best cars in the world. But, we do so primarily in the south, in such states as South Carolina, Kentucky, and Alabama and they bear the brand logos of BMW, Toyota, Honda, Infinity, etc.

And it is not just cars; Honda Aviation, for example, recently opened a new plant in North Carolina which will help offset that state’s loss of its old textile mills. Nor is it just manufacturing; the list of businesses is almost limitless, and includes high tech companies, software companies, call centers, etc. Indeed, without such businesses, American consumers would immediately encounter a steep bout of inflation and unemployment.

So here is the question: when Kia Motors or Hyundai were recently looking to open new assembly plants, why is it that no one tried to persuade them to build a plant in NH? With New Hampshire’s great lifestyle, low taxes, our high tech base and our business environment, our state should be an excellent destination for all kinds of business operations. More often than not, foreign businesses are looking to establish operations where the enabling business environment is considerably better than in their home countries. This usually means the U.S.A. It should also mean New Hampshire.

With New Hampshire’s economy softening, 

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Jeb Bradley: “Rumors swirl of a third tax stalking horse waiting in the wings…”

tax burden

Guest post by State Senator Jeb Bradley

The Great Tax Debate

The legislative session may be winding down rapidly but the greatest issue of all, the budget, is far from being resolved. The budget debate comes against the backdrop of a distressed economy with high unemployment rates and families and businesses struggling to make ends meet.  Will the conference committee on the budget make this situation worse?

Unfortunately, despite our Live Free of Die motto, this debate is not between those who would frugally limit government and those who would inexorably allow it to grow. Rather, it could be called the Great Tax Debate as various factions of the legislature seek to add their preferred tax hikes to a budget bursting with higher taxes and fees.

Why is New Hampshire in such a tax predicament? Some would argue the recession and falling revenues to state coffers is to blame. That’s only part of the story however, as Paul Harvey would say ‘the rest of the story’ is that spending in New Hampshire has increased dramatically.

New Hampshire’s current budget allowed total spending of $10.4 billion up from $9.36 billion in the prior budget. The budget the Senate recently passed proposes total spending of $11.6 billion and the House passed budget was only marginally lower. Bottom line: if this spending plan is ratified, total spending will have increased 23.8% over 3 budgets. It is hard to imagine that the average family or business in New Hampshire has seen their income increase by anything approaching that figure…..that is if they have any income left.

What makes these increases even more staggering is that spending is going down in other states around the country. The bi-partisan National Governor’s Association (www.nga.org) recently released a study that highlights an average 2.2% decline in state spending around the nation in 2009. Furthermore, our nation’s governors are recommending additional spending reductions of 2.5% this year.  But, not New Hampshire, as there is little disagreement among Democratic conference committee members that total spending should increase by $1.2 billion.

With the exception of a few spending reductions such as closing the Laconia State Prison,  the budget debate focuses almost exclusively on new or increased taxes. The House has passed a new tax on capital gains and estates, as well as increases on tobacco products, rooms and meals, insurance premiums, gambling winnings and gasoline.  The Senate has passed expanded gambling for additional revenue, as well as increased taxes on tobacco, rooms and meals, and new onerous business taxes. Both budgets have numerous fee increases. Both budgets raid a fund paid into by doctors designed to keep medical malpractice rates in line. The $110 million raid of this fund will trigger an all but certain lawsuit which doctors stand an excellent chance of winning – because in reality it’s their money.  More cynically both budgets underfund to varying degrees the state’s historic commitment to assisting towns and cities. So property taxpayers are going to be left out in the cold without a seat in this game of musical tax chairs.

Sound chaotic and controversial? It is and deadlines are looming.

 

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Liberty & Demagogues. Oil & Water.

Khomeini.Obama Wright

What is a demagogue? According to the encyclopedia, a demagogue is a politician skilled in oratory, flattery, and invective, evasive in discussing vital issues, promising everything to everybody, appealing to the passions rather than the reason of the public, and arousing racial, religious, and class prejudices.

History tells us that personal liberty is most often the demagogue’s first victim, particularly when popular sentiment is whipped up against some internal or foreign enemy. In other words, liberty and demagogos cannot coexist. The ancient Greek word "demagogos" means simply a spokesman for the people or, more pejoratively, a leader of the mob. “Modern usage implies rhetorical gifts and the ability to arouse an audience, usually with the promise of radical change.”

We have been warned of three kinds of people: charlatans, demagogues, and politicians. And, more often than not, someone will rise up who is all three of these characters wrapped into one. Our liberty is the most precious possession. Many will aim to rob us of it and, by so doing, add to their own power, while trying to force us to become robots. We need to be vigilant and guard our liberty with our very lives.

Desperate situations spawn desperate measures. Not having learned the lessons of history, many people will turn to charlatans, demagogues, and politicians with dire consequences. Just a few old and recent cases of this tragic misstep should warn us not to be victimized in the future by frauds.

From the primitive land of the Arabian Peninsula of over 14 centuries ago rose Muhammad, an illiterate hired hand of a rich widow Khadija, claiming that he was the bearer of a perfect life prescription from God—the Quran. He claimed humanity could do no better than to follow its precepts as well as to emulate Muhammad’s own life example for a guarantee of bliss and salvation. In exchange for this, people must embrace Islam—surrender—by surrendering their Liberty to Muhammad.

Question: Why would the All-Wise Lord choose an illiterate desert-dweller, of all the people in the world, to be his messenger? Why choose a man who couldn’t read or write, a man who, over the course of 20 years, claimed to be receiving periodic revelations from God and had to rely on others who could write to jot down his recollections? These recollections were recorded as the word-for-word literal utterances and commandments of God. Furthermore, a dozen versions of the book of Allah, the Quran, turned up and a fallible Caliph selected one of them and had the rest burned. Burning books has ever since been a companion to Islam’s mission.

To this day, in places where Islam rules, many books are banned, newspapers and magazines are systematically either censored or shut down, and other non-print media are methodically blocked. Then liberty, deeply cherished by democracies, is replaced by submission—unquestioning obedience and adherence to the dictates and precepts of the all-knowing and all-wise Allah.

 

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Gangster Government

Minnesota’s 6th District Republican Congressman Michele Bachmann on the recent political interference in automobile dealerships by the government and the unprecedented use of "czars" by the Obama Administration: "We now have an imperial presidency"     If only we had representatives such as this from NH. Sadly, we ain’t got squat… [H/T Alex P. story; … Read more

American Heart: “I’m American made. I got American parts. Got American faith In America’s heart…”

This is a rather interesting story about a new song making the rounds on the Internet. From Andrew Breitbart on the Big Hollywood blog: Jon David, our anonymous Hollywood player known for trolling for liberal starlets and reporting back to his conservative compatriots at Big Hollywood, was inspired to write, perform, finance and record “American … Read more

NH Budget Snapshot: Little Hope at this Point for True Fiscal Responsibility

taxes

[New Hampshire State Representative DJ Bettencourt (R-Salem) provides the following snapshot of where the state’s budget stands today…]

Guest Post by DJ Bettencourt

It was the hope of many Granite State conservatives that the State Senate would rectify issues with the House version of the budget for fiscal year (FY) 2010-2011. Among the most notable problems with the proposed budget were excessive spending, implementation of a capital gains tax, re-implementation of the “death tax,” and the raising of several other taxes (rooms and meals tax, tobacco tax, and numerous fines and fees). Alas, no such rescue came.

Last week the Senate passed its version of the budget that ensured the debate over New Hampshire’s financial plan would not be a division of fiscal philosophy of higher taxes and extravagant spending versus lower taxes and responsible spending. Instead, the debate would revolve around disagreements about which taxes to raise and which areas would receive the dividends of irresponsible spending. That lack of budget debate is not only regrettable but utterly dangerous for the financial well-being of our state.

Here are a few of the highlights (or lowlights, as the case may be) of the Senate’s proposed budget:

 

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The Movement Continues: Gaspee Tea Party in Rhode Island

The Westerly-Pawcatuck Tea Party website states In June of 1772, Rhode Island Patriots took a stand against an oppressive, unresponsive government and high taxation when they burned the British revenue ship the HMS Gaspee. In that same spirit, tomorrow on June 10th, folks from all over the state of RI, many riding on a number of "Freedom … Read more

LGBT Americans: “great and lasting contributions”

Just when we thought that we might put the gay agenda in the back of ours minds as we head into summer before regrouping to decide what to do next here in the Granite State, along comes Barack Obama to smack us back into reality… a reality that demonstrates the gay movement never stops. It never rests, and will … Read more

Sunday Reading

From the “every cloud has a silver lining” department, via WSJ.com: Brígido de Jesús González lived in Queens, N.Y., for the past 20 years, working as a landscaper to support his wife and kids back in El Salvador. But with the recession clobbering his business, the illegal immigrant decided to pack up and return to … Read more

Welcome to “North Massachusetts”

North Massachusetts

In today’s economic environment, helping small businesses create new jobs needs to be our leading priority. Yes, we must take care of the displaced, but we must do it through job creation. The Democrats in Concord can’t seem to understand this.  They keep adding more and more weight onto the state’s business community, expecting them to continue to fly. They have just done it again this week by adding more social safety net legislation at the expense of job creation. While they will now crow about “helping people” their policies will have the exact opposite impact.

America’s economic safety net undoubtedly plays an important role in stabilizing the economy when events or economic situations take a turn for the worse. Markets have always had an unfortunate tendency to over-react in the short run. Therefore, such measures as unemployment insurance serve as a good short term shock absorber to slow the descent while economic policies and normal market forces bring the economy back into balance. Other social safety net policies can also be helpful to an economy and the quality of life.

But as the saying goes, “Taken to an extreme, any virtue can be turned into a vice.” Just as a wrong sized shock absorber on a car can be counter productive, so it is in economics. The Europeans have been seeing this in spades over the last few decades. Several countries like France and Germany have adopted such inflated unemployment and other social benefits that businesses are now very reluctant to hire new people. As a result, unemployment is the overriding problem because existing businesses can’t bear the load. This also means that new businesses are hard to start and job creating innovation is much slower than in the faster paced economies. There is clearly a balance to be struck.

America’s business community is now struggling to survive in the worst economic downturn in the past seventy years. Even the largest and once most successful of businesses are holding on by their fingernails. In the past year we have seen the bankruptcy of some of America’s business icons such as Chrysler and General Motors, Merrill Lynch, Circuit City, and many others. At the same time businesses have been scaling back and closing stores at an alarming pace. As a result, the country’s jobless rate jumped to 9.4 percent in May, the highest in twenty-five years. This figure is already higher than the “worse case scenario” of the government’s just completed stress tests. And there is more to come as unemployment will surely pass into the double digits.

 

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NH Senate Update by Jeb Bradley: Time to Pay Taxes

 

tax man

Guest post by State Senator Jeb Bradley

Last week I titled my blog: Time to Talk Taxes. This week’s title is unfortunately: Time to Pay Taxes.

Just as easily it could be:  New Spending  = New Taxes = Job Losses.

The budget approved by the majority of the New Hampshire Senate proposes to increase total spending by $1.2 billion! That’s on top of a similar spending increase from the prior budget to the current budget of $1 billion. It’s noteworthy these precipitous spending increases coincide with one party political rule in Concord.

Efforts were made to trim this spending on the Senate Floor by Republicans.  We proposed four separate amendments to make across the board cuts totaling 8.4%. These amendments, which I supported, would’ve eliminated the need to increase business taxes, hospitality taxes, and tobacco taxes. The fourth amendment would’ve cut state spending so that New Hampshire’s historic commitment to assist towns with Revenue Sharing is maintained.  Revenue Sharing means $50 million to cities and towns which helps lower property taxes. Not surprisingly, all four of these amendments failed —  largely on partisan votes —  which means property taxes, business, hospitality, and tobacco taxes will all go up!

The proposed increase in business taxes is particularly disturbing. Not one Senator could defend it as either good or fair tax policy. Rather, those that voted to increase business taxes were of a mind that taxes had to be raised to enable new spending; even though those who voted for higher business taxes would likely acknowledge this tax hike will cost New Hampshire jobs.

These were not the only discouraging votes for those who want to see New Hampshire jumpstart its economy, keep the cost of government low, and ensure government accountability and educational opportunity for New Hampshire students.

Two amendments which I supported were presented to ensure that local voters could continue to adopt property tax caps in their cities and towns.  A number of communities have, by a popular vote of their citizens, successfully implemented property tax caps. They are now threatened by lawsuits in court. These amendments to protect the local option to pursue a tax cap were defeated on straight partisan votes. Now property taxpayers are confronted by the grim reality that the courts in New Hampshire may be determining property taxes instead of local voters.

The Senate Finance Committee recommended capping the number of students that could enroll in charter schools. Charter schools, which receive public funding and which are part of our public school system, have proven to be very successful. They are allowed by their charter to be more creative and innovative than traditional public schools.

 

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New GM introduces the 2010 Obama

Incredibly "green," this car runs on hot air and broken promises. It has three wheels that speed the vehicle through tight left turns. It comes complete with two Teleprompters programmed to help the occupants talk their way out of any violations.  Built by union labor  with full benefits, it’s base price is only $83,000, but low … Read more

Jesus, Ronald Reagan, and Atlas Shrugged: A winning combo for young conservatives?

This is a very cool video from a pair of talented young (gasp!) conservatives: From the Young Cons’ website: Here’s what Stiltz & Serious C think: Stirring up much debate is the verse in the Young Con Anthem: “Three thing taught me conservative love,Jesus, Ronald Reagan plus Atlas Shrugged” This comment is similar to other responses we’ve … Read more

Signs ‘o the times?

    Well, perhaps, but only if the Republicans put up some REAL, electable candidates for the next election, if it’s not too late. Ones with the brass it will take to do the necessary work of undoing all the garbage that has been strewn across our once great state. Democrat-lite, as offered by the … Read more

Not government-approved news, I guess

From the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy… (CONCORD)  Senate President Sylvia Larsen this morning revoked the press credentials of Josiah Bartlett Center Lead Investigator Grant Bosse, and barred Bosse from filming today’s Senate session from the floor, just as the Chamber was preparing to take up the state’s two-year $11.5 billion budget. Bosse had … Read more

Deliberate act of jihad? Move along everybody. Nothing to see here. All is well.

Guest post by Karen Testerman Is one life more worthy than another? Google can tell us a lot about what our media considers important and their take on the worthiness of life for ALL beings.  Consider the following: Today I found 60,200 Google hits on the murder of abortionist, George Tiller vs. 1,040 hits covering … Read more

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