Articles tagged as

Budgets

They call it Cramming Costs Down, I Call it Returning Local Control (and Local Responsibility)

We sent a Republican super-majority to the New Hampshire State House to deal with the profligate spending and incompetent accounting of the Democrats.   We can all disagree on the specifics of the outcome but one fact is clear–they did what we sent them there to do.  State government is no longer growing in excess of our ability to pay for it.   Spending is in line with revenues.  Real cuts have been enacted to state government.    No more Left wing lead Midnight tax and fee jamborees, searching the Granite couch cushions for new revenues to replace the “missing” ones.  Frugality is more the order of the day.  Without Democrats at the levers, the oppressive power of the purse has stopped accumulating in the State Capitol.

And if you had not noticed, the progressives in both parties are very unhappy about that.

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GrokTV Event: NH Speaker Bill O’Brien Town Hall – Questions!

Quite a bit of the Town Hall was taken up by questions (some pre-written and some from the floor):

  • On Voter ID
  • Would Gov Lynch actually support on a Voter ID bill?
  • How can the private sector assist in the cost of Education?
  • How about Consolidates SAUs (School Administrative Units)?
  • More on Voter Fraud
  • School Vouchers a possibility?
  • Special Education funding (Federal, State)
  • In 40 years, why is Education costing 3 X more but results are worse?
  • The 10 Health Agencies are not working
  • Some House Reps had conflicts over Right To Work – but didn’t recuse themselves!
  • Right To Work “positives”
  • On that “Stealing $499 from your employer is not a crime” bill…
  • Closed Primaries – possibility?

Videos after the jump:

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GrokTV Event: NH Speaker Bill O’Brien Town Hall – Intro Remarks, NH House Deputy Speaker Pam Tucker.

This past Saturday afternoon, GraniteGrok covered the New Boston Taxpayer’s Town Hall event, hosted by NH House Rep Pat Murphy and where NH Speaker of the House Bill O’Brien, Deputy Speaker Pam Tucker, Majority Leader DJ Bettencourt spoke on issues like the Budget, Voter Fraud, redistricting, traditional marriage, and education.

In this clip, Pat begins the meeting with some introductory remarks and the Pledge while Pam Tucker discusses the budget and voter fraud:

After the jump, NH House Majority Leader DJ Bettencourt gives his talk to the crowd at the Whipple Library (numbering about 100 folks):

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GrokTV Event: Ron Paul – Q2 & Q3: Why is cutting Federal spending so important? Military spending and how the Pres. Paul’s Military look?

Jim Forsythe’s next two questions at the Ron Paul Presidential Primary event in Meredith, NH this afternoon:

Question 2: You have proposed cutting $1 Trillion from the Federal budget right off – why is it so important to cut Federal spending?

Question 3:Military vs defense spending – and how will the military look like under President Ron Paul?

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Yet another example of politicians ignoring THEIR responsibility to lecture us on ours

“The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.”
– President Barack Obama, Inauguration, 1/20/09

Too bad, he didn’t have “and treat our citizens like adults.  California – the land of sun, fun, and more stupid politicians that can’t balance their budgets or restrain the public unions, but boy, they can nitpick their voters for not doing the right thing, eh?  This time, it is all about harranging drivers that change their oil too often.  Yeah, the State is now concerning itself, due to the self-importance of the enviro-wackos, and telling its drivers “Yo, slow down on your car chugging the oil – break that habit, dude!”

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Email Doodlings – 2012 Presidential Primary – Yes, it gonna be a long month…

More meanderings from on this:

Despite the (still) prevailing hawkishness within the GOP, I feel that the tides are turning. Republicans are starting to understand that we are FLAT BROKE and we can’t financially sustain these wars. We are being bled dry just like the mujahedeen (al Queda) did to the Russians in Afghanistan.

I am going to hate my self for doing it, but I couldn’t help myself at the time….(heh!) (edited slightly)

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Just Another Day In The Village

In a tweet posted a few days ago, State Democrat Party Propaganda minister Harrell “Jersey Shore” Kirstein basically threw Governor John Lynches signature program to reduce High School drop out rates under the bus.  No, he didn’t intend to do that but the tweet included a link to a Nashua Telegraph opinion piece by a local woman whose daughter had run off and stopped attending High School as a result of a funding cut to another program.  So much for the drop out rate.
Harrel Kirstein - NH Democrat Propoganda Minister
Despite that Kirstein still seems content to use this one parent and one child as props for the Progressive party agenda attack on a legislature that refuses to run the soaring deficits of its democrat predecessors.
But if that argument is even a remotely credible then that same “student” must not only be an indictment against John Lynches faux-reporting changes that “improved” drop out rates, but also on the Lefts decades long obsession with exposing kids to the so-called superior environment of a government run school system.  They clearly can’t manage to keep the kids coming back to the classroom without forcing taxpayers to spend millions more on additional state funded programs in addition to the millions spent on public education.  Given all those millions, shouldn’t this girl just love public school?

Do Nothing Democrats

It has been three years since the Democrat party produced a federal budget. The Democrat Senate has blocked repeated efforts by the Republican controlled House to ‘do something’ about that. President Obama, Senate leader Harry Reid, and the Democrat leaderships contribution (including their media homunculus) has been to demand compromise without giving any.

Does Carol Agree With Nancy ‘No Budget’ Pelosi?

Does Carol SEIU-Porter agree with Nancy, that the reason the Democrats never passed a budget–it has been an historical 927 days–was that the “Republican would have filibustered it?” (Careful now….try to remember how many republicans there actually were before you answer)

MAGGIE “THE MARXIST” HASSAN IS RUNNING

“Ask anyone committed to Marxist analysis how many angels on the head of a pin, and you will be asked in return to never mind the angels, tell me who controls the production of pins.” ­—Joan Didion

Maggie_The_Marist_Hassan_GROK.jpg

 Defeated Democratic state Senator Maggie Hassan made it official today that she will be running for governor in 2012. In her usual hokum, Hassan touted the typical big government solution to prop up the economy. As reported in the Union Leader, Maggie the Marxist, “stressed the need to create jobs by “investing” in education and job training programs and by fostering a business climate that attracts innovative small businesses and new technologies.” Translation: “investing” equals big-government spending and solutions…equals heavy taxation to raise such revenues. Such notions were brought with her as a carpet-bagging “massplant” to the Granite State. 

The Union Leader reported that “Maggie the Marxist” pledged to be a fiscally responsible governor who would veto any sales or income tax and commit herself to a balanced state budget.“  This is laughable given her extensive record as a State Senator.  My fellow Blogger Steve MacDonald absolutely nailed it on back October 5th when he wrote:

  Hassan is a left wing, government first, spend then tax Democrat who wants socialized medicine, supports abortion from conception to birth (also here), and was more than willing to trample on opponents with the “Sullivan/Hassan Hates Speech (the left can’t control) amendment.” (also here, and here, …)  She is also willing to lie about her opponents to get re-elected.

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NH Dems Endorse Obama Tax Increase

As reported in the Union Leader Ray Buckley and the State Democrat party would like people to call members of congress and encourage them to support Mr. Obama’s tax on investors and job creators so Democrats can fund public sector union jobs and keep the dues-donations rolling in.  They also support the push to defer millions in social security revenues on to the shoulders of our children, though Buckley words it differently.

The plan would cut the payroll tax that 30,000 New Hampshire small businesses pay, provide tax relief for families, funding for police, firefighters and teachers, school building improvements and transportation projects in the state.

This entire effort is another organized scam to fund unions and Democrat campaigns, in the run up to November 2012, at taxpayer expense.  The payroll tax cut is a useless gesture, not a cut but a deferment, so what we have is more of the same catastrophic economic policy that has kept us in a recession and on the brink of collapse for three years now.

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Proud of President Obama

For the first time in my life I am finally proud of President Obama!! 

President Obama stood up for the gay soldier who asked a question at the last Republican debate.  It is so rare that President Obama or any leftist shows respect or says anything positive about our soldiers, that we need to recognize and appreciate it when it happens.   

Yes, I would have been prouder of him if President Obama had actually defended our soldier from a real slander, derision, or attack.  For example, if someone had actually “boo’d” the soldier, then I would have been more proud of him.  Since President Obama presents a false picture suggesting that our soldier was “boo’d” when he wasn’t (it was the soldier‘s question that got a few “boo“s), that takes away from the recognition President Obama deserves.    
     

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Revenue Prediction

No, I’m not going to guess how New Hampshire will fare on tax revenue. I am going to predict how democrats will respond to the news of a surplus and business tax revenues over estimate.

UNH may have to Layoff More Staff

Box of tissues for UNH cry babiesBoo hoo.

Faced with a deficit, after years of a bad economy, UNH may be forced to do what many companies had to do years ago–cut more staff.  I can’t tell you how bad I feel for them.  The small business I work for went from 30 employees down to 12…two years ago.  Of course we were not supported by taxpayers, nor did we have unions or arbitrators insisting we pay people like Ed Larkin to do nothing for five years at the staggering cost of almost half a million dollars.

At my office we streamlined down to the bare minimum needed to keep things running, and have discovered efficiencies and opportunities to be more productive with less resources.   Not only are we still in business, but things are actually looking up. Yeah, it’s more work for the rest of us, and no we have not had raises in years, but we are working and providing a product and service (and paying taxes).

But State run enterprises, or those who have become dependent on tax payer prop-ups, have little or no incentive to make those hard choices. 

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Democrats Continue to Obstruct Obama

Reid still giving us he fingerHarry Reid’s excuse for refusing to bring the Obama Tax away jobs bill to the Senate floor was a busy floor schedule. This is only important because Reid and the Narrative gang are busy blaming Republicans.  But Dirty Harry Reid might as well have said he couldn’t do it because he had to wash his hair or arrange his sock drawer. 

The same Senate that cannot be bothered to address the matter of a budget–except when erecting straw men about Republicans obstructing this or refusing to fund that when they already know there is money available–does not appear to have much in the way of important business.

Would you like to see the more pressing matters before the US Senate for which Reid could not make time to ‘issue This Bill.?’  Follow the jump…

 

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Democrat Green Graft Stops Continuing Resolution

If the Democrats had passed a budget we wouldn’t be doing this at all. If the left in Congress had not broken the law and refused to write or pass a budget we would not be here. If the demolition party had not obstructed every effort by Republicans to pass a budget, to eliminate the need for continuing resolutions, there would be no debate about refunding the government every few months.

Smoke Em or Eat Em

Cigarette Taxes up in smokeDemocrats thought they had something for a minute.  After the GOP majority reduced the cigarette tax the revenue didn’t shoot right up the next day.  It actually did not shoot up the first month either.  Naturally this made knees jerk all over the party headquarters and the muttering began about how decreasing the tax forced us to reduce valuable government services.  (Women, children, and public union employees hit hardest.)

The media permitted them their druthers, for good or ill, and it became a matter of public record that the NHDP had embarked on a nah-nah told you so PR campaign about taxing tobacco products.

Then tobacco revenues went up.  They went up 1.8 Million ahead of plan last month.  What was more important was that this increase ended what the NH House majority claims was a five year downward trend.  2011 minus five carry the tax deduction…well, since just about the time the democrat majority experiment began. (And hey, someone please call Rep Christine"Nostradamus" Hamm, D-Hopkinton, and rub it in her face.)

So why bring it up?  One  month, 1.8 million over plan, not that much really.  I mention it because Big Government.com just posted a piece that references data from the CDC and other sources on the ongoing futility of using cigarette taxes as a source of state revenue.  Smoking is still on the decrease, which is good.  I count myself among the legions of former smokers, though cost was not then a factor.  The number of cigarettes smoked per day is down, which is also good but reductive from a revenue perspective.  And a majority of cigarette tax increases never really produce the expected revenue.  This is partly due to the affects of taxation, and to some degree due (apparently) to smuggling.  High taxation and regulation lead to illegal behavior–which adds costs to deal with the "crime " created by them–so feel free to postulate the downsides yourselves; but raising taxes is no guarantee of more revenue, so I think it is time for another discussion about tobacco taxes, and why we need a long term plan to cut them until they are not taxed at all.

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Obama’s “Bride Of Stimulus” Speech

I wasn’t going to bother, but when you have a title like “Bride of Stimulus” you have to run with it. And that is exactly what that speech was. To quote every democrat’s greasy palm card from 2007/2008, what we have here is…”the same old failed polices of the past.” Or what I referred to on twitter as “same old whore new dress.”

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