Quote of the Day

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.”

~ William Pitt

NH State Budget Passes the House With Veto-Proof Numbers

Chalk this up to Murphy’s Law. We made hotel reservations months ago for a little end-of-school-year family vacation that ended up coinciding with one the biggest votes in the NH House. In addition to the vote on the state budget, there were several votes taken to override some of Governor Lynch’s recent vetoes.

I regret not being there on the floor of the House for these votes, but am happy with how things turned out. A big thank you to my Republican colleagues for sticking together and making these principled decisions.

There had been talk of some Republican reps voting NO on the budget to show their disapproval of the final version, which rolled back some of the tax breaks and spending cuts we passed in the original versions of HB1 and HB2. I was glad to see that the budget was passed with the veto-proof margin of 270-108.

Union Leader: House, Senate pass budget that trims billions in state spending

CONCORD – The Senate and House agreed to a new two-year budget plan Wednesday, passing the $10.2 billion spending plan easily along party lines.

The budget will cut the spending of state funds by 11 percent compared to the last two years, for a total of $4.4 billion between July 1 and June 30, 2013.

The legislative plan is $500 million less than Gov. John Lynch proposed in total spending, and $300 million less that he wanted to spend in state funds.

Naturally, the Democrats are not happy with this budget that cuts spending, and starts to roll back the work they did to increase the size and scope of state government, as well the tax burden of New Hampshire businesses and residents.

Steve over at Granite Grok does a pretty good job summing up the reasons why this budget isn’t making us any friends on the left side of the fence.

It was written based on revenue we figured we’d actually have a shot at making, not money we imagined we had to make to cover excessive spending we could never hope to afford. There is no laundry list of increased taxes and fees in it during a recession. It does not rely on one time federal money. No one is using last minute debt to pay for spending we cannot afford, so we can pretend the budget is balanced. There is a concerted effort live within our means. No future land sales estimates based on property no one has identified, at prices we could only guess at, are being documented as a “done deal” to hide a 60 million dollar hole in the “balanced budget.”

Steve forgot to mention that our budget didn’t rely on the unlawful confiscation of private funds to make the numbers add up.

I fully support this budget in its final form. Before the election, I made it clear that it would be a near impossibility to close the $600-$800 million budget gap that was given to us in one go ’round, and that it would be disingenuous to make such a promise to the People. This budget is a responsible first step along that path.

This budget debate really defines the choices that the voters of New Hampshire will face when they go into the voting booth in November 2012. The Democrats in New Hampshire have solidified their position as the party of high taxes, reckless borrowing and spending, and an unwavering devotion to their financiers in organized labor.

Up next: The recent GOP veto overrides.

Brentwood Newsletter – June 2011

(submitted Wednesday, May 25, 2011 for June issue)

So, the day finally came. After months upon months of listening to, at times, rather heated debate, reading editorials, conversing in the halls of the State House, and pouring through well over 100 e-mails, we finally voted. The issue of the century in New Hampshire politics has finally been settled.

Right to Work vs. National Rifle Association: An Analogy

Would you support a law that required all gun owners to become dues-paying members of the National Rifle Association, knowing that their dues might be used to help elect candidates with whom they vehemently disagree? How is opposing Right to Work legislation – a law that says a person cannot be forced to pay dues to join a union as a condition of his employment – any different?

Should gay gun owners be required to join an organization that might help elect anti-gay rights politicians who happen to be gun rights supporters?

Should gun-owning union members be required to pay dues to an organization that might help elect a pro-gun rights candidate who wants to curtail the ability of their unions to collectively bargain for benefits and wages?

Sure, on issues pertaining to the Second Amendment, the NRA might, in fact, be acting in the best interest of the aforementioned gun owners, but it should always be the free choice of the individual whether he or she wishes to send in a check and join the the organization…to join any such organization..

And, if unions provide such excellent jobs, wages,benefits, and working conditions as they would have you believe, what are they worried about? Seems to me, people would be knocking the door down trying to join up.

Brentwood Newsletter – April

Here’s my column from April’s Brentwood Newsletter (written 4/20/11):

OK, so the budget (HB1 and HB2) has been passed in the House and has been sent on to the Senate. To say it was an eventful week at the State House would be an understatement. Let me start this column by talking about my final vote in favor of HB2.

I made it clear last month that I was opposed to the collective bargaining amendment known as the Kurk Amendment, explaining my reasons for opposing it. In the days leading up to the final vote, Senate President Peter Bragdon told WMUR that not one of the 24 senators was in favor of that amendment.

Knowing that there was little chance of that amendment surviving in the Senate, any vote for or against it would be largely symbolic by the time HB2 came to the floor of the House. I voted for a Democrat-sponsored amendment that would have removed the Kurk Amendment, as did some other Republican members, but that attempt was not successful.

I voted for HB2, because I felt it would not have been productive to vote to kill the whole bill over what was, by then, a symbolic gesture. The budget we passed was fiscally responsible, rolling back almost a third of the irresponsible over-spending from the last four years. We kept our promise to cut spending and not raise taxes. I ran on a platform of limited government, and you can’t get there by over-taxing and over-spending.

So, just how deep were these cuts? That depends on whom you listen to. If you listened to some of the protesters around the State House on the day of the vote, you’d think we were voting on a bill to defund and abolish our entire system of government, creating an apocalyptic wasteland where the poor are thrown into volcanoes to appease the Koch Brothers (who are supposedly financing every Republican-sponsored activity in the country…hey, where’s my check?).

Also, if these budget cuts are “extreme” or “reckless”, as some would have you believe, what does that say about the much larger increases in state spending that preceded them? Increasing state spending and trying to pay for it all by raising taxes and fees during a recession, grabbing one-time handouts from the federal government (aka: your tax dollars), borrowing money from the following year’s budget, and trying to seize privately held assets is what qualifies in my book as extreme and reckless.

Also, do not conflate budget cuts with cuts to essential services. Sure, there are those who will tell you that the former inevitably leads to the latter, but I don’t buy it. Take for example my own household budget. Our household income/revenue has gone down over the last few years by a much larger percentage than the cuts to the budget that we passed in HB2. Yet, we are still able to provide essential services (feeding and clothing the kids, paying the bills, etc.) by making cuts in our grocery shopping choices and entertainment budget (fewer nights out at Applebee’s and the movies) and by swapping my gas-guzzling truck for a used compact SUV, to name a few examples.

Telling a state agency that they will be getting less money than they did last year is not the same thing as ordering that state agency to provide fewer services. The tightening of belts, which is going on in households across the state must also be taking place across all level of our government. If those agency heads can’t make the necessary adjustments to their operating costs, we need to replace them with people who can. Forcing an already overburdened citizenry to continue funding an ever-expanding state budget is something I simply cannot condone.

Some have criticized our recent actions to lower the tax rates on rooms and meals and cigarettes, to cite a couple of examples. The argument being we need to keep the taxes in place to offset the budget cuts. This is a short-sighted solution at best. Sure, you could always raise taxes and see an immediate, short-term increase in revenue, but then what? If simply raising taxes to generate revenue were the answer to a state’s budget woes, California and Illinois would be leading the nation’s economic recovery, and would serve as a blueprint for the other states to follow. Instead, those states are seeing people and businesses pack up and move out for more business-friendly and tax-friendly environments in neighboring states.

Also, taxes such as the cigarette tax are putting a greater share of the burden on a small subset of the population. I don’t think any one group of people should be singled out for additional taxation, or for any special tax benefit. It makes as much sense to me as enacting special taxes on motorcycle riders, stamp collectors, or left-handed people to help boost state revenues.

Reducing the tax burden on the state’s businesses and residents will make New Hampshire a more attractive place to live, work, open a business, and raise our children. We simply can’t get there via short-sighted budget gimmicks, such as those used by previous legislatures.

In one other significant bit of legislative news, the State Senate just passed (on 4/20/11) HB474, the “Right to Work” bill by a veto-proof 18-6 margin. This bill was amended (to remove a previously passed house amendment) and will now go to Committee of Conference for final resolution [Correction: back to the house for another floor vote] before heading to the governor’s desk.

One quick note before I wrap this up. When sending e-mail to my house e-mail address, if you could include the word BRENTWOOD in the subject line, it would really help me keep track of it so no one’s messages get lost. Thanks.

– Bruce

Process Matters

UPDATE (3/27): Word is out that Senate President Peter Bragdon has confirmed on WMUR’s Close Up that not a single senator will support the budget with the collective bargaining amendment in it.

(original post follows)

From my upcoming column in the Brentwood Newsletter:

Lastly, there has been a lot of talk in the news about a recently introduced amendment to the state budget that would strip public sector unions of their collective bargaining rights, in the event that a contract was not renewed at the time it expired. Without even getting to the merits of the amendment, the fact that this is even being introduced as an amendment is very troubling to me, as well as several other Republican representatives I’ve spoken to about this.

This is much more than an amendment seeking to change the wording or punctuation in a previously proposed and debated piece of legislation. It is a major policy change, and as such should be introduced as a stand-alone bill and subjected to the same open and transparent process, as any other significant piece of legislation (e.g. Right to Work, Evergreen repeal) must be.

A lot of us were rightfully upset when the campground tax was passed in such a manner as to bypass the full and open public hearing and debate process. Likewise, in 2009 when members of a House committee took it upon themselves to pass the State House gun ban, I joined the chorus of complaints over the lack of transparency and the bypassing of proper legislative channels that took place to enact a major change in policy.

Process matters, and I will not support any attempt to pass legislation or any amendment thereto, which seeks to keep the voters “out of the loop”, and be made law behind closed doors or under the cover of darkness.

More here from WMUR.

Don’t get me wrong. If this amendment has merit, I could very well vote in favor of it. But only after it’s been vetted by the public in an open and transparent fashion. I think I’d rather see what happens to HB474, the “right to work” bill we passed in the House last month, given that state mandated Evergreen clauses have now been done away with.

My position that public sector employees need to have as much skin in the game as their private sector counterparts, where our economic recovery is concerned, has not changed one iota since running for office.

I’ve heard several unionized public employees argue their case against union-limiting legislation, saying “they’re taxpayers too”. Of course, their tax dollars are not contributing toward the health care benefits and retirement packages of their private sector, tax paying neighbors.

Go Directy to FAIL

Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200.

Legislative Update Forthcoming

It was a busy week for the House and I’ve got a lot of updates to post.

Stay tuned.

– Bruce

Wednesday’s Hearing on Northern Pass/Eminent Domain Law

Union Leader: Northern Pass hearing: Busloads expected

CONCORD – Busloads of people are expected for a public hearing at the State House Wednesday on a revision to the eminent domain law that could preclude projects such as the Northern Pass from taking land.

After the atrocity that was the Kelo v. City of New London ruling by the Supreme Court, I’m very wary of for-profit corporate entities (or any entities for that matter) seeking to take property from individuals, by the use of eminent domain laws.

On man’s “for the common good” is, in family-friendly terms, another man’s “go jump in a lake”.

Legalize Marijuana, Yes or No?