What Property Rights?

The necessity of law to protect property has… under democrat governance, reversed itself into using law to confiscate property. Under this kind of leadership any sum could find itself subject to the will of the “crown” to erase debts incurred as a result of being too “liberal” with the peoples purse.

Why Property Taxes?

I have argued at great length on why relying primarily on local property taxes are the best mechanism for keeping government small.  But no matter how often I bring it up someone always tries to make the point that it’s not fair.  Why should the people who actually own the physical land in the state … Read more

It’s A Trap

  The idea of the variable rooms and meals tax for towns is a trap set by the democrat majority legislature.  I mentioned it here but let me reiterate how it works for those who may not have noticed or guessed for themselves. Democrat run State government, in its quest for a broad based tax, spends … Read more

Seth Marshall Discovers Property Taxes

  Hat tip out of the gate to fellow NHI front pager Richard Olsen Jr. for this fine bit or wordsmithing on Nashua Rep Seth Marshall’s brief letter to the Nashua Telegraph about a pamphlet on the burden of property taxes.  Mr. Marshall (it appears) feels blessed as if the contents of this pamphlet revealed the answer … Read more

Wheel Of Misfortune

I’ve got mixed emotions about the variable rooms and meals tax (R&M).  On one hand it is the microcosm of federalism.  Every town would be the master of its own demise.  Durham would be like New York State, Keene might be like Michigan.  On the other, starting at 9% is way too high to begin … Read more

Shat Bill (SB) 450

SB 450, the omnibus, mix and match, fix and patch, how do we cover all that unnecessary spending democrats had to have, budgetpalooza bill, is up for a vote today.  But it poses an intentional problem for Republicans.  It would repeal the LLC tax, but while adding another boat load of taxes, fees, and if … Read more

Give It Back

From this morning’s Union Leader; the Legislature is looking at an insurance premium tax change.  Apparently someone was granted decreases in exchange for a promise of creating more jobs.  Jobs were not created to their satisfaction so the elected officials see no reason to continue to support the reduced taxation.   Neal Kurk (R-Weare) was quoted … Read more

No Gambling

In the smoldering ruin of SB 489–this years gambling bill, even after a massive campaign by Millennium gaming and its big-money FixItNow NH campaign quarter-backed by their Public relations goo-roo Richard Killion, (whom I suspect is this guy), we get comments like this, from this morning’s Union Leader.

“What’s clear is that today’s vote runs contrary to the will of the people, who, overwhelmingly support expanded gaming and see it as the only acceptable new revenue option,” he said. “The people do not want higher taxes.”

The people do not want higher taxes.  But nothing else he says makes any sense unless he means the will of "the minority of" people who overwhelmingly support expanded gaming, and see it as the only acceptable option."  Isn’t language fun?

Richard really should have been around New England long enough to know that the one thing you can count on in New Hampshire is for voters to contact their state reps and let them know how they feel about an issue.  So from square one this statement is at the very least disingenuous.  Before we even get to square two we know that that is exactly what the people did, and the product of that opinion (how the House voted) is clearly represented in the roll call.  Consider the following.

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Light A Candle

Here in New Hampshire we’ve been at what Erik Erikson at Red State calls Tea Party 2.0 since day one.  Not a week goes by when the message from any one of the dozens of groups around the state who support the anti-tax rallies that define the Tea Party Movement is to get involved.  Learn … Read more

The New Hampshire Desperation Party

In an April 10th press release the NHDP bases its budget management prowess on the fact that Norm Major said, "I don’t see any exaggeration in the revenues at this point in time."  Of course they leave out the part where he mentions that…(quoting from the same Union Leader Article) But when he looks two … Read more

VAT’s All Folks!

The solution to irresponsible spending is always irresponsible taxation.  They go together like Peanut butter and Jelly, Root beer and Ice, like rama lama lama ke ding a de dinga a dong.  And to get them the liberals in New Hampshire do the same thing as the liberals in Washington.  They expand every department—in the … Read more

Starving Leeches

In every argument convenient to their agenda, liberals like to whine about ‘sustainable resources.’  They pride themselves on their promise to manage resources for the future.  They brag about their compassion for the environment.  But liberals are the worst resource managers the world has ever seen because they ignore the single most important resource of all, wealth.   Wealth is the resource.  It comes from managing people, equipment and materials to provide something people want or need.  But for Paul Hodes and liberals in general, the goal is to take wealth other people have created and spend it on what Paul Hodes wants people to need, independent of any other reality than the one he and the liberals have imagined. 

In the real world the marketplace is forever finding new ways to create wealth which it then uses to hire more people, buy more equipment, and purchase more materials, to fulfill real world needs.  Those in the free market that fail to manage effectively are consumed by those that do, and the circle of wealth continues, absorbing the people, equipment, products and ideas that work, and discarding those that do not.

Willing participation is a critical part of this process.  It is rewarded based on things like determination, critical thinking, intellectual agility, personal integrity and hard work.  Any American with these traits, regardless of where they started, or where they were educated, can live reasonably well almost anywhere–in any field.   

But Paul Hodes thinks that participation and decision making are best left to ‘experts’ in far away places.  He believes that what happens to you is not your fault; it is merely a product of an unequal society that prevented the government experts from doing for you what they deem you incapable of doing for yourself.  So success and personal behavior are not related.  Failure is rewarded whether it is your own, or foisted upon you by your government.  And the reward is making you more reliant on government, enshrining the failure model in exchange for your vote.  And the only solution to dealing with any failure—be it yours or theirs–is to add more government which you must pay for if you are able

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Deficit Deceit

Liberalisms, like “this won’t increase the deficit,” or “this will reduce the deficit,” or “John Lynch will never leave a deficit” are misleading regurgitations whose success as a political tool rely entirely on the electorates inability to ask the follow-up question.  How?    Here’s an example.  John Lynch has 100 apples to use.  The left wing … Read more

Carol Shea Porter’s Ignorance & Arrogance Tour

Ms. Carol, central-planning-government-first-teabgger-we-dont-need-to-vote-on-that-to-deem-it-passed-Shea-Porter (D-Utopia) is doing town halls over the Easter recess in which (I suspect) she will try explaining how good insurance reform will be for us.  If she gets the chance.  Most of the people who will come out to meet her, other than the assigned Liberal Pride groupies, union hacks, and women’s studies laureates, know more about the legislation than she.  And with any luck, a few of them will honor the Shea-Porter of old and get uppity and verbally disruptive so we can all write more blogs calling her a hypocrite when she gets them thrown out.

While I commend her for doing the tour, had insurance reform not passed we can bet she’d be in hiding, but in either case Carol still has plenty to answer for.

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J.U. Hey!

The JUA money grab is back in the news.  A group is blasting Kelly Ayotte and John Lynch for trying to balance the budget with 110 million from a fund created by the state but filled with money from the pockets of doctors who were forced by law to contribute to it.  The thinking goes … Read more

The Tent Tax Party

What do you get when you mix 124 Donkeys and one RINO?  A list of NH House reps on the wrong side of a bill to repeal another stupid tax.

The House voted to ax the tent tax (HB 1445) and repeal the 9% ‘rooms and meals’ tax for people who go to a campsite and provide their own room and their own meal.  The bill still needs to pass the state Senate, which has a similar bill all its own, and then get past fence-sitter Lynch, whose position we can never know from day to day, not that we can rely on what he says as an indication of how he’ll act once an actual bill is on his desk, but it’s got momentum, even if some of it represented by legislators who are afraid to touch it.

HB1445 did still have its supporters.  Margie Smith tried to table it, but they lost 153 to 171.  The tax and spenders then tried to ITL it but failed 145 to 181.  Then, when Sherm Packard managed to get an OTP roll call vote to pass the repeal, it succeeded  202 to 125.

68 House reps did not vote on this bill. A list for another time, perhaps.

But 124 democrats and 1 Republican (Rock 5  Kenneth Gould) tried to keep the tax alive and were more than happy to do it for the record.  So here’s the record on the jump

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A.D.D.D

There’s this liberal talking point, it’s spin actually, that anyone who does not disown Jim Bunning is an obstructionist. It is founded on the premise that the Senator was against extending unemployment benefits.

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By The Pricking Of My Thumbs…

The bipartisan surge against the democrats ill-gained, late night, last minute LLC tax smells faintly of rotting eggs.  But I fear there is another secret formula brewing in darkened democrat controlled chambers where Norelli,  Almy, and (insert name of third witch here) are brewing up bigger trouble.  Charlie Arlinghaus, in his column in this mornings … Read more

Taxaholics

It takes commitment to vote for a new tax, even one whose cover story was as unlikely to have any affect as HB 1679.  But there are those who like to tax and those who love it, and the supporters of the ‘Soft Drink Tax’ drew a line in the High Fructose Corn Syrup and stood their ground.

Lucky for us the majority of House members saw this for what it was–inexpedient to legislate–and killed it.  But those in opposition to the ITL offer us yet another opportunity to see who is either not paying enough attention (see here for my broad coverage of this bill back in January) or want so desperately to tax us that they simply do not care how or why they do it.

I’d be inclined to choose all of the above, but that’s not entirely fair.  These legislators may be in complete control of their faculties and therefore committed to growing government regardless of your ability to pay for it.  So they are not only paying attention, they are looking for opportunities to deprive you of your income regardless of what circumstances are required to convince you that their crisis de jour can be saved if only you will give them more of your hard earned dollars.

But enough rhetorical effluvium.  Here they are.  Your Taxaholics. (All democrats, by the way)  On the jump.

Reminder: A Nay vote on an ITL out of committee is a vote in favor of the legislation.

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Low Hanging Fruit

Low hanging fruitLast week the New Hampshire House voted against a bill to let taxpayers adopt charter provisions establishing limitations on the growth of budgets and taxes.  The actual short text reads as follows:

This bill authorizes cities and towns to adopt charter provisions establishing limitations on the growth of budgets and taxes.

For those not familiar with New Hampshire, residents can already adopt provisions to limit growth and taxes, but the teacher’s unions and the pro-government folks don’t like it.  So they do everything in their power to make it as difficult as they can.  They gum up the petition process.  They try to intimidate people, mess with them about the procedure or the number of good signatures, or anything else they can think of.  All this just to keep the thing from getting (what does Obama call it?) and up or down vote, in this case from the people (see also-taxpayers) who live in that particular town.

They can’t even trust the people to let them vote on it. 

If that doesn’t work, the town selectman, councilors, alderman, will try to keep it off the ballot or schedule it when it has the best possible chance of failing.  If that doesn’t work a well funded national union pr some faux-local non-profit NGO pretending to be a taxpayer advocacy group (as in they advocate taxpayers paying more taxes but won’t admit as much), files a lawsuit that no average bunch of citizens could hope to fight.  It’s all very burdensome.

So much so that at the end of the day the mere weight of the process scares most people from even trying which is exactly the message the tax and spenders want to send.  So its a form of intimidation to keep people from trying to limit the size and scope of government at its lowest level.

Such is the nature of man versus the machine.  Town politics are not any different from national.

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