No one should be surprised to see Maggie Hassan’s budget has millions of dollars in revenue from a source that does not even exist.
In this instance it is gambling, but a few years ago Senator Hassan was part and parcel to repeated budget balancing fiascoes that relied on non existent revenue.
She voted for budgets “balanced” with revenues from taxes that had not even been through the committee process or had a hearing. She voted for budgets that relied on revenue from the sale of land even though no one knew what land or how much they might get for it. She was a gold medal recipient in the Granite-State-Left-Wing-Fiscal Gymnastics Finals, helping execute chess master like moves to create the illusion of paying for what had not been paid for. She even continues to insist to this day that the 800 million dollars in spending she helped accumulate in the Majority Democrat legislature–for which there was no money to pay for in successive fiscal years–was not a deficit nor evidence of fiscal malfeasance on the part of her or her party. So why, WHY would we be surprised when her first budget as governor relies on at least $80 million in gambling industry dollars for casinos that do not even exist?