Articles tagged as

Taxes

Wasting money on public transit in the “sticks”

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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In this earlier posting (on our sister-blog) on the latest attempt to launch public transportation here in the Lakes Region of NH- certainly not a densly populated urban area- I wrote
They’re Baaaaack! That’s right- the area, relatively unchanged since the last public transit authority went belly-up due to lack of money and interest, now finds itself with a new public transportation company- (a jobs program for well-connected bus drivers?) but already saddled with the same problems that plagued its predecessor: money- or the lack thereof.
With rider fares around a few bucks or so, the bulk of the money needed to run a bus transportation company through the mountains and back roads of central NH comes from someone else: you and me.

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Study: Shift Away From Broad-based Tax Increases

The state of New Hampshire has thus far resisted the siren’s call to broad-based taxes. Proposals to enact an income tax or a sales tax have spelled doom for many a gubernatorial candidate through the years. While our state still spends much more than it should, a degree of caution is generally exercised when approaching budgets. Because we … Read more

Something’s got to be done

Brent over at Weekend Pundit has a quick discussion about tax reform, citing Ed Feulner over at TownHall.  The money quote from Brent:

I like the story of one of NH’s senators Judd Gregg, who has special training beyond law school in tax law. Yet he can’t even do his own taxes, it’s just too complex

The original purpose of a tax is to  raise money for a given level of government.  With all of the additions and changes (with very few deletions) over the years, they are both right -> this is nothing more than a hodgepodge of rules to favor a given entity over another.  In short, it is the easiest and fastest way to manipulate the public into certain behaviors and to be used by companies against each other (or industries for that matter).  At the same time, it has provided braces and college educations to the offspring of those that benefit the most – tax accountants, lawyers, and lobbyists.

For the rest of us, it is either having to employ our own accountants and lawyers, sweating and uttering choice words before, on, and shortly after April 15th.  And given the rising cut of government taxes, perhaps fewer braces and lesser college education than if we were able to keep more of our hard earned money.

Here’s what should be done:

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How often does this happen in YOUR town?

Foster’s Online reports on the use of taxpayer funds to promote voting one way or another. One such case has reached the NH Supreme Court. Attorney Charles Douglas, who represented the organization in court, said taxpayers should not be funding government-produced newsletters urging support for a particular viewpoint. He said the town spent $1,300 to … Read more

NH’s “Governor Do-Nothing”

For the past year and a half, it has been an inside joke between me and my wife: whenever New Hampshire’s Democrat governor John Lynch appears on TV, we each do our best Howdy-Doody imitations, wildly waving to some imaginary crowd with the dumbest, blankest looks we can muster, complete with exaggerated smile. Of course … Read more

CCAGW 2005 Congressional Ratings

Press Release
Washington, D.C. – The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today released its 2005 Congressional Ratings.  For 17 years, CCAGW has examined roll-call votes to separate the taxpayer advocates in Congress from those who favor wasteful programs and pork-barrel spending. 
The 2005 Congressional Ratings cover the voting year 2005, or the first session of the 109th Congress.  CCAGW rated 34 key votes in the House and 24 key votes in the Senate.  Votes included a budget reconciliation bill that will save a $39.7 billion over five years in mandatory programs, a tax reconciliation bill that would protect the tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003, reforms in class action lawsuits, the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), and affirming the Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) recommendations. 
The entire House had an average of 45 percent a six point increase over 2004.   House Republicans averaged 73 percent; House Democrats averaged 13 percent.  The entire Senate had an average of 46 percent also a six point increase over 2004.  Senate Republicans averaged 68 percent; Senate Democrats averaged 18 percent. 
There were two Taxpayer Super Heroes with a score of 100 percent:  Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) in the Senate and Ed Royce (R-Calif.) in the House.  Taxpayer Heroes are members who scored between 80 and 99 percent.  The total number of Heroes and Super Heroes in the House dropped from 59 in 2004 to 52 in 2005.  The number of Heroes and Super Heroes in the Senate remained the same at 10. 
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“Talk is cheap,” CCAGW President Tom Schatz said.  “The voting record is the best way to measure a member’s commitment to fiscal discipline.  Unlike the Taxpayer Super Heroes and Heroes, too many members of Congress demonstrate little regard for the harmfull effects of a large and cumbersome federal government.”
CCAGW’s website features the complete 2005 Congressional Ratings, including vote descriptions, scorecards for the House and Senate, personalized scorecards for each member of Congress, historical comparisons, and averages by chamber, party, and state delegation.  Visit www.cagw.org 
The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, the nation’s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.

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I thought I was working for my family….

From the American Spectator: Americans finally have stopped working for government. Many people are familiar with "Tax Freedom Day" — April 26th this year — when they effectively finish paying their taxes. But with government running huge deficits and imposing massive regulatory requirements, we all spend a lot more time working for government. Cost of … Read more

City & Town. Voters & Tax Caps.

Besides public employee salary and benefit costs, nothing impacts local property taxes more than big construction projects like new $chools, mammoth libraries, and police $tation megaplexes. Throughout the state, and indeed the entire country, we see massive projects proposed or under way. Why not? The economy is good right now. People seemingly have enough money to continue paying the ever-rising cost of funding their government. Or do they? How often do we hear the liberal Democrats and their comrades in the news media tell us that the “Bush economy” only benefits the rich and leaves “the little guy” losing ground as their costs grow faster than paycheck raises? Perhaps one reason there may be a grain of truth to that notion is that the fiscal backsliding is being caused in large part by people’s ever-growing tax burden.
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Can it be that ordinary folks are beginning to understand that their local governments have a spending problem that finds tax bills digging deeper into their weekly paychecks? Let’s look at the “tale of two cities” if you will- Laconia and Gilford (actually, a town). Both locales have recently passed initiatives aimed at either directly, or indirectly, slowing the pace of government growth. In both, “It [is] the best of times, it [is] the worst of times.”

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Thought You Had a Tax Cap? Think Again…

MORE LOCAL (central NH) NEWS- KEEP READING- IT’S PROBABLY HAPPENING WHERE YOU LIVE TOO…(*followup to this prior posting on the Laconia tax cap issue*) …Now that the Laconia “Broken Arrow” City Council is proceeding with preparations for a tax-cap breaking, new middle $chool building construction bond issuance, the options left for the already over-burdened taxpayers are few. Back in April and then in May, the Broken Arrows led by Mayor Matt Lahey started the ball rolling with the approval of “supplemental appropriations” to pay for engineering and associated costs of the multi- million dollar project. While those actions were apparently not in violation of November’s voter- approved tax cap by the letter of the law (according to the AG’s office, the tax cap applies only to NEXT year’s budget) requiring an actual vote to specifically “override,” they certainly went against the spirit. I’ll bet money that those voting for the cap expected a cap- now.
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Moving forward with the spending commitment on a new middle school pitching the premise that new construction is cheaper than renovation, the Broken Arrow Council seems to have paid little heed to the City Manager’s forecast of future necessary tax cap- busting budgets even with NO new school being built. What will the hapless Laconia taxpayers do? The voters passed a tax cap and then elected big spending candidates who actively campaigned on an anti-tax cap platform with a promise of business as usual. With the manager’s dire predictions regarding upcoming budgets, the situation demands a radical alteration of how the city is conducting its operations.

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Claremont solved?

The legal fallout from the Claremont education funding edicts issued by the NH Supreme Court continues. Like the swallows returning to Capistrano and Massachusettes tourists returning to clog up our roads and restaurants here in the Lakes Region year after year, NH residents can count on some group of school districts suing the state for … Read more

Mr. Peabody’s WABAC machine

Recalling the cartoon shorts from “Rocky & Bullwinkle,” let’s join talking-dog Mr. Peabody and his pet boy Sherman on a trip to the not too-distant past using the WABAC (pronounced “way back”) machine: Holding up a Daily Sun from 2005, just after the November Laconia elections, the pet-boy Sherman exclaims, “Look, Mr. Peabody- this Thursday paper has a column titled ‘The Broken Arrows’ by some guy named Doug Lambert discussing the passage of that city’s tax cap while electing a full slate of big spenders!”  The wise Peabody nodded and told his boy Sherman that Doug was one of the more outspoken and prescient writers of his time. “I wonder what he had to say about this tax-cap issue- read on boy.”

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An Income tax is just Giving? You mean it is voluntary?

We are lucky in that in the Lakes Region, we have two daily papers for the Lakes Region and one weekly specifically for our town. It has given me ample opportunity to write, as there are quite few Liberals that write in with ideas that they wish to champion. Like the old days in bowling when there were real humans resetting the pins, they set ’em up and I knock them down. Even though some of the Letters may be old, the topics are still relevant almost all the time.

As in this case way back in 2002, the idea of an income tax here in New Hampshire was again being flogged. The background is that we have no sales or income tax here and the race for the next Governor has already already begun. Thus, it is also time for the years old argument for and against implementing an income tax.

This Liberal, however, put a REAL different spin on it, using the word GIVE…..

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NH: Lowest Taxed in Nation. So?

The June 5th "Citizen" (Laconia,NH) newspaper published an editorial regarding NH’s continued status as having the lowest overall tax burden in the Nation. In it, the paper writes,
"Imagine the relief we will feel in knowing the additional taxes we are paying are mitigated by the knowledge that our pockets are being picked at a slower rate than in 49 other states."
Right on! We may be the lowest, but the annual increases continue apace with everyone else. The costs never remain stable. The "Citizen" concludes:
"New Hampshire residents are forced to drop 12.3 percent of their income into the well of state and local taxes. Then there is what they’re paying in federal taxes — income taxes and a variety of other levies. The people of New Hampshire are paying too much in taxes. It is time to demand government get its hands out of our pockets and live within its means — like those of us it is supposed to represent."
Click here to read the whole editorial. Then come back here and finish reading this post to read the letter I submitted to the paper in response.

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Good News & Bad News

Monday’s Laconia Daily Sun carried a story headlined, “New Hampshire residents pay least local taxes nationally.” The article, reporting on a recent study of 2004 US Census economic data, is at the same time both good news and bad news. The good news is just what the article reports: “New Hampshire residents pay less of … Read more

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