Articles tagged as

Taxes

A Silber In The Minds Eye

So in the face of this economic catastrophe, which the democrats happily sold as a disaster not unlike a Biblical plague, what did NH Democrats do? They decided that despite that we were going to take in 23% more revenue than we did when times were “good” and went on a grow government spending spree. You could call that a revenue problem, but I think it is really more of a democrats are selfish, ideological, tax and spend A-holes problem.

AMT – a stealth tax riser

The AMT was first put into place, the intent was to prevent high net worth individuals from paying no income tax – a special case of 155 people.  Today, far different problem: 4.5 million. Fortunately for me, I am not at that level of income, nor am I in one of the states that seems … Read more

Roll Call-palooza – Another Democrat Taxpayer Swindle

New Hampshire Democrats, who benefit from taxpayer money laundered through public employee union dues into their campaign, are spending taxpayer dollars in the legislature to make sure they have sound bites and talking points to give to their union buddies to ensure the Aztec gold continues to flow moving forward.

The End Of The “We Pay Taxes Too” Argument?

The only way it could ever be equal, is if we all paid the same taxes, and taxpayers paid nothing extra for benefits and retirement; you would have to fund pay all of your share of both at the same rates as the average private citizen.

How About Some Cheese With Your Hamm?

Tax TrapIf the democrats in New Hampshire want anyone to take them seriously on why we should not lower the cigarette tax, they had best find a better spokesperson than House rep. Christine Hamm from the Peoples Republic of Hopkinton.(PRH)

From this mornings union leader..

Rep. Christine Hamm, D-Hopkinton, argued against the change. She said no state has seen tobacco tax revenue increase after a tax cut.

“This is yet another expensive exercise in futility,” she said. When it comes to tobacco, she said, “Every tax hike produces new revenue, and every tax cut reduces it.”

Oregon tried a 10-cent cut, and saw revenues fall by 10 percent, she said.

“To do the same thing would be fiscally stupid,” Hamm said

You know what else is stupid?  Listening to Christine Hamm.  Oh, and comparing Oregon to New Hampshire?  There are almost no demographic similarities, the most important of which is the sheer size of Oregon and the proximity of neighboring states which are also huge.

No one is driving across Washington State, or up from California, or Idaho, or anywhere else to buy cigarettes in Oregon.  Only Washington State taxes them more (the last I checked.) No incentive, no gain.

But here in New England, where people can buy almost everything cheaper in New Hampshire, the classic New England maxim does not apply–"you can get there from her," or here from there, and they do.  People shop here from other states to save money.  So reducing taxes on cigarettes (or anything else) gives them one more incentive to make the trip or to buy more while they are here.

Need proof?

Raising the tax already cost us revenue.  Last August Maine announced that it’s sales had increased 20%.  That is most likely money that used to get spent here but which the tax hike diverted back to Maine. (I wrote about it here)

And more Proof?

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Granite State Fair Tax Spins And Spins And Spins

Mark Fernald is pimping for the misleadingly named Granite State Fair Tax Coalition (GSFTC).  This is a group of tax and spend liberals (their fellow travelers and useful idiots) who are trying get an income tax. 

To sell you on this Utopian elixir of piss, GSFTC argues that New Hampshire’s property taxes favor the rich, and most recently have sent out a pile of nonsense with some misleading graphs, through Fernald’s email list to make the sale.  But as usual it is spun upside down and backwards and ignores one very unassailable fact.  New Hampshire has one of the lowest overall tax burdens in the nation because it relies on property taxes.  And the rich are not paying less for their share of State government.

TaxesGovernment is a necessary (preferably limited) evil, laid out like a salad bar.  There are all kinds of services your tax dollars pay for.  Some of them are for “just in case kinds of things” like public safety.  Then there are roads and schools and clerks and so on.  And then there are unemployment, welfare, heating aid, and a host of social support services, and the cost of the bureaucracy itself. 

By law these services are made available to everyone equally based on need so the folks most likely to consume government services are lower income residents.  Statistically, the less you earn, the more of the salad bar you are likely to need or eat from and the more trips you are likley to make in a given year.   But no matter what you earn, or where you live, or how well you live, you still only get one plate–and you pay for that plate in the form of taxes.  

The GSFTC would like you to believe that the rich are paying less for that plate.  To perpetrate this deception they use "taxes paid as a percentage of income" to make their case.   Their argument is that the rich only pay about 2% of their income as taxes while the poorer folks pay over 8% (Roughly), and that this is unfair.   But is that really the case?  Are the rich paying less money for a trip to the New and Improved State Government Salad Bar or is GSFTC just playing class warfare games?

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It’s The Christian Thing To Do.

Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson’s remarks, as expressed in a Sunday Union Leader staff editorial, suggest that it is immoral to reduce what the government spends on health and social programs.

As quoted, "When sacrifice is perpetrated on the vulnerable and weak by the strong and prosperous, it is social abuse."

He goes on to include the poor, the disabled, the blind, the unemployed, the impoverished elderly, the uninsured and children living in poverty.

His point (one of them at least) is that by reducing government’s fiscal contribution to bureaucracies established to manage such things, that governor John Lynch and the New Hampshire legislature are considering immoral choices to balance the state budget.

So where do I begin?

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What Changed For State Workers In Wisconsin?

If we ignore the change in national perception based on weeks of evidence that public union employees (and democrats) are selfish, angry, violent, children what actually changed when the Wisconsin legislature and Governor Walker succeeded in passing changes to collective bargaining?

Common cause – Granite State Fair Tax Coalition with NEA and SEIU. Birds of a feather?

And when I talk about the Granite State Fair Tax Coalition (not to be confused with the Americans for Fair Taxation, commonly known as The FairTax, a group that wishes to get rid of the Federal income tax and the IRS and substitute a consumption / sales tax with a "prebate" in its stead).  In fact, all protestations aside, the GSFTC does nothing BUT complain that NH’s property taxes are too high and its members / spokespeople are more than happy to give comparisons of NH’s ranking of property tax to other States (where NH ranks as one of the most highest).  They are more than happy to point out that because "the rich" refuse to "buy big" with respect to property, their tribute to the State is less than what they would want from them on combined bended knees.

What they REFUSE to do, however, is to discuss OVERALL taxation rates and NH’s rankings with respect to a citizen’s TOTAL level of taxation – the lack of a sales tax, an income tax, and a whole host of other taxes that other States have – and NH ranks VERY well on the LOW taxation scale. 

GSFTC won’t and can’t – as their secondary position also is clear; it is obvious that they believe that NH State Government is starved for income streams so as to be able to grow government and spend more.  The reliance on property taxes at the local level prevents the State from having more.  To me, that’s a feature and not a bug!

Now, up to now, it has been groups that I could consider to be genuinely concerned about the poor (even though they have tendencies that favor redistribution of other peoples’ money).  However, they have now made common cause with:

  • SEIU (state employee union)
  • The NEA – the Teachers’ Union

as can be seen by this screen shot of the GSFTC page at the time of this posting:

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The Real Reason For Raising The Drop Out Age To 18?

I can tell you from long discussions about the various pathways to “graduation” that the goal is more geared toward getting kids through school on paper to make the numbers look good. Any reasonable path to that end is considered a win, but by any traditional standard it is anything but a public school success story.

The Cost of Defining “Adequate” In Merrimack NH

AppleA funny thing happened on the way to the ‘off-hand comment’ on the Merrimack TEA facebook page.  I was accused of not using "real and accurate data" and that my "rhetoric was not doing anyone any good."

Nothing surprising there I suppose but to stay on point–what was it I said that earned me such a response?

I announced that if you took the total Merrimack School budget and divided it by the total student enrollment that it cost more than  sending your kid to UNH.  This appears to have riled some people up.  In fact someone sent me a nice itemized list of the "costs" of sending your kid to UNH for a year just to prove I was wrong, and to justify how Merrimack’s cost per child wasn’t as much.

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Two Congressmen And A Free Throw

HR 1 The US House just finished it’s work on HR1, cleaning up after democrats who in 2010 abrogated yet another  obligation when they found themselves incapable of writing the budget they really wanted right before an election.

The liberal-progressives wanted more spending but that was not politically advantageous.  And since the single driving-force behind all Democrat decisions is politics the budget got relegated to the back of the bus, where the electorate’s short attention spans were meant to forget that democrats were never fiscally conscious representatives–they just tried to play them on the campaign trail. 

But avoiding the high profile budget battle was more evidence that they had something to hide. The Democrat House majority was appropriately sedated and placed under observation, while the Senate saw minor adjustments but no change in leadership.  So the process of changing our spending ways would still have to go through a Democrat controlled Senate and across the desk of a President who thinks the words "spending cuts" are just a rhetorical flourish used to provide cover for more spending.

Obama’s budget is proof enough of that.

But Obama only proposes a budget.  The House is in charge of spending.  So the new Republican congress went to the back seat of the Hopey-changey bus and picked up the budget obligations abandoned by the 111th congress.  This wwas a free shot at changing the fiscal direction of the country before writing their own first official budget, which was not due until later in 2011.  It was a gimme, a free throw, but one that had to survive the democrat Senate and the Spender in Chief.

So how did it turn out?

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The Economic Power Of New Hampshire

I’m a strong supporter of Vermont’s sovereign right to hold the line on taxes, and for them to try because of New Hampshire–well, it doesn’t get much better than that. It is as if we are projecting economic power throughout the region.

Random thoughts – WI, unions, and taxes; another take

The teachers and all of the other union members in WI are demonstrating against what they see as an assault on their take home pay (never taking into account that their demands will result in lower take home pay for taxpayers).  However, let me ask this against the backdrop of what the union bosses see … Read more

Merrimack Starts A TEA Party

Former Merrimack Town councilor Mike Malzone has decided he has had enough. What tipped him over the edge? An 11 pm town meeting decision to implement pay as you throw after just about everyone had gone home.

Smoke Em After You Buy Em…In New Hampshire

Right off the bat, thanks to Matt at Red Hampshire for reminding me about Ken Wyler’s bill to cut the cigarette tax by $0.10 cents per pack.  (HB 156) I’ve been queuing up a post on this having written about it often and what better time than now to unload it.

First the basics.  Wyler thinks cutting the tax by a buck a carton will actually increase revenue by attracting more out of state traffic.  Ken is correct.  A larger cut would be better, but I guess we can crawl before we walk.  And with that in mind, lets review why it will raise more revenue.  And I’m not even going to have to go back very far for a decent flashback.

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A Democrat’s Idea Of Tough Choices

Obama’s budget is out. It raises tax revenues by adding more taxes. It is reported that the deficit will increase by as much as 7 trillion dollars as a result. (That’s $7,000,000,000,000.00). It defends all the abusive spending of the past two budgets by ignoring the trillions in new spending and debt. It will set records for a third and forth consecutive trillion plus budget with record setting deficits.

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