New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu and I agree on several things. Lowering taxes (or eliminating them) is good. Shoring up protections for the right to self-defense is critical. And refusing to fund Berlin’s Burgess Biomass boondoggle was the right thing to do.
Articles tagged as
Boondoggle
Amtrak Wish-List Includes Rail into NH No One Will Use
Commuter Rail should not be a priority in New Hampshire for more reasons than I can count, but I’ve counted them for the past 12 years, with some success. Now, it looks like Amtrak has imagined a spur from Masskachusetts to Concord. Why? Seriously, why?
Santa Came Early This Year to the Swamp
Many Americans are settling in for the holidays. The bi-partisan swamp in DC has already given itself gifts from you. Santa came early this year to the swamp. It arrived last Monday night. Ho, Ho, Ho… The joke’s on you.
Trump Claws Back Money from a Billion Dollar Obama-Era Solar Plant that Never Worked as Advertised
Obama’s Department of Energy loaned out billions in Green energy loans and grants. Most of it was laundered to friends or allies. Hunter Biden’s Burisma got some, but so did a proposed solar farm in Harry Reid’s home state of Nevada. Toponah cost taxpayers 737 Million for what amounts to a Green Energy Stonehenge.
Balsams’ Boondoggle: Does Les Otten Have a New Scam Going?
Yesterday, the Caledonian reported that the Balsams was up for sale. You remember the ongoing saga of the Balsams, where failed Maine ‘entrepreneur’ Les Otten was demanding New Hampshire taxpayers back his multi-million $$ boondoggle through legislation sought by nitwitted legislators from both sides of the aisle? Groksters wrote many articles about the adventures of … Read more
“…that the city is likely the last resort to fill the gap…”
We have several informal mottoes here at GraniteGrok. One is self-evident – “we annoy people” (mostly the ones that need annoying). The other one is a tangential off-shoot of what the late US Speaker of the House “Tip” O’Neill’s quote of “All politics is local” If it is happening here, it is probably happening in … Read more
Ask Gov. Sununu to Veto the Latest Rail Boondoggle (603) 271-2121.
Written as a deliberate violation of the State Constitution SB241 wants to break the law to fund transportation infrastructure we don’t need that will forever suck resources from more pressing priorities. Those would be any other priority you can imagine.
Sign the Petition: Say No to Commuter Rail in New Hampshire
The Legislature has a bill to waste tax dollars on yet another capitol corridor rail study. A petition has been created to send the message that any commuter rail project in New Hampshire will cost every taxpayer millions in perpetuity to serve an insignificant sliver of the population.
Laconia City Councilor Henry Lipman is mad because someone is questioning his HOPE strategy
Well, with the update from yesterday, it seem like HOPE is all that Lipman and co. may have for this boondoogle of HOPE Squared (HOPE they can get the funding and HOPE again that, well, it’ll work as designed in “revitalizing the downtown area” – the same area that the same HOPE destroyed when it … Read more
Les Otten’s Balsams Boondoggle Still Can’t Find Enough Financing to Proceed
It’s a sad tale of a boondoggling boondoggler (Les Otten) who sold the state on a plan. Jobs for the North Country he said. As far as the eye can see. Just approve this “loan guarantee” and the private money will fall from the sky. We’ll be paying you back in wheelbarrows full of business taxes before … Read more
So-Called ‘Free Money’ for Rail Study Yanked From New Hampshire Transportation Plan
In late April the NH Senate pulled a four million dollar rail study line-item out of the State’s ten-year transportation budget. The Senate passed the amended version, denying the choo-choo fetishists yet another expensive act of engineering voyeurism.
The advocates for waste, fraud, and abuse were not happy.
GrokTALK! – Meet Gov. Boon Doggle
Maggs Hassan signed the Boondoggle bill this week, establishing a culture of taxpayer backed greed amongst the elected class–and anyone looking for a few bucks to tie a boon to a doggle.
GrokTALK! – Boondoggle
Senate Bill 30 wants to take 28 million in taxpayer money to give it to a rich guy for a resort bail out boondoggle and no you wont get a free night, a dinner, nothing but the tab. Kevin Bloom joins us to talk about the details, the gymnastics, and all the things that are … Read more
The IRS Can’t Find The Receipts…
You really can’t make this stuff up. IRS spends 50 million of your dollars and mine…on a boondoggle that wasn’t even supposed to happen after the whole GSA debacle, and they can’t find the receipts. Too busy targeting political opponents? Wait! I bet they blame the sequester.
NH Executive Council Votes To Explore Boondoggle
The Executive Council, by a vote of 4-1, has approved a 3.7 million dollar feasibility study–all three Democrats and sometime Republican Ray Burton voted to approve the expense. “Expanded rail service to Nashua and beyond has the potential to boost New Hampshire’s economy and create jobs. The only way we can understand the full impact … Read more
Democrats, Trains And HB 218
The Union Leader has a great editorial in this mornings Sunday News titled "Free Trains." It is great for several reasons the least of which is that it mirrors concerns I have been expressing for years. That no matter who pays to build them, someone has to pay to keep them. That would be New Hampshire Taxpayers. But Democrats are aghast that the NH House would dissolve the New Hampshire Rail Transit Authority–the head of a beast seeking to force commuter rail upon us–because hey it doesn’t cost anything.
But it does cost and it could lead to something that costs us even more in the future. A lot more.
December 2009 at NH Insider – I hit it out of the park when someone compared road taxes to rail taxes.
Passenger rail costs are not limited to the root infrastructure itself. That would be rails versus roads. Taxpayers would have to subsidize passenger rail-cars, fuel the cars, maintain the cars, probably pay the workers and their benefits, and support the entire system when it fails to turn a profit, which will be always and probably forever. While roads have some other infrastructure nothing compares to rail.
In contrast people buy their own cars, and pay for their own fuel and maintenance. They may buy the car to get to a job that’s probably not funded by taxpayers either. (Except in Concord) Taxpayers do not need to subsidize any of that where with rail we’re supporting all of it. So there is no possible apples to apples comparison to road and rail taxes.
The state also makes a lot of money on registration fees and fuel taxes for road vehicles, tolls and license plates, and some towns rely so heavily on registration fees that even minor reductions can cause budget issues. Passenger rail offers no comparable net increase in revenues and in all likely hood a net loss. So Passenger rail risks reducing revenues and increasing tax obligations for no significant greater good.
But that’s hardly the most pressing point about the ongoing illusion of free commuter rail…