Taxes

Revenue on Track for $75 Million Shortfall

By Charles M. Arlinghaus

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Not enough money and too many promises sums up the sad state of New Hampshire’s 10-year highway plan, says Transportation Commissioner Charles O’Leary.

One of my long time pet peeves has been the gobs of gas-tax and other tax-funded monies wasted on certain public transportation systems. I certainly support and appreciate public transportation systems in urban areas- where they are cost-effective (for the most part) and heavily used. It is when attempts are made to bring widespread service to rural areas that it becomes a costly, underutilized proposition- which I have a problem with.

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I attended both forums on the Dover Tax Cap initiative. In the first one moderated by Councilor David Scott, he laid out the ground rules and how it was an information gathering event for citizens paneled by: himself, three Dover city employees and four guests from Franklin and Laconia (including two mayors), who had experience of a tax cap in their communities. It was therefore balanced with those from the private sector who pay taxes to government and those from municipal government who increase their ranks and compensation through tax hikes and whose earnings are the result of taxes. Two of the first people to break the ground rules and start the ball rolling toward mild anarchy were the tax and spend liberals Betsey Andrews Parker and Mr. Glenn Grasso himself, who felt that they should grandstand rather than ask questions. And no cap opponents asked a question of the Dover staff. The audience was packed with Dover city union employees, some of whom also threw their rhetorical weight around with great melodrama, and warnings of doom, generating far more heat than light.

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The second, calmer forum, run by unlimited spending advocate Mayor Scott Myers had six panelists all from state agencies and local government; people whose compensation increases and whose jobs are more secure when taxes go up not down. This is objectivity he says, not stacking the deck to achieve a desired outcome. There were no private sector representatives and no one who’d personally experienced first-hand a tax cap…how helpful.  He then coached the panelists how to respond when he felt the need.

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On the same day that Foster’s ran its editorial against the tax cap, the Union Leader editorialized in favor of it. On Thursday, Foster’s editor publishes an unhinged, "infuriated" diatribe playing the class warfare demagogue’s card, then denying it in the next paragraph…truly embarrassing.  As if renters don’t pay increased rent when landlords’ property taxes go up. Foster’s editor must really believe all its readers are dupes.

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Doug,
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I thought I’d share with you a column I’ve submitted to the Foster’s Daily Democrat regarding the proposed tax cap in Dover.  I know you’ll never agree with me, but at least you can see where I’m coming from.

Opposing the Tax Cap Proposal in Dover, NH

by Ron Tunning

No one enjoys paying higher taxes, and it’s safe to say that everyone would prefer a lower tax bill. That is why ideas such as the tax cap being proposed in Dover garner immediate public support. But if voters are honest with themselves they’ll oppose the measure.

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Let’s be frank. We all know “there’s no such thing as a free lunch“, and experience has taught us that “you get what you pay for.” Those maxims should guide us as we evaluate the sensibility of imposing a tax cap.

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So, too, should careful consideration of the methodology proposed for determining how much municipal spending will be permitted to rise. The Dover plan mirrors the language adopted in Franklin and Laconia, limiting the annual increase in spending to the annual rise in the U.S. Department of Labor’s Consumer Price Index (CPI). After all, proponents of the tax cap argue, why should the cost of government rise more rapidly than the costs of consumer goods?

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