Republican Report - Message from Dave - 4/18/08
A message from the Deputy Republican Leader.....
Democrats in the House are slowly discovering that artificially increasing revenue projections to accommodate their 17.5% spending increase in the budget has been a recipe for the largest financial crisis in state history. Their “spend like crazy and then inflate the revenue projections” method has put us on the doorstep of a $260M shortfall and brought us closer to what Democrats have been angling for all along, a broad based tax.
In fact, less than a week after the governor’s agency heads told the House Ways & Means committee that they were finally in agreement with Rep. Norm Major’s revenue projections, House Democrats ignored the warnings, and passed two education bills that will undoubtedly increase spending even further.
SB530, the kindergarten aid bill, is going to increase education spending by an additional $20M, with no projected increase in kindergarten attendance in the state. It also mandates that the 12 communities which do not currently offer kindergarten submit detailed plans by September, 2009, regardless of whether the taxpayers in those communities have agreed to implement the programs. Then they passed SB 539, relative to costing an adequate education that will cost the state nearly $1 Billion a year over the next biennium, and will bind the hands of future legislatures. The bill adds unreasonable levels to the costing formula, including increased teacher and staff salaries, materials, technology, transportation, and arbitrarily inflated additional aid based upon free and reduced lunch students—all factors that increase the average costs by more than $100 Million!
And, despite the fact that this Democrat-controlled House passed the largest spending increase in twenty years, they continue to refer to this crisis as a “revenue” problem when in fact it is clearly a “spending” problem. In fact, revenues have actually increased by more than $40M over last year, through March 31. Unfortunately, however, they were quickly gobbled up by an overexuberant spending spree in the very first year of the biennium.
But instead of cutting spending, Democrats have chosen an alternative: balance the budget by passing additional taxes and fees onto the citizens of New Hampshire—and the voters are finally starting to take notice. For your use in writing letters and op-eds, we have listed just a few of the increased taxes and fees that they have passed during this session alone.
What will be their solution? The hole is certainly far too deep to make up the deficit with spending cuts alone
during the second year of the biennium. The damage has already been done. House Democrats who insisted a year ago that Rep. Major was “crying wolf” when he talked of the Perfect Storm and warned of “overexuberant” revenues, are finally waking up to the grim reality that they should have paid attention.
And now, while Democrats are scrambling, in search of a revenue source that will handle such a large deficit, the hole gets deeper and the road to a broad based tax gets closer.
Over the final few weeks of the session, we as Republicans must stick together in waging the fight against further taxing and spending. I urge you to attend our
Republican caucuses held prior to each Session and as, always, we in leadership welcome your thoughts and comments about any issue that is important to you and your constituents.
-Dave
Democrats in the House are slowly discovering that artificially increasing revenue projections to accommodate their 17.5% spending increase in the budget has been a recipe for the largest financial crisis in state history. Their “spend like crazy and then inflate the revenue projections” method has put us on the doorstep of a $260M shortfall and brought us closer to what Democrats have been angling for all along, a broad based tax.
In fact, less than a week after the governor’s agency heads told the House Ways & Means committee that they were finally in agreement with Rep. Norm Major’s revenue projections, House Democrats ignored the warnings, and passed two education bills that will undoubtedly increase spending even further.
SB530, the kindergarten aid bill, is going to increase education spending by an additional $20M, with no projected increase in kindergarten attendance in the state. It also mandates that the 12 communities which do not currently offer kindergarten submit detailed plans by September, 2009, regardless of whether the taxpayers in those communities have agreed to implement the programs. Then they passed SB 539, relative to costing an adequate education that will cost the state nearly $1 Billion a year over the next biennium, and will bind the hands of future legislatures. The bill adds unreasonable levels to the costing formula, including increased teacher and staff salaries, materials, technology, transportation, and arbitrarily inflated additional aid based upon free and reduced lunch students—all factors that increase the average costs by more than $100 Million!
And, despite the fact that this Democrat-controlled House passed the largest spending increase in twenty years, they continue to refer to this crisis as a “revenue” problem when in fact it is clearly a “spending” problem. In fact, revenues have actually increased by more than $40M over last year, through March 31. Unfortunately, however, they were quickly gobbled up by an overexuberant spending spree in the very first year of the biennium.
But instead of cutting spending, Democrats have chosen an alternative: balance the budget by passing additional taxes and fees onto the citizens of New Hampshire—and the voters are finally starting to take notice. For your use in writing letters and op-eds, we have listed just a few of the increased taxes and fees that they have passed during this session alone.
What will be their solution? The hole is certainly far too deep to make up the deficit with spending cuts alone
during the second year of the biennium. The damage has already been done. House Democrats who insisted a year ago that Rep. Major was “crying wolf” when he talked of the Perfect Storm and warned of “overexuberant” revenues, are finally waking up to the grim reality that they should have paid attention.
And now, while Democrats are scrambling, in search of a revenue source that will handle such a large deficit, the hole gets deeper and the road to a broad based tax gets closer.
Over the final few weeks of the session, we as Republicans must stick together in waging the fight against further taxing and spending. I urge you to attend our
Republican caucuses held prior to each Session and as, always, we in leadership welcome your thoughts and comments about any issue that is important to you and your constituents.
-Dave
