News – Politics – Opinion – Podcasts
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
Policy debates in New Hampshire are remarkably superficial. For example, an organization called the Tax Foundation recently released its “State Tax Competitive Index”, which scored New Hampshire the third-best State: But should New Hampshire’s tax policy be to achieve as high a rating as possible on the Tax Foundation’s “competitive index”? The Governor, the local Koch … Read more
Steve MacDonald was kind enough to share “RINO-Russ Barry” (a/k/a State Rep Ross Berry) Is Gaslighting You About “Local Control” And Property Taxes on his Granite Grok blog. Thank you, Steve! We noticed that State Rep Dan McGuire didn’t like our posting. We’ll share his criticism below, and then respond. Note that the focus of “RINO-Russ Barry” (a/k/a State Rep … Read more
When you talk to legislators about political reform, whether it’s in the schools or anywhere else, they are often interested in making small changes — largely because those seem to be the only kind anyone thinks can be made. (The technical psychological term for this is learned helplessness.) I’ve been thinking for a while now … Read more
California, New York, and to some degree, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania all have state exit taxes. When you’ve had it up to here, they make sure to get another piece of you before you try to take your economic toys and find a new home. These apply to high-value sales and high earners, and … Read more
Before getting into the meat of my “Part Deux” to my previous article on the Nashua library, let’s give a hat tip to a few people, starting with Grokster Beth Scaer, a well-known local library watchdog. She was the one who brought a new Ink Link article on the library to my attention. Next, there’s … Read more
If you really believe that ‘there is no place in our country for political violence’, then you can’t support taxation. Because taxation — forcing people to give you their money, to spend it on what you want, by threatening them with harm if they don’t give it to you — is perhaps the oldest and … Read more
I know the Senate is in recess and it’s a holiday weekend, but I think I’m barking up the correct tree emailing Senator Gray, who chairs the committee most likely to receive my fantasy bill. He usually replies with a “thank you for your email” within a few hours, sometimes on weekends, and sometimes with … Read more
The financial website Wallet Hub just came out with state rankings for public education, and Vermont came in overall 19th out of the fifty states. Pretty “meh” on the surface. But the overall score was based on components of outcomes and safety, and purely on the outcomes side, Vermont ranks 25th. That’s more like a … Read more
I’ve been accused of being like a dog with a bone, but I’m not going to apologize for obsessing about broad-based taxes, which include the cost of renewing your car’s registration. I wrote about this matter almost a year ago and revisited the topic recently in my article comparing town hall to city hall, but … Read more
The US Navy Submarine Service is also known as “The Silent Service” due to its stealth capabilities of “running silent,” allowing evasion of detection while underway in the world’s oceans. A majority of the Grafton County Commissioners seem to have joined the US Navy Submarine Service by “running silent” on the building of another courthouse. … Read more
No one’s left to defend educational freedom, except for a motley group of independent, unfunded homeschoolers teaching their kids at home. Given that they broke free of centralized control and approvals of their home programs, many have a healthy mistrust of state control over education. Most folks never read, or understood, history. They simply trust … Read more
The so-described education reform law, Act 73, is in effect. Its first order of business, creating a Vermont Redistricting Task Force, is done, and now said Task Force is getting down to its task of drawing up at least three maps of new mega-school districts for the legislature to consider next year, scrapping our current … Read more
I’ve spent a lot of time discussing the Clean Heat Standard and Cap & Invest proposals to meet the mandates of the Global Warming Solutions Act, and have noted often but perhaps too obscurely in passing that even these monumentally expensive and disruptive programs won’t, on their own, do the job. Other programs, each with … Read more
The World Health Organization is being very upfront about a problem it is having. Funding for Sustainable Development Goals is in decline. If someone doesn’t take action, there won’t be enough money to sustain the march toward global socialism. Never fear, they are here to help. In response, the World Health Organization (WHO) is leading … 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
The late Tom Anderson from Pigeon Forge, TN, was a lay preacher, owner of Farm Journal, an Executive Committee member of the John Birch Society, and a one-time Vice Presidential candidate for the American Party. Anyone hearing him speak with moral and humorous wisdom was impressed. He knew more than most of our leaders do … Read more
When Mike Soucy was running for mayor in 2023, he made a few preemptive disclosure statements to friendly audiences to prepare his potential and future supporters for dealing with the Donchess Donkeys and their defenders. One of them had to do with his county commissioner record. The mayor regularly complained (and presumably still complains) that … Read more
To put things in perspective, seven cities in the United States have a greater population than the state of Maine, yet the state legislature is in session, basically working around the clock, to vote on over 1,200 bills for this fiscal year. That is a difficult concept to grasp. For a state of 1.4 million … Read more
Everyone likes to be flattered by being called “great,” especially Donald Trump. Equally as flattering is to have one’s entire country called “great” if not “the greatest,” “exceptional,” or “indispensable.” Or perhaps even “a shining city on a hill,” reminiscent of “The Emerald City” of The Wizard of Oz. In the political world, however, there are … Read more