News – Politics – Opinion – Podcasts
Nashua residents should be paying close attention as the city heads toward what could become an 8% property‑tax increase in 2027. Despite public assurances from Mayor Donchess that departments were instructed to hold budget growth to 3%, many divisions have submitted increases far beyond that limit, and the Board of Aldermen appears content to approve … Read more
After attending the online Zoom Grafton County Commissioners’ Meetings every Tuesday morning for the last year and a half, I have come to learn much about County goings-on. In turn, I feel I must alert Grafton County residents and taxpayers of important upcoming monetary decisions. And you thought Paul Revere died in Boston on May 10, 1818?! … Read more
The Vermont Senate Republicans dropped a post earlier this week outlining just how out of control state spending is and has been for a long time. Though they cite a figure for FY27 spending of $9.1 billion (projected) and a 1.6 percent year-over-year increase, where I see a $9.34 billion number coming out of the … Read more
New Hampshire public school enrollment continues to decline at a faster rate than teacher employment, a Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy analysis of state data shows. Over the last 15 years, public schools in New Hampshire lost students at nearly three times the rate at which they lost teachers. From the 2011-2012 school year … Read more
Today, on the morning update, Democrats who couldn’t spend enough of your unborn great-grandchildren’s money (already spent everyone else’s) are pretending to care about that now, ‘cuz the Midterms. They’re lying, but it’s hard to help people put all that spending into perspective. Watch on the ‘Grok Rumble Channel if the embedded video does not … Read more
Stop Giving It More Money! As Vermonters gear up for Town Meeting Day and prepare to vote on the local school budgets that will determine our statewide property tax bill, please consider that the post-Act 60 public school system we have created is destroying our state. It has become a money-sucking vortex of incompetence eating … Read more
We’ve Spent Billions. Where Are the Academic Returns for New Hampshire Students? Over the past two decades, New Hampshire’s public school system has seen a dramatic shift in both spending and instructional practice. Taxpayers now invest more than ever in K-12 education, yet the academic outcomes that matter most — foundational reading and math skills … Read more
As the legislature returned to Montpelier for the 2026 session, Representative Gina Galfetti (R-Barre) announced her proposal for a bill that would freeze property tax rates for the next three years. We like this! It is a necessary response to the 14 percent statewide increase in 2024 – an insane 40 percent increase over the … Read more
A few weeks back, I had the privilege of co-hosting Granite State Live. GraniteGrok has had a close relationship with the program since its inception, but this was the first time I had the opportunity to co-host. Not for lack of invites, mind you, but logistics and time on my side. Our second guest was … Read more
God bless our library watchdogs, like Beth Scaer, Cindy Bennett, and Arlene Quaratiello, just to name a few who have written multiple Grok pieces on libraries. I’ve tagged them in quite a few of my own library articles, but a hat tip to Beth for bringing a near future public comment opportunity to my attention. … Read more
Democratic rule under Governor Janet Mills has exchanged a surplus in Augusta for a huge fiscal deficit. In just the last six years, the Democrats have increased the budget 65% from $7 billion to more than $11.5+ billion. Remember, only about 1.4 million people are living in Maine. The current budget amounts to a tax … Read more
We have a “spending problem” at the Grafton County Complex, and transparency and open government have been non-existent since April 22, 2025, when Chairwoman Martha McLeod curtailed the viewing of Grafton County Commissioners’ meetings online. Is this why? A burdensome 9.41% tax increase of the Grafton County Budget (Fiscal Year…July 1, 2025 – June 30, 2026) is … Read more
In 2024, when Vermont property taxpayers were whacked with an average 14 percent year over year increase, with some communities seeing nearly 40 percent increases, nobody (or at least not enough) in the legislature asked if citizens could afford this. They just shrugged their shoulders and stuck us with the bill. Same as every year … Read more
I recently re-watched the brilliant film Interstate 60. If you haven’t seen it, put it on your to-watch list. One of the characters, Bob Cody (played by Chris Cooper), is a former advertising man who got sick of lying all the time, and decided to spend the rest of his life promoting truth. Or more … Read more
Ronald Reagan once quipped that government is like a baby, an endless appetite on one end, and no discipline on the other. No place lives up to – or down to as the case may be — that analogy more so than Vermont. In case you missed it amongst all the hubbub and controversy surrounding … Read more
Last week, Moody’s Ratings lowered the United States credit rating. Fitch Ratings and S&P Global Ratings had already lowered the US rating. This new downgrade was driven by Congress’s failure to make any efforts to reduce the almost 37 trillion dollars national debt. When Moody’s made its announcement, the House Budget Committee was scrambling to … Read more
Let’s start by taking a look at this video of last night’s Finance committee meeting in Nashua, skipping to 1h18min where the mayor stokes discord and vitriol in the chamber against the federal government for cutting some of its funding to the PD and FD, particularly special equipment that also benefits communities outside Nashua. There … Read more
In late January, the Trump administration issued a series of executive orders that paused Treasury payments to a variety of federal contractors and grantees. These orders also often cancelled contracts with NGOS and other contractors altogether. Soon afterward, we began to see countless media stories about job losses at private NGOs and for-profit federal contractors. … Read more
What do the impending, across-the-board Trump administration and Congressional cuts to federal education, energy, and human services mean to Vermont? Ask this question to legislators and advocates in the State House and the response is like a Greek chorus chanting, ‘We don’t know, we don’t know, we don’t know.’ (Whether the play is a comedy … Read more
The Department of Governmental Efficiency (D.O.G.E.) reminds me of an old song titled “Who Let the Dogs Out”. The miracle of Google allowed me to review the lyrics! While President Trump and Elon probably would not approve of the lyrics, ironically, the title foreshadows the amazing accomplishments that D.O.G.E. has brought to the USA. The … Read more