Articles tagged as

Special Interests

Does Government Exist for the Politicians or for Citizens?

by Don

The Belknap County Convention demonstrated the clash of two different interests, both committed to fulfilling our County’s obligations.  One group considered the burden on property owners, renters, and others who pay the County’s bills.  The other group represents government employees, unions, and other special interests which benefit from the money taken from taxpayers.

This year, politicians at every level of government proposed tax increases.  Yet, taxpayers suffer from high unemployment, under-employment, reduced take home pay, tax increases, and price increases in nearly everything that people actually need, e.g., food, gasoline, health insurance.  The US median income has declined $4000 in just four years.  President Obama’s policies continue to kill middle class jobs, cut working hours, and drive previously independent people onto unemployment and welfare, and, frequently, into despair (which is a personal and national tragedy).

Even while middle income Americans’ incomes have declined and people have been forced to tighten their belts, governments continued to tax more, spend more, regulate more driving up our cost of living, add new functions and employees, and, with rare exceptions, increase wages and benefits.  Government programs, employees and special interests have mostly been spared the severe cuts endured by most private sector employees.

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Only Taxpayers are supposed to Tighten their Belts

by Don

The Republican majority in the Belknap County Convention is fighting County tax increases. These Republicans seem to be the only people in any level of government showing concern for the bill-payers (taxpayers) most of whom are already struggling in today’s poor economy.

In January, President Obama raised working people’s taxes and everyone’s cost of living. Obamacare increased health insurance premiums and includes new taxes. And now we know that Obamacare costs three times what President Obama promised.

Since President Obama was inaugurated, the value of middle class incomes has declined by about $4000 annually. The percentage of people in the workforce is at a 30 year low, jobs are lost every month, and Obama’s regulations and tax policies are so anti-employer that few people are willing to take the risk of hiring more employees. Most middle income people struggle even before new government driven cost of living and tax increases.

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Finally Some School Choice in NH

by Don

New Hampshire parents and children should annually celebrate June 27th.  On that day, the NH Legislature enacted SB 372 which helps the children of low and middle income families attend the schools of their choice rather than being trapped in failing and mediocre public schools.

 

On June 27th 251 Republicans and one Democrat overrode Governor Lynch’s veto of SB 372.  The other Democrat legislators joined Governor Lynch in trying to protect the teacher’s unions and the educational establishment which provides Democrats so much campaign support but which has been increasingly failing the children of New Hampshire and the United States for the last 50 years.

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Why you need to be ready to move to New Hampshire….

by
"The concept of ‘welfare’ has become an open, bottomless vessel into which every desire can be poured."

Is America a “welfare state”? No. It’s a “special interest state.”And James DeLong at the American Enterprise Institute has explained why in THIS ARTICLE. What it boils down to is that the permanent political class has gained permanent power in America, governing on behalf of ubiquitous and multifarious special interests, which increasingly exist solely to loot the public treasury. Worse yet, special interests have no regard to the long-term damages and ultimate destruction that their appetites engender. In short, the iron triangle of the permanent political class, the special interests, and the dependent voters who keep them in office will eventually destroy us. That’s because…

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Stonyfield CEO In Line For Another Pile of Taxpayer Cash?

by Steve MacDonald

>The question should not be if Stonyfield Dairy CEO and prolific Democrat donor Gary Hirshberg gets another pile of taxpayer cash, it should be “how much is he going to get?”  But whatever do I mean?

The University of New Hampshire has just been approved to receive a Department of Agriculture grant totaling $2.86 million dollars to “enhance the year-round capacity of northeast organic dairy producers to produce high quality component-enriched organic milk.”

Hirshberg is almost always on the receiving end of taxpayer funded public largesse.  In August of 2010 he was awarded $100,000.00 by Democrat Governor John Lynch and the State of New Hampshire as part of a job training program. 

Not long after Stonyfield was fingered by Senator Tom Coburn over the matter of a $700,000.00 Federal grant to the University of New Hampshire to study the environmental impact of organic dairy farms on the environment.  Who do you think just happens to have an organic Dairy Farm?  An organic dairy farm run by the Hirshberg’s but majority owned by Dannon /Group Danone, one of the largest food companies on the face of planet earth.

How big is Danone?

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SHORT BUS ECONOMICS

by Rick Olson

“Imagine a political system so radical as to promise to move more of the poorest 20% of the population into the richest 20% than remain in the poorest bracket within the decade? You don’t need to imagine it. It’s called the United States of America.”  —Thomas Sowell The collective voice of “Occupy Wall Street” has … Read more

Jeanne Shaheen: “Porking” Those Tax Increases Down Our Throats

by Rick Olson

  “If Thomas Jefferson thought taxation without representation was bad, he should see how it is with representation …” —Rush Limbaugh

Jeanne_Shaheen_pig_nose.jpg

Today’s Union Leader Editorial, entitled, “Free Cops!” points once again to the ills of  having a big-government Democrat like Jeanne Shaheen serving the Granite State in the U.S. Senate. Like her liberal counterpart, former Congressperson Carol Shea-Porter,  Shaheen brings home the bacon … To wit: a $1.4 million federal grant to pay for six new police officers;  Providing four for Manchester and one each for Pelham and Claremont.

Not a new scheme at all. During the Clinton years we see how well it worked here in the Queen city the last time the Federal Nanny doled out money for cops. And as always, there is an end on the horizon for that funding which only segues the bitter fiscal fight also on the horizon.  Police administrators, Union hacks and those in city government with a shameless fealty for tax and spend policies to keep those positions, will seek to have them funded on the backs of local taxpayers. Epic Fail. This latest grant is a mere redux of the same scheme.

Senator Shaheen is the epitome a big-government liberal. She does not respect local government, nor the people who elected her. This is a clear second example of such in just a few short months where Shaheen advocated for the Feds to contract locally with Planned Parenthood in the wake of the Executive Council’s vote not to fund Planned Parenthood services in the Granite State. Now she gives Manchester government a back-handed slap.  

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Jeanne “Central Planner” Shaheen

by Steve MacDonald

Jeanne Shaheen The Central Planning MachineThe Union Leader has done us a service these past two days by exposing Governor Shaheen for who she is.   In back to back staff editorials we see that her priority is to filter money through the hands of distant bureaucrats rather than find ways to keep it in New Hampshire in the first place.

Her supporters will say, as they did with the earmarking debate, that we need these kinds of representatives "to get our money back from Washington."  But I have always said, would it not be better if we had representatives who just worked harder to keep it here?  Why must it leave in the first place?

It must leave so our former governor can brag on her press page about how she has helped bring money into the state for this or that.  And this or that is always from a list of benefactors and favorites of the political left.  And that is why she cannot leave the money in state where it belongs.

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Starve A Union Save A Teacher

by Steve MacDonald

SEIU Union ThuggeryThe state has no right to come between the union and its workers right?  Well I think I agree, because we now know how that works out.

Wisconsin Teachers no longer have their union dues deducted from their pay checks.  They have to either sign up for automatic payments through their bank or write a check to the union each month.  Given how the anti-Walker protests went, or at least how they were portrayed, this should not have been a problem for the union.  You know, workers unite and all that Jazz?  Well reality is quite a bit different from the media adaption of the Union talking points we saw on television.  The Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC), the state education union, is laying off 40% of its staff in response to dwindling revenue.  But why?  What happened to workers unite?  Where did all the union protesters go?  Home to their own states is my guess.

Given the "choice" to support the Wisconsin education unions activities, many teachers have stopped paying dues and union staff have been laid off as a result.  So Wisconsin’s teachers just gave 42 state union employees their walking papers because they would rather keep the money for themsleves than give it to the WEAC.

The union is blaming Governor Walker and the Republicans but for what?  There’s no law against paying dues and the state is no longer coming between the union and its workers.  Kyle Olson at Big Government brings home the bacon…

If the union has anyone to blame, it has to be its rank-and-file members. Teachers have apparently been slow to provide WEAC with bank account information for direct dues payments, despite the teams of “home visitors” that have been dispatched to pressure members over the summer.

That situation says more about the union than it does about Walker or state government. If teachers really supported their union, they would pay their dues. If they don’t support their union, should they be forced to be members and pay dues?

(…)The suspicion is that WEAC is really nothing more than a small group of radical leaders who have been forcing captive members to finance their agenda for years.

Big protest, and we had one similar in New Hampshire, but what were they really protesting?

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SUPPORT LITERACY

by Rick Olson

“I know a lot of people think I’m dumb. Well, at least I ain’t no educated fool.”  ~Leon Spinks  Literacy is the vital to individual success in our modern world. The ability to read, write, and speak English enables people to get jobs, participate in children’s education, maintain family health, and participate in our society.  … Read more

GSFTC Member Organization Spotlight -NH Citizens Alliance

by Steve MacDonald

There are a number of groups that the Left wing Granite State ‘Fare’ Tax Coalition highlights on it’s web site.  It’s your typical collection of "non-non-partisan" interests like the State Employes Union of NH (That’s the local SEIU 1984). The AFSC-which is the NH Chapter of a global leftist movement supported by all the nicest left wing foundations.  The League of Women Voters of course.  And there is even a who’s-who of left wing, NH social justice churches and their political arms, all promoting socialist activism and statist policy from the pulpit down to on the ground left wing activism.Socialism- Making everyone poor...

All of these groups warrant, and will receive, a proper vetting, but today I would like to focus on a special cog in the leftist machine of the so-called non-partisan GSFTC, one that happens to be very active in New Hampshire on its own; the NHCA.  The NHCA is the New Hampshire Citizens Alliance.  (You may remember their executive director, Sarah Chaisson Warner?  She received some unwanted attention after some remarks she made back in March of 2010. See also Here from the NHTPC.) The New Hampshire citizens alliance is…(drum-roll please)

…a statewide nonprofit, nonpartisan organization devoted to social, economic, and political justice.

A Non-partisan organization devoted to social, economic, and political justice?  Too bad that’s just not possible.  There are no right wing groups seeking these ethereal ends.  These are buzz-words, Orwellian constructs, created by statist agenda-driven socialists to mislead people.  So the NHCA couldn’t be "non-partisan" if they tried. But you don’t have to take my word for it.  Just look at who they associate with and what they support.

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John Lynch Vetoes Are A Political Shell Game

by Rick Olson

shell-game_GROK.jpg

“He is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation…” –Adlai Stevenson

Governor Lynch’s vetoes show him for who he really is: A big government, big spending, social liberal. And not an honest one either. His vetoes of these bills clearly prove that.

Lynch’s veto of HB109 is a slap to working families all across this state. In a time when home values are on a downward spiral and fewer working families can afford to purchase a home, the Governor paves the way for local bureaucrats to impose a costly regulation on working families. “I believe that the decision of whether or not to require fire sprinklers for new or renovated residential development should remain a local one.” This is class warfare by another flair.

How does Lynch assert sensitivity to a working families’ pursuit of purchasing a home by effectively shoving that cost further out of their financial reach? How does Lynch reconcile his class warfare by proxy by putting a regulation in place that clearly and effectively will exclude working families from obtaining a home? His veto effectively and potentially removes some affordable housing from the market. I personally know of several fire chiefs around the state who have been pushing and lobbying for local ordinances requiring sprinkler systems.

Governor Lynch’s veto of HB 218 is demonstrative of the larger mentality that the interests of a few friends should be served so that at some point for rail expansion, the rail authority can pick the pockets of New Hampshire taxpayers. Lynch grossly misrepresents the intent of the bill, implying that its sponsors are anti-rail. Fact is, proponents of rebuilding the rail infrastructure sought to maintain the option of receiving taxpayer funded subsidies and Lynch was more than willing to oblige.

Finally, Lynch’s veto of HB 329, commonly referred to as “Parental Notification,” shows him to be the consummate dishonest politician he truly is.  When he did not support the Granite State’s original parental notification law, he did so under the pretext of its lack of a medical exception.

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The Sweet Stench Of Left Wing Hypocrisy

by Steve MacDonald

The Union Leader wastes no time, exposing Hawkins connection to money she received May 11th from America Votes (out of state left wing donation), which Granite State Progress then used to support the Democrat in the special election she is squawking about, specifically to elect that democrat, in that election.

HOUSE BILL 474: THE “NAY’S” AND THE “NO-SHOWS”

by Rick Olson

RTWDontPayAnyAttentionGROK.jpg

“Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature.” -Samuel Butler

“The absent are never without fault. Nor the present without excuse.”-Michael Caine

HOUSE BILL 474, “An act relative to freedom of choice on whether to join a labor union,” passed out of the house and obtained Senate Concurrence with Amendments. In laymen’s terms, both houses passed the bill.  However, it is important to note that in the House, the bill did not pass with a veto-proof majority. According to the House Bill 474 Roll Call, the Bill passed  225 Yeas and 140 Nays.

How It Breaks down:

DEMOCRATIC

 

  

Yea Vote

 

0

Nay Vote

 

93

Not Voting

 

9
 

 

  

REPUBLICAN

 

  

Yea Vote

 

225

Nay Vote

 

47

Not Voting

 

21

 

 

 

INDEPENDENT

 

 

Yea Vote

 

1

Nay Vote

 

0

Not Voting

 

0

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Protestors of New NH House Budget

by Don

To the Editor: 

Those protesting the new House budget in Concord last week have one thing in common, they want NH taxpayers to open their wallets for their personal benefit.   

Most protesters were public employees demanding no changes to their cushy, secure, low stress, highly compensated (compared to similar private sector) jobs, nor to the corrupt system that maintains their great jobs, benefits, and consequently grows the cost of government .   

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Paul Hodes – Lobbyist?

by Steve MacDonald

The Concord Monitor is reporting that Paul Hodes has started a business consultancy. This will have him back and forth to Washington DC for the purpose of connecting northern New England to Washington DC; a lateral move from his role as congressman when he was trying to sign New Hampshire away to Washington DC.

What Zandra Rice Hawkins Was Really Selling At Her “Fake” Sale

by Steve MacDonald

cupcakeZandra Rice "The Huckster" Hawkins of Granite State Progress (an out of state funded left wing group) staged a bake sale based on words she put in State Rep Jeanine Notter’s mouth.   

Hawkins just decided that because Notter had more faith in individual responsibility and more local control that this guaranteed that people would suffer; that Notter’s solution meant people would need to have a bake sale to raise money to pay for cancer treatments if New Hampshire tried to opt out of the unconstitutional Health Insurance mandate.

I think this says a good deal about Zandra the Huckster’s world view and it’s not all that flattering.

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Four Years All For Naught?

by Steve MacDonald

I have just three thoughts to share for the moment; Carol had four years in a democrat majority congress–which promised to clean up the swamp, two of them with a democrat president, and I do not see any attempt by her party or by Carol herself (she is defined legislatively as a follower not a leader) to address this or anything else outside the big blue box of liberal progressive agenda items.

The Invertebrate Jeanne Shaheen?

by Steve MacDonald

So did Jeanne Shaheen vote for cloture on the Reid’s Frankenstein tax compromise and will she vote to pass it? I ask because it includes Billions for a one year extension of ethanol subsidies that Senator Shaheen just insisted we could not afford.

Carol Soros-Porter 2.0 [Updated]

by Steve MacDonald

Carol's Sugar Daddy?Nothing says banking, special interests, or rich SOB’s like George Soros.  So as you contemplate all the things you have to be thankful for, one of which has to include the defeat of Carol Shea-Porter just a few weeks ago, ask yourself why the guy who has spent hundreds of millions of dollars and fronted dozens of groups, for the sole purpose of destroying America from within, has a family interest in the political fortunes of the soon to be former congresswoman from CD-01?

[updated] Seems there is more Soros support for Carol, call it institutional support, going all the way back to 2007.  Every time we turn around there is another member of the Soros Clan turning up as a donor to our de-throned congressperson.  SO many, in fact, I’ve had to push them to the jump to fit them all.

Updated list on the jump.

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