Articles tagged as

Budgets

GrokTV Event-Granite State Institute of Politics Republican Gov. Debate – Questions 9 – 12

And now for the third set of four questions (list of previous questions and their links after the jump) from the Granite State Institute of Politics Republican Gov. Debate that was hosted by John Burt, questions asked by Speaker Bill O’Brien and  Alex Talcott , and answered by the Candidates for the Republican nomination for NH Governor, Ovide Lamontagne and Kevin Smith.

Question 9:

“One of the least known aspects of Obamacare is how it seeks to hijack State finances in order to expand insurance coverage particularly in the area of Medicaid. One area it does this in is doubling income elegibility.  That’s the aspect to bring forward the decision. That’s the aspect and the reason for the Supreme Court decision that it is optional to the States.  Can you tell us whether or not NH should take up that option and expand its population?  As part of your answer, can you tell us where Medicaid is going in NH and how NH is going to finally be able to protect its sovereignty from the Federal Government trying to push us to overspending here in NH?”

Question 10:

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Evil Tea Party Manipulates NH House To Produce First Balanced State Budget Since 2006

Hey.  If we (the TEA party/Right wing activists, etc)  are going to get blamed (by left wing radical Democrats) for making the New Hampshire House and Senate write and pass legislation (that reduces spending, taxes, regulation, and increases liberty and freedom), then we damn well deserve credit for this.

NH Republians balance budget to within +0.8%It’s the end of the two-year fiscal cycle and revenues came in +0.8%.  That means we took in revenue just a little bit more than we spent. And for the first time since (cough cough) 2006–the last year for which Republicans were responsible for revenue estimates–we are not in a fiscal crisis.  No late night, last minute, emergencies.  No layoffs.  No mid-budget hiring or wage freezes, no sudden need to borrow more money, no special, late night meetings to pass unpopular taxes that never had a hearing, or draconian plots to sell as yet defined public lands while cramming pension costs down on towns becasue revenue estimates were not even close.  No forcing department heads to look for savings in the middle of the budget cycle. No abrupt, heavy handed, executive orders to bring spending in line with revenue.   No delaying the pain or kicking the can down the road for someone else to deal with.

These were all features of the four year budgetary disaster known as Democrat majority control.  And thanks to the TEA party–if Ray Buckley and his Tax and Spend Democrat Party are to be believed–we no longer have that problem.

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The NH Democrat’s Dishonesty About Tobacco

On 6-6-12 I provided an update on the state of tobacco tax revenue in New Hampshire.  Buried in that post were some observations about how hypocritical and dishonest Democrats in the Granite state are about tobacco and their obsession with taxing it.  A hypocrisy they themselves may not even grasp.  So I wanted to excerpt that portion separately with a few minor edits.  Here it is.

Democrats complained publicly and often about lower tobacco revenue after the tax was first lowered.  But isn’t that the point of the tax?  To lower consumption and therefore revenue?  To end a practice many in government, and more so in the nanny wing, argue adds to the long term cost borne by the public?  Is that not the goal?  To make smoking history?

And we know that raising the tax reduces consumption, and lowers traffic into New Hampshire to buy tobacco (and anything else) because we’ve seen it happen.  So less tobacco revenue always had to be the goal for Democrats if they are being even remotely honest about it.   This means that at some point New Hampshire was going to have to look someplace else for that revenue–or  were NH Democrats planning on increasing the tax per pack on the last smoker to $30 million (or whatever it is) to make up for everyone else who had quit at their urging?

Do you see how stupid that logic is?

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Remembering Democrat Rule Part 2

If New Hampshire Democrats were ever again allowed to run the State legislature we already know the first thing they would do.  They would overestimate revenue to justify spending for the purpose of driving us into a broad based tax.  They did it during a recession, with unemployment skyrocketing, embarking on one of the most massive modern day expansions of New Hampshire state government.  What’s to stop them doing it again under any other condition?  Republicans.  Barring that, nothing.  It’s who they are.

Spending was and always is the Democrats first priority and Governor Lynch’s most recent budget was just another example.  Even without a Democrat legislature he wanted to spend 4.731 billion on General and Education funds, almost 300 million more than the current Republican Budget; a budget 6% less than that of Governor Lynch; a Republican budget that is almost exactly in line with actual revenue.  (That means it spent what they estimated they would take in.)

But left unchecked by Republicans Democrat Governor Lynch would have got his budget and then some, and added another 300 million dollar hole that the taxpayers of New Hampshire would have had to fill because there wasn’t another $300 million plus to spend without raising some more taxes in this lousy economy.

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99-0

The smartest man in any room can’t seem to put his name on a budget anyone will vote for.  This years nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue is worse than the last–it even has the distinction of being discarded with more no votes than last years budget nighmare.  99-0. The Senate torpedoed his last budget 97-0 in May 2011, … Read more

Smokes and Mirrors – What’s Up With Tobacco Taxes?

smoking - what about the tobacco taxes in New HampshireAll across the the Granite State Democrats have gathered in their secret underground lairs.  The unthinkable has happened.  Tobacco revenues were up last month.   (Audible Gasp!).  That’s right.  Revenues beat estimates.

This is, of course, a double edged sword for the liberal left.   When their grotesque estimates (overall) were forever coming in under target, how many times did they say, “it’s just one month, wait and see.  Give it time, they’ll come around.  We’re not that far off.” No such quarter for Republicans. ( Typical hypocrats.)   At the ugly end of the 2007 to 2010 Democrat “experiment” they were off by about a billion dollars which might suggest they have no clue what they are doing.

But when the Republican’s estimated revenues for their budget the Democrats cried and whined anyway as if they were suddenly experts; the religious left even gathered to pray for more spending.  I’m not kidding.  They prayed for more spending.  The left claimed repeatedly that Republican estimates were purposefully low to punish people.  That is what the left said.

But the overall estimates are close.  Very close.  This means the Democrats were wrong about Republicans underestimating revenue on purpose, which means they were themselves wrong about estimates again (no surprise there).  With revenue nearly in line with spending, bitching about it makes them look petty and just reminds everyone what wretched stewards they were of our tax dollars.

So left hanging without an economic axe to grind they have bet their rhetorical money on the cigarette tax cut.  But they may have lost that bet as well.

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(US Senate) Democrats Still Running From The Budget

Hot Air: Only three Democrats bothered to show up at all, out of a dozen assigned to it.  Republicans showed up, prepared to cast votes to finally bring the ignominious streak of 1,085 days (as of yesterday) without a budget resolution to an end.  Sadly, Democrats — who control the committee, the chamber, and the … Read more

Remembering Democrat Rule In New Hampshire – Part 1

New Hampshire Democrats treated your money like toilet paperIn the 2006 Elections Democrats took control of the New Hampshire House for the first time in 95 years (giving them complete control of State government for what would end up being four years).  What happened after that must not be forgotten, for it is the doom of men that they forget.

They forget that the House Democrats first move was to turn budget policy on its head.  Instead of estimating realistic revenues so that the governor could have a guideline for his budget, they would let the governor request a 14% expansion of state government in February of 2007, to which they would pad or add their spending spree agenda items before figuring out how to tax New Hampshire citizens to pay for their wish list.

In the now infamous shout heard round the State House, Democrat House leader Dan Eaton would later condense the entire four year budget strategy of the New Hampshire left into one sentence.

 ‘It makes sense to know how much you’re spending before you decide how much money to raise.’

Now that might just make sense for a school trip or new band uniforms but this wasn’t a fundraiser.  Eaton was talking about using the force of law and the power of the state to extract juice from the fruits of other peoples labors based on the whimsy of big government legislators with little or no regard for its affect on the state, our economy, or the people who would be paying, and that was exactly how the Democrats would govern.

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Media Irresponsibility

The editorial in Friday’s The Citizen, reprinted from the Concord Monitor was totally irresponsible.  So, I submitted the following as community commentary to The Citizen, and something similar to the Concord Monitor.  I doubt they will publish my input:

+++++++++++++

Please check the attribution of The Citizen’s April 13, 2012 editorial, titled, “A budget to widen nation‘s income gap.“  If it really came from the Concord Monitor, please check to see if they have replaced their editorial staff with the Democrat National Committee.   I am shocked that our respected local paper would print such a partisan and totally non-constructive editorial.

The editorial calls the Ryan plan ”radical”.  Compared to what?  Lets compare it to the Senate‘s budget.  Oops, the Democrat controlled Senate doesn’t have a budget, it hasn’t passed a budget in three years!

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HB 1607 – Public Schools Could See Buckets of Free Money

Skip just posted a nice letter from the Londonderry Superintendent of schools in which the Super appears to lobby the state Senate in opposition to HB1607.  This bill establishes an education tax credit for businesses or groups that set up scholarship programs to help offset the costs of non-public school tuition.  This could allow more parents to enroll their kids outside of the governments education monopoly and on paper at least take the paltry sum of $3,450.00 per student with them when the business is reimbursed for its donations with a tax credit of that amount.   The business is, of course, free to set it’s award at any sum above that at their discretion, but the credit is (I assume) maxed out at $3450.00 per student.

Needless to say, the Super (Nate Greenberg) doesn’t care for the bill.  By his calculation each school district will lose money it needs to teach students and would necessarily downshift those costs onto local property taxpayers to make up the difference.

That argument sounds like it might hold water–the entire lobbying question Skip raises aside–but only if taken in the vacuum of the space between the typical bureaucrats ears.  I wont revisit all the Super’s arguments here, just follow the link if you feel confused, but in my district, this bill would, on paper at least,  be like the school district finding a winning lottery ticket every single year.

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What about the New Hampshire Budget?

New Hampshire Democrats are like three year oldsOne of the major themes of the New Hampshire Democrats is that the current New Hampshire Republican majority is not focusing enough on the budget and the economy, and spending too much time on other issues.   But this is an understandable position for leftists.

When the Democrats ran the entire state for four years, every session (almost every week) was about the budget, and how they had to raise more revenue.   The reason for that is that their estimates were always so distant from reality, and their over spending so profligate, that they could not help but be obsessed, at every opportunity, with trying to fix a mess of their own making.  The budget (and the economy)–how they might milk more taxes and fees out of the taxpayers or regulate and tax local businesses–was always on the agenda, often into the small hours of the morning of the day after the day they were supposed to have this all worked out by law.  So Democrat stewardship of the budget and the economy was one long, constant, cluster-***k.   (With what time they could spend ducking their budget woes wasted on trying to stomp out free speech, socializing medicine, scaring off more business, and a long laundry list of other nonsense too long to regurgitate here.)

The Republican majority, on the other hand, doing what you do at the grown-up table, already took care of  all that business in the first session.   Budget, estimates, revenues, done.   No last minute nonsense, no late night sessions.  No passing bills without hearings or making up taxes or fees they would later have to rescind–whose revenue they would then also have to “find” again and again…  and no Rube Goldbergian accounting tricks, or counting money from this year for that year, or adding in the potential sale of things like land that you will never actually sell.  None of that.

The Democrats hate the Republicans for that.

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Pay As You Throw Had To Go – Revisited

In April of 2011 I wrote about trying to institute Pay As You Throw in Merrimack.  Seeing as this comes up every year, I figured it was time to re-post it.  One point I would add; If any division of the town government intends to continue making a case for costs/burden related to actual use they should be prepared for an all out assault on school taxes (you are still taxing the elderly, childless, and parents with kids out of school), Hydrant fees (we all pay them but who ever uses them), and much, much, more.

by Steve MacDonald – Originally posted on April 22,2011

trash bagThe Merrimack Town Council bent to the will of the voters and scrapped plans to institute a pay as you throw program.  That would have required residents to buy special bags for trash at $1.00 or $1.50 per bag, and you could only use those bags at the town dump.

But we’ve been warned.  This is an issue that will be revisited. Or so we have been told.

Well, screw that, let’s look at it now.

Public Education Money Pit

DoE Money pit - Obama and Duncan keep shoveling it into the bottomless holeGeorge Bush 43 doubled the budget at the Department of Education over eight years to roughly $32 billion.  Barack Obama more than double it again with the only bloated budget the Democrat congress ever dared to pass.

That first Obama budget increased spending at the Department from Education from $32 billion per year in 2009 to $71,000,000,000.00 (Billion) per year by 2011.   That works out to over $400 million more dollars spent per school day nationally (assuming 180 days of school), in addition to all the state or local taxes you also pay for public education.  And Obama want’s more.  For what you ask?

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For my Gilford readers – a request for your vote!

Checkmark RedOne of the things that I am proud about the folks that opine here at GraniteGrok is not just that they spend their free time writing here, not just that when they write but that they write well, but that they all DO and not just write.  Each of the authors here get off their butts and go and actively do the politics that they advocate for here on the ‘Grok.  I am no different, as I actively engage at my local level.  For those of you living in Gilford, I ask that you would please vote for Barbara Aichinger, Stuart Savage, and me when you vote next month in our SB-2 sanctioned secret ballot vote.

The following is the Letter that I have submitted to local media outlets:

My name is Skip Murphy and I am running for re-election for the Gilford Budget Committee. I am also endorsing Barbara Aichinger and Stuart Savage for the BudComm and for the following reasons.

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How About A Donation Comrade?

NH DoL can fine people to bump up their budget…or why we might want to NH HB 1534.

HB 1534 reminds us of one of those ingredients in the sausage of government that we know are going to be bad for us.  Somehow the New Hampshire Department of labor was  allowed to collect fines into a restricted fund that is then used to fund the Department of Labor.  Need more revenue, collect more fines.  What could go wrong?

I don’t know…a bunch of bureaucrats, looking to pad their own budget, free to fine whomever they please… no worries.  Just make a “donation” to the Department of labor Budget expansion fund, and you’ll be in the clear comrade.   We won’t come back for another month.  Or, do we have to fine you for something now…?

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Democrats – Party of No…Budget

debt -generational debt that isHarry Reid has been told to keep things from reaching Mr. Obama’s desk that might make Obama look bad.   So for over 1000 days the Democrats have avoided passing a budget.  The House has sent them plenty of budget related items, complete budgets, budget measures, spending and revenue measures, all dead or dying in the Senate, where Democrats own the landscape.

What’s that?  It’s the Republicans fault we don’t have a budget?  Sorry, that just aint so.

You can’t filibuster the budget. The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 stipulates that debate is automatically cut off after 50 hours of debate. At that point, a budget can be passed by a simple majority, 51 votes. Democrats currently hold 53 seats in the Senate. They can pass a budget on a simple party-line vote.

You might ask yourself why, when the Democrats had the votes for two years, and both Houses, they refused to pass a budget?

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Gambling On Our Future

A few days ago I wrote this (among other things) about the risk of bringing casinos to New Hampshire… Years of Casino ‘revenue’ in Concord would inevitably create the opportunity for entrenched incumbency and make every race about money, and who can spend it.   The special interest money would favor those who support Casino interests … Read more

Do Nothing Democrats

In celebration of this historic occasion, having gone 1000 days without our Democrat majority Government passing a budget, we give you, The Heritage Foundation’s “1000 Days.”  

So, Obama knew that the financial meltdown was NOT just Wall Street’s fault???

Conventional wisdom / street knowledge is that Wall Street and their crazy and risky financial instruments was not solely to blame for the financial crash from which we are still picking our way out of (even as Obama keeps erecting more and more obstacles in that pathway).  Over at The EnterpriseBlog, James Pethokoukis (a highly respected economics journalist) plucks 11 “stunning revelations” from a formerly secret document that Larry Summers (former head of Obama’s economic advisors, and was advising him during the campaign).  The 11th was what caught my eye (James takeaway followed by an actual quote from the Summer’s document):

11. The financial crisis wasn’t just Wall Street’s fault.

A significant cause of the current crisis lies in the failure of regulators to exercise vigorously the authority they already have.

Not to take away any shame or malfeasance by Wall Street, this is a stunning admission from someone who became “the Obama Administration’s economic insider”.  This statement can also be placed not only on the Wall Street regulators but also the two GSEs (Government Sponsored Entities) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  Obama’s main thrust has been to advocate and regulate more rules by government over the financial sector.  Yet, little has been admitted by the Obama Administration (and other Democrats like Barney Frank) in terms of Government malfeasance.  But then again, to do so would undermine Obama’s own philosophy and core belief – how could the Progressive State be allowed to “guide” and regulate the lives of all of us if it itself cannot regulate itself?  What is the sense of adding more and more regulations if the State (e.g., the Feds) could not even credibly enforce what was already on the books?  If that last question holds true, Obama and the rest of his pathetic pack of Progressives have only a chasm of platitudes instead of a valid political philosophy.  If true, on what basis can they credibly state:

“trade your individual freedom for our equality enforced upon all – after all, we know better!”

Quick Summaries after the jump:

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Data Point – Yeah, those Republicans have certainly slowed down spending, eh?

“What cannot go on, won’t” It shows that the Republican takeover in the House has not had a net downward trend – we still are spending too much as the deficit spending continues.  It also shows that Republicans have worked (effectively) alongside Democrats in never really slowing the rise of spending previous to 2010 either. … Read more

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