(From the 7/26 issue of Fosters)
New Hampshire residents seem to be coming to the stark realization that Washington D.C. is broken, which has given rise to the tea party movement. Our “representatives” there don’t listen to us, continue to increase spending at an alarming rate, and pass bills without even reading them. What not as many people realize is that our “representatives” in Concord are taking a similar approach to governing New Hampshire. Concord has become the new D.C.
Increased spending at rates faster than inflation is the norm now for both D.C. and Concord. The state legislature has increased spending by over 25% in the last four years alone! In the last decade, state spending has nearly doubled, yet the population in New Hampshire has not significantly increased. With 80 new taxes and fees and the worst corporate taxes in the nation, we are certainly not getting our money’s worth. The property tax burden, combined with the collapse in the real estate market, has put people in the position where they can’t afford their taxes but they can’t afford to sell either. Concord has contributed to this by downshifting costs to the towns while removing their share of revenues such as the meals and rooms tax.
Thankfully, unlike the Federal government, New Hampshire is required by law to balance its budget, so we can’t push our spending off onto future generations. Nevertheless, while closing so-called loopholes in order to create the new LLC tax, the legislature opened up loopholes to allow them to borrow to cover operating costs. Between bonding school building aid, restructuring debt, and borrowing from UNH, the state’s debt service ratio has jumped up to around 8%, the highest in history. Like D.C., Concord’s misguided representatives plan to borrow their way out of this recession.
Another disturbing trend in Concord has been the increasing lack of transparency. We are used to laws being passed quickly without hearings and without even being read in D.C., but the process in New Hampshire has traditionally been very open. Yet in the previous session, we saw an LLC tax passed in the middle of the night with no public hearing and enacted retroactively, creating a huge uproar in the small business community. This year we saw a rise in the use of rule-making outside of the legislative process to attempt to create rules that had previously failed to pass in the legislature. In the case of the gun ban in the State House, the attempt succeeded, while the attempt to restrict home schooling through the rules failed, thanks to the vigilance of the home schooling community.
Finally, we have come to realize that our “representatives” in D.C. have turned a deaf ear on “we the people”. Despite overwhelming opposition from the people, they pushed through the bailouts and TARP. Despite the majority of Americans rejecting so-called health care reform since it did nothing to reduce costs, they went ahead pushed it through anyway. The Democrat majorities that control Concord went completely along with ObamaCare, and Gov. Lynch refused to stand up for the residents of New Hampshire. In the New Hampshire Senate, Republicans offered an amendment that would have had New Hampshire refuse the mandates in ObamaCare, but the Democratic majority voted against it along party lines, with the current Senator in District 4 leading the charge.
It’s incredibly sad to see New Hampshire taking its lead from D.C. My vision for New Hampshire would be to set the example for the rest of the country by pursuing the traditional New Hampshire values that made our state and our country so great — limited government, local control, personal freedom, and personal responsibility. It’s time for new leadership in Concord that will bring this state and this country back in the right direction, rather than following D.C. down a path to failure and bankruptcy.
Jim Forsythe
Republican Candidate
Senate District 4
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