Mark Your Calendar!!!: Come Show Support for Bob Perry on August 8th!!!!

If you are a voter in NH, please come to a visibility for Bob Perry, Democrat running in a special election for NH House (August 9-Barrington, Milton, Strafford, Middleton and Farmington).


On Monday, AUGUST 8, at Calef's Corner, Barrington, rt 9 and rt 125 we are holding signs for Bob twice to catch the attention of commuters; 7-8am (we can go out for breakfast at 8) and then again from 4-6. We will carry on this vis NO MATTER WHAT THE WEATHER DOES. If raining, bring large golf type umbrellas. Bob's signs are orange so if you have it, wear it. Please share this email with friends everywhere in NH. I figure that anyone in NH can get to Barrington in 3 hours tops. A swell prize will be given to the person who comes from the most distance. See you Monday at Calef's Corner. We have signs or you can make hand-made ones.


P.S. The Victory Party is at The Governor's Inn in Rochester at 7 on election night, the 9th. Onward.
http://governorsinn.com/

Recent Columns from Carol Shea-Porter: No. 3 of 3 - "Medicare Works, Leave It Alone"

Medicare works, leave it alone

Beware, anyone who is old or disabled or might ever get old or disabled. If the Republicans in theUnited States House of Representative have their way, Medicare is going to be destroyed. The Paul Ryan plan, the so-called Path to Prosperity, privatizes Medicare and turns it into a voucher program that would hurt the old, the future old, and the disabled.

As USA Today reporter Catalina Camia wrote on April 12, “Medicare, the federal health insurance program for seniors and people with disabilities, would be turned over to private insurers under Ryan’s budget plan and would end up costing beneficiaries more money or give them less in services.”

Why would our Republican members of Congress do this to the old and the vulnerable?

They claim that it will save seniors money and allow them to choose. However, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says it will actually cost seniors more. How much more? The CBO says it would double the cost of insurance for seniors. And that is just for starters.

My mother is 87 and very ill. How in the world is she supposed to “shop around” for a good insurance deal, and what for-profit company would ever choose to insure her? Under Medicare, my mom already gets to choose. She has chosen her doctors, her hospital and her hospice. The Republicans are deliberately misleading people about this.

Republicans also claim that this will somehow drive down costs because they claim that Medicare issues blank checks and does not try to control costs. That also is false. Medicare operating costs run between 3 percent to 7 percent for overhead, while private insurance companies have been passing their overhead costs of up to 37 percent to their customers.

As the April 18, USA Today Editorial stated about Medicare: “In fact, it delivers coverage for lower costs. Doing away with the most efficient system hardly seems the best way… ”

Medicare also has set reimbursement rates for hospitals and providers, which helps save money.

Still, they must do better with our money, so I am pleased that the new health care law gets tougher on waste, fraud, and inefficiency.

Improving a great system is better than destroying it, but our members of Congress voted to destroy Medicare.

Paul Ryan and our members claim this does not hurt seniors or those who are 55 and older. This, too, is false. Their plan slashed Medicaid, and the elderly who cannot afford to pay for nursing home care use Medicaid. As a matter of fact, 25 percent of Medicaid dollars are spent on seniors, and 42 percent is spent on the disabled. That equals 67 percent of the Medicaid budget! This opens up another problem for middle-class Americans. If the Federal Government is not going to help pay for the nursing home, where will the money come from? Most hardworking middle class families will not be able to pay for their parents and pay for their children’s educations. The squeeze will just be too much, so this Medicare and Medicaid slashing will hurt all ages.

Here is the ugliest part of all. This budget plan that both of our New Hampshire congressmen voted for hurts the old and the disabled and the middle class, and our representatives admit it by saying there has to be “shared sacrifice.”

However, the money that they save will not be used to pay down the deficit. No, it will be used to cut taxes for the very rich. That’s right – the very rich will see their taxes reduced while you or your loved one see essential services reduced.

Is this what Americans really want? Apparently, it is not. Across the country, good people of all parties – Republicans, Democrats and Independents – are showing up at town halls and telling their members to leave Medicare and other essential programs alone, that they want to support programs that help their neighbors and communities, that they care about each other. House Republicans miscalculated when they figured that most people only care about themselves, so seniors would not speak up for others. Turns out they were wrong.

Just as I have always believed, we are a great nation full of great people who help each other. It is the American way. So is Medicare. Leave it alone, House Republicans.

Find the money to pay down the debt by voting against tax loopholes, taxpayer subsidies for oil companies and other huge conglomerates, by cutting waste, and by campaign finance reform, which will clean up abuse. But leave Medicare alone.

Recent Columns from Carol Shea-Porter: No. 2 of 3 - "Where are the Jobs?""

Where are the jobs?

Where are the jobs? This is the burning question of our time because we have so many people unemployed. The economy has a mix of good signs--such as continuous private sector job growth for 15 straight months and manufacturing up for 22 months now. This is great news, but we still have a high unemployment rate. So the questions remain. Where did the jobs go, and when will they come back?

We have to look in the rearview mirror to clearly see where we are now. The first devastating blow was when US corporations sent jobs overseas. The US Chamber of Commerce, which is different from the local Chambers, has been an enthusiastic proponent of sending jobs overseas, and also happens to be the top group making outside expenditures in 2010, running ads and engaging in other activities to sway the electorate about candidates and issues. They have too much influence on policy, and for too long, Congress has not forcefully acted against unfair trade policies and created enough incentives to keep American jobs in America.

During the Bush era, we lost 1/3 of our manufacturing jobs. However, the biggest whack came in October 2008 when Wall Street bankers did themselves in, taking down small banks and workers and retirees along with them. America lost more than 700,000 jobs just in the month of December 2008, the last full month before Barack Obama became president. The economy was reeling, and it looked as if the world was on the verge of another depression. Thankfully, policies enacted by the 111th Congress and President Obama pulled us back from a depression, but we lost eight million jobs, and that has created great suffering.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, called the Stimulus, was passed by Congress in February 2009. Congress faced a very difficult choice. It raised the already largest debt in history that President Obama had inherited from the previous administration, but it also created or saved jobs and funded projects around the country. The Congressional Budget Office recently confirmed again that the Stimulus did help by keeping the unemployment rate from climbing even higher. I always believed that 1/3 of the stimulus money should have been used for a jobs program to build and repair infrastructure. This would have served two purposes--it would have brought jobs and money to our communities and rebuilt our failing infrastructure, so I view that as a missed opportunity.

Congress also passed and President Obama signed the HIRE Act and the Small Business Jobs and Credit Act. The latter bill brought more money to community banks, which in turn lent it to the small businesses that had trouble getting credit from the very big banks who had created the mess in the first place. Congress beefed up the Small Business Administration (SBA), and the SBA worked very closely with businesses around the country. Small businesses still need help, so I am very concerned that the current US House Majority has actually cut the SBA budget and programs to help small businesses.

The situation is not as dire as it was in 2008 and 2009, but high unemployment persists and is wreaking havoc on many families. What is the solution? There are many steps America must take to address unemployment. First, the current Congress has to start working on a jobs bill. They have not passed a single jobs bill out of the House yet—not one! At the same time, they are trying to pass Free Trade Agreements with Columbia and Korea, which will instead cause more job losses.

We need to provide tax incentives for manufacturing to keep jobs here. We need to make things instead of always importing them. We need to stop providing subsidies for companies that take jobs overseas. We need to find and eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy that hurts business. And yes, government still has a role to play in job creation and preservation. There are many public sector jobs that are essential to the health, safety, and well-being of our communities. We should not be shortsighted and eliminate those jobs. We still have children to teach, fires to put out, criminals to catch, roads to fix, bridges to repair, airports to maintain, etc.

We should not dismantle this great country by dismantling our great workforce. If we truly want to end unemployment in our country, we must set aside our political differences and concentrate on what is best for our people, not for our politics.

Recent Columns from Carol Shea-Porter: No. 1 of 3 - "What's Really Behind Debt-Ceiling Politics"

What’s really behind debt-ceiling politics

The debt limit debate has become a sign of all that is wrong in Congress these days. This Congress, the most partisan in recent history and, as the LA Times notes, “underperforming even the ‘do-nothing Congress’ of 1948,” simply cannot stay at work long enough or even work together to get the job done. As NH Senator Kelly Ayotte commented in that July 3 article, “I thought we would vote on a lot more bills.” Yes, so did we. At least, we thought they could vote on the looming debt ceiling vote before our country defaulted, but the deadline, August 2, is getting too close for comfort, and Congress had to be shamed into coming back to work this week to even argue about it. They have not passed a single jobs bill, which is a disaster for the millions of unemployed in this country, but if they let America default on its debts, the consequences would reverberate in the markets around the world.

As Ronald Reagan said in 1983, “the full consequences of a default, or even the serious prospect of default by the United States, are impossible and awesome to contemplate.” In 1987, Reagan called refusing to raise the debt ceiling “brinksmanship” that “threatens the holders of government bonds and those who rely on Social Security and veterans benefits. Interest rates would skyrocket, instability would occur in financial markets, and the Federal deficit would soar.”

Fast-forward to today. In Atlanta Business Chronicle, US Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donahue said: “…the country cannot afford to not pay its bills. To those newly-elected representatives who say they aren’t going to raise the debt ceiling and will shut down government, Donahue said the U.S. Chamber has its own message: We’ll get rid of you.” This is pretty serious stuff. When Republican icons from the past and the head of the US Chamber are warning Republican leaders of dire consequences if they don’t raise the debt ceiling and default, why isn’t Congress listening?

Sadly, the answer lies in politics. Political ideology trumps reality. Republicans are so against any kind of tax on the wealthy that they voted repeatedly to increase the ceiling through the Bush years rather than raise revenue to pay for their spending. As USA Today stated in their July 5 editorial, “…the nation has used trillions of dollars in borrowed money to finance two wars, Medicare’s prescription drug program, and President George W. Bush’s broad tax cuts—all initiated with the GOP controlling both the White House and Congress. Now Republicans have belatedly decided that borrowing is bad too, but they dogmatically resist even the most sensible and painless tax hikes.”

The Republicans are so opposed to either collecting any income tax from GE and other corporations, or stopping taxpayer subsidies for oil companies and other special interests, that they are refusing to raise the debt ceiling unless Democrats agree to slash Social Security, Medicare, education, housing, transportation funding, infrastructure, research, healthcare, or anything else that actually benefits communities and the middle class. They tell people through mailers and tele-town halls that they have to reduce benefits to save Social Security, all the while knowing that Social Security is solvent enough to fully pay benefits until 2036, and is not contributing to the debt at all right now.

Republican members are also misleading the middle class and small businesses by asking them if they want to pay more taxes, and then reporting back the answer was no. Of course it is no. The middle is tired of paying for the breaks the tax structure gives to the top 1% and multinational corporations. NOBODY is talking about raising the taxes on the middle class, and Republicans know that. They are misleading the public and distracting them from the real issue. Their ideology and agenda will not allow them to raise revenue to help us dig out of this mountain of debt that their ideology got us in. Democrats do not get a free pass on the debt since they certainly have contributed, and many voted to continue the Bush tax cuts for two years, but as USA Today noted, it was the recent spending since Clinton’s budget surplus that got this country into deep trouble.

Sad, isn’t it? Although NH members vote with their party at least 95% of the time, I hope they will rise above politics and vote with Ronald Reagan rather than their current leadership. America is counting on them to do the right thing.

Susan Bruce's Column for 6.24.11: Impulse Control and Pledge Politics

Impulse Control and Pledge Politics


It has become increasingly obvious that the current NH legislature is not just trying to turn the state into a Randian/Dickensian paradise, but they’re also intent on repealing any law they can, just because.

A case in point would be the recent repeal of the NH minimum wage law. NH has had it’s own minimum wage law since 1949. The party that claims to be all about “states rights” just passed a bill that repealed a law that gave us the right to set the state’s minimum wage, rather than just abide by the federal minimum. Governor Lynch vetoed the repeal, and the Freebaglicans decided that it was so important to thumb their nose at the Governor (who was defending the actual right of the state) that they overturned the veto. This is the kind of brilliant thinking that’s been going on in Concord this year, in a legislature overrun with Tea Partiers, Free Staters, and John Birchers.

The current crop of Republicans is badly behaved. You’d see better impulse control in the ape house at the zoo. House Majority Leader D J Bettencourt calling Bishop McCormick “a pedophile and a pimp” comes to mind as an example. NH GOP Chairman Jack Kimball had this to say about the re-election of President Obama: ‘‘look at who we put in the White House. You think about that and we realize the profound responsibility that we have this time. In my view, if we re-elect this man, all that all of the people fought and died for is completely in vain.” In other words: if you die in the service of your country when the president is a dark skinned Democrat whom we like to pretend was born in Kenya; you’ve died in vain. A number of veterans groups are rightly unhappy with this statement. Those of us who remember being called traitors for questioning the invasion of Iraq are unsurprised by the level of hypocrisy shown by the leader of the NH GOP or his NH media stenographers.

Another badly behaved Republican recently in the news is our very own Ray Shakir, whose lack of impulse control has been on display for a number of years in the op-ed section of this newspaper. Ray achieved national fame for his brand of commentary in Mother Jones magazine, in a piece on his support for presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty. Writer Andy Kroll quotes Shakir’s description of President Obama: "a jungle alien. Because that's what he is—he's not an American. You can call me a birther if you want." A “jungle alien.” I’m sure old T-Paw is thrilled to have his association with a racist go national, especially given that Pawlenty himself has tried to avoid rolling in the stench of the birther cesspool.

The Freebaglican legislature passed their budget this week. As legislature discussed the bill, prior to the vote, the Republicans in the House got up and walked out when former Speaker Terrie Norelli spoke in opposition to the bill. The GOP majority has shown repeatedly that not only do they lack impulse control; they are incapable of common courtesy.

This budget makes drastic cuts in the few safety net programs our state has. NH will be returning to the GOP glory days of the wait list for services for people with developmental disabilities, always a source of pride for our state. There are further cuts to domestic violence programs, to mental health programs, and to substance abuse treatment programs. It’s hard to imagine that a state that uses alcohol as a source of revenue could spend any less than we have been on treatment, but we will be. Prison and jail will be the increasing source of treatment for addicts and the mentally ill. Despite the recent heap of baloney served up by DJ Bettencourt and Gene Chandler on the op-ed pages of this paper, be prepared for cost shifting to the counties and towns. Expect your property taxes to rise as a direct result of this reckless budget.

Another area of concern is NH’s failing infrastructure. The annual infrastructure report card gives NH a barely passing grade. NH has 142 bridges on the red list. Our roads, bridges, dams, schools, public water, and public sewer systems are all in need of attention. Pledge politics mean we’ve kicked that can down the road for decades. Pledge politics guarantee that we’ll continue to, and that we’ll pay the pound of cure when some kind of disaster occurs.


When the recent unemployment numbers came out for NH, showing that our state has among the lowest numbers in the country, the NH GOP took credit for it, saying it was their policies – even though those policies had yet to be enacted. When those numbers rise, as a direct result of the budget cuts, one wonders if they’ll be so eager to take credit for the increase.

This legislature has slashed programs carelessly, and has worked hard to cut revenue sources. This week, as Speaker O’Brien returned from meeting with special interest groups (including one funded by Big Tobacco) the House cut the NH tobacco tax. NH is the first state to decrease the tobacco tax in 50 years. This is expected to result in a $15 million loss in revenue over the next two years.

At the same time, the new budget slashes state aid to higher education by 45%. NH already has the dubious distinction of ranking dead last amongst the 50 states in spending on post-secondary education. NH was firmly in 50th place – well behind states like Mississippi and Arkansas. We’re in 70th place now, behind the other 50 states. This means that sending a NH kid to a NH college is now going to be even more cost-prohibitive. In-state tuition at UNH is going to increase by 8.7 percent. If this budget becomes law, it’s going to be cheaper for NH kids to go to college in other states. When they do, the likelihood of their returning to NH is small. They’ll be helping to build the economy and the future of other states, while NH remains a hostage of the past.

Pledge politics combined with a tax system that designed in the 1800’s, but fails in the 21st century will continue to conspire to keep our state moving backwards. Businesses considering moving to our state will not find our property taxes and our negative attitude about education to be an enticement. The real NH advantage is being slowly destroyed by pledge politics.

“New Hampshire is not a poor state, NH is a cheap state.” Blue Hampshire blogger tchair.

Jackie Cilley's Legislative Action Alert, Week of June 27, 2011

Legislative Action Alert
Week of June 27, 2011
Jackie Cilley
jcilley@aol.com

“You Got to Know When to Hold ‘em, Know When to Fold ‘em”
The trip to the Bangor casino was out of compassion, at least that’s how I sold it to my very gambling-averse husband. My friend Norma, a decidedly down Maine gal complete with the accent and derisive tone reserved for out-of-staters, had been hospitalized and home-bound for the past couple of weeks. Her favorite pastime is slots so it was a natural way for me to cheer her up.

The hour long ride to and fro is always filled with chatter about the happenings of South China. I don’t know any of the people mentioned, but I’m beginning to feel as though I do. The conversation moves beyond news of the day and onto flora and fauna and a host of other topics.

For someone lacking a formal education, Norma’s one of the sharpest folks I know. There simply doesn’t seem to be anything for which she fails to know something about and have an opinion on. In the early days of our friendship I thought she delighted in pulling my leg about her “data” and information. I’ve checked up on her facts and she’s generally dead on. (Damned if it didn’t turn out that she was right on such an esoteric fact as mosquitoes are attracted to blue! Who knows that kind of stuff??)

On this particular trip, she talked of more pressing concerns -- her stay in the hospital, the treatment plan for the lung infection and out-of-pocket costs of the illness. They were substantial. Norma is on one of those very limited insurance plans due to age and previous illness. She manages by doing everything in her control to stay healthy and by going to the doctors only when absolutely necessary. That might have been what landed her in the hospital. The doctor said she had waited too long before seeing him and the result was full blown respiratory distress that was more dangerous and difficult to treat.

Thankfully, she was considerably better by the time we got together and she was definitely more cheerful to be on her way to pursue her hobby. I suspect she may enjoy gambling a bit because she’s actually lucky at it, something I am most assuredly not. She plays a bit, loses a bit, wins a bit. A day’s entertainment is often less than the price of the one egg and dry toast she sometimes splurges on for a breakfast out.

This occasion went considerably better than that for Norma. At the end of the afternoon she was several thousand dollars up and I was just envious. All the way back to the camp she ticked off the co-pays that were about to be dispatched. Of course, there was also a discussion about the taxes on the winnings which suddenly seemed steep to her. (Honestly, this is the part I never understand. A few thousand minus a few hundred still puts one up rather nicely. But that’s never quite the way it is viewed.) She asked me how I had handled this. I told her I’d never had the occasion to worry about it.

Later that evening I reflected on the trip and what singularly good timing her win had been. I also thought about the fact that at the beginning of the day we were both certain we would be winners. Only one of us was. And, the odds against even that were very high. Depending upon the type of slot machine either one of us played at any given time the odds could be as high as thousands to one that either of us would hit a jackpot. Nonetheless, and despite knowing that, we both entered the casino in the secure belief that we would each be winners. We humans can be odd creatures.

Speaking of which reminds me of the extreme libertarians who are now in control of our state. It seems to me that the world they are shaping for the rest of us will be a bit like waking up in a casino every day – without the entertaining bells and sirens of the slot machines.

The luck of the draw will either place us with parents competent at homeschooling or with sufficient resources to send us to a private school -- or not. If we hit the jackpot, we will have parents able to afford college for us or we’ll be sufficiently brilliant enough to attract full boat scholarships -- or not. The hand we’re dealt and our ability to negotiate a good deal with a prospective employer will either provide us with a livable wage and decent benefits to carry us into a ripe old age – or not. If Lady Luck smiles on us we’ll be safe in our place of employment and our schools, we won’t be hit by a speeding car, our property won’t be polluted by a bad corporate citizen, the air we breathe won’t harm us and the food we eat at our favorite restaurant won’t poison us. We’re going to need luck because many of the government regulations that seek to help in those ways are targeted for elimination.

We can’t eradicate misfortune. We can’t (or at least I hope we don’t want to try) engineer Mensa candidates. We can’t stop the devastation of an earthquake or a hurricane or a tornado. There are lots of things we can’t prevent and that lead to awful consequences to those who are impacted. But it does seem to me that an enlightened, compassionate society creates conditions for all of its citizens that offer better odds than the pull on a one-armed bandit. Some bills passed this year, coupled with those on the docket for the upcoming year, suggest we are being governed by folks who are just fine with casino odds.

Late Breaking News
The Alert typically stays pretty focused upon legislative antics and activities and sidesteps party politics. However, from time to time something happens that seems to have an obvious connection to what is happening in our Statehouse. An article printed in the NH Journal today was a case in point.
In an article entitled “State GOP in Disarray” author Shawn Millerick notes that the GOP party coffers are down to $1,300 from which to pay its bills and that the situation is “so dire that the party has asked the Strafford County GOP for a loan of $1,000 so it can host a fundraising even with presidential candidate Herman Cain…”

The sad state of GOP financial affairs is being laid right at the feet of the Tea Party-inspired and supported Chairman Jack Kimball. Millerick goes on to say “The New Hampshire Republican State Committee is in disarray and Chairman Jack Kimball is reeling under the strain of a job he thought would be a piece of cake, multiple sources tell NH Journal…” These same sources claim that “…Kimball is now visibly regretful that he ever took the job [sic] of State Party Chairman.”

So, what’s the connection between this and the current legislature? In the GOP-Free Stater sweep of last fall there were far too many who gained the power but failed to grasp the significance of actually governing. They have not listened to constituents who presented expert testimony on numerous bills nor have they spent time assessing the consequences of their actions. Like Kimball, they are “reeling from a job they thought would be a piece of cake…” The difference between the two? When they are done, New Hampshire is going to need a whole lot more than $1,000 loan to correct the damage!

The Week in Brief
Earlier in the legislative sessions there were attempts to defund Planned Parenthood through HB 228. Opponents cited the thousands of NH citizens who receive cancer screenings and reproductive healthcare. Retained by the committee, it was anticipated that the bill would come to the floor next January.
Consequently, it came as a shock last week when the Executive Council suddenly voted to defund Planned Parenthood by withholding a $1,861,116 contract, two-thirds of which are federal dollars, targeted to women’s healthcare by that provider. This puts 15,000 patients who currently receive routine reproductive health services, cancer and STD screenings at risk.

This is a purely ideological attack (also occurring in several states in this country). Supporters of defunding Planned Parenthood have repeatedly cited its abortion services. However, no public dollars are allowed to be expended on abortions. For all of the talk of greater individual freedoms, personal responsibility and patient choice, the extreme ideologues in our legislature and in the Executive Council have denied 15,000 of our New Hampshire citizens the ability to access affordable reproductive healthcare services.

With the Governor declining to veto the budget (either HB 1 or HB 2), Speaker O’Brien notified the troops their services would not be necessary this week. The House calendar for this week listed Thursday, June 30 as a potential session day. The day was reserved for the possibility of a gubernatorial veto of the budget. With that possibility out of the way, the House is “recessed at the call of the Chair.” While most observers anticipate that the next session day will occur in the fall, it is possible for one to be scheduled at any given time.

On June 27 the Governor vetoed yet one more bill, SB 129 the voter ID bill. Assuming the legislature will be called back into session in the fall, this bill along with HB 474 the Right to Work Act will likely be taken up at that time. Several other bills the Governor vetoed were overridden by the legislature before recessing, including the repeal of New Hampshire’s minimum wage, parental notification and the ability of communities to require certain sprinkler systems that best suit the needs of that communities residential and commercial areas. Two other vetoes that have not been dealt with include SB 3, the bill that made substantial changes to the NH Retirement System, and HB 218, legislation that weakened the Rail Authority.


Select List of New Laws
This one is more a new “non” law – After seven decades New Hampshire no longer has a minimum wage law.
Individuals can now use deadly force to protect themselves or a third person in any place s/he is legally entitled to be and has immunity for such use.
There is no longer a minimum mandatory sentencing requirement for felony convictions that include the possession, use or attempted use of a firearm.
By law, NH will not accept the funds to establish nor will it establish a health exchange under the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
New Hampshire is now one of only three states that has privatized weights and measures certification and enforcement (a program that ensures you receive the unit of something you pay for – i.e., a gallon of gasoline). The other states have a public/private partnership for this program. Under the new law, New Hampshire will have essentially privatized the entire function.

Sneak Preview:
The list of “legislative service requests” are posted to the General Court website and can be accessed at http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/ols/nhlegislativelsrlisting.pdf. Legislative service requests are the precursor to actual bills. An LSR becomes a bill once it is given a number and assigned to a committee for its first hearing. In each edition of the Alert over the summer I will include some of the more entertaining pieces of legislation.

If Susan Emerson of Rindge (serving Cheshire, District 7) has her way bullying in the Statehouse will be unlawful. After experiencing firsthand the verbal battering of House leadership, Rep. Emerson felt it appropriate to file the first ever bill “prohibiting bullying in the Statehouse and Legislative Office Building.” I can’t wait for this one to make national news!
Robert Kingsbury of Laconia (serving Belknap, District 4) has been a truly busy beaver. You may recall in the last list of bill requests that he was the legislator sponsoring a bill to require the courts to provide a woman who is given a restraining order a gun, a box of ammunition and shooting instructions. One that just might resonate with many folks on the seacoast is a bill “establishing that the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is within the boundaries of New Hampshire.” This has been a contentious issue and one over which there has been longstanding controversy between Maine and New Hampshire. I believe that there was a final court case that settled the dispute, but maybe not. Perhaps our legislators declaring it is ours will simply make it so. This one should be worth watching. I wonder if we can get Maine’s Tea Party governor to come in and break bread with his New Hampshire counterparts? Now that would be worth the price of admission!
Free Stater Jennifer Coffey apparently wants our citizens to know if they inadvertently cross over into Massachusetts because she is sponsoring a bill “requiring the Department of Transportation to post signs on roads that cross the border into Massachusetts.” I just hope that Rep. Coffey of Andover (serving Merrimack, District 6) is going to find a way to include funding for these new signs. Given that our Department of Transportation is losing $90 million just on the loss of vehicle registration monies that will severely impact its ability to maintain our already distressed roads and bridges, it is difficult to see where it will have much excess to spend on signage saying “leaving NH.” Interesting that this is the only border she’s concerned with.
Now here’s one that could really benefit all of us – a bill requiring a course in business or financial literacy as a prerequisite for high school graduation! Just goes to show that every once in a while you can find a diamond in a coal mine. This bill is being supported by Rep. Shaun Doherty of Pelham (representing Hillsborough, District 27). There are MANY things that I could find to disagree with Rep. Doherty about – not the least of which is his support for nullifying any federal law he might not like – but I have certainly found my point of agreement with him on this one. If payday and title loan lending are coming back to our state it would be a particularly good idea for our citizens to have a higher level of financial literacy to determine if these products are a good deal for them.

A Distinction With a Difference
In light of the “thought of the week” that I wrote a few weeks back about NH natives and those who move to our state, the following letter to the editor really resonated with me. This would have made such a fitting ending for that piece as it describes clearly the distinction between….

Carpetbaggers vs. immigrants
For the Monitor
Created 06/17/2011 - 00:00
Letter
John R. White, Wolfeboro

A glimmer of hope shines in Concord: The Free State/Tea Party Express seems to have lost a few wheels on the way to the station. Some of the GOP faithful are beginning to doubt the wisdom of Speaker William O'Brien, he who must be obeyed, and his campaign to dismantle the machinery of government in New Hampshire.

Up to now, O'Brien has been able to browbeat his party reluctants into doing things his way. Those who deviated have been summarily relieved of committee assignments, threatened, slandered, verbally abused and libeled. Grudgingly, for the most part, they have sustained the party super-majority.
So who is this William O'Brien who rules the House with an iron fist? And how, in only his second term in the Legislature, is he commander of the House?

He's a carpetbagger from Massachusetts, a Democrat when he was law partner of Tommy Finneran, erstwhile speaker of the Massachusetts House who left that post in disgrace.
In New Hampshire, O'Brien latched on to the Free State movement; in the aftermath of the 2010 election he courted the radicals and won the speaker's chair. He owes his power to a group dedicated to the destruction of state government, reducing the civil obligation to the protection of life and property - nothing more. Strangely, that protection of life and property seems to devolve upon the individual - why else the over-weaning concern that every man carry a gun?

O'Brien is a carpetbagger, as differentiated from an immigrant. Lots of us here in New Hampshire are immigrants. I'm one - moved here in 1991. The difference?

Immigrants come here to change their lives; carpetbaggers come to change your life.

Another gem from the Pickup Patriots: Some words are as powerful as a picture...this one's a Mona Lisa

Every once in a while, we see a letter and perspective that is too good NOT to share. This LTE to the Concord Monitor from Wolfeboro resident, John White, is one such letter. We share it with PuPNation so that you can make it viral. Please send it to everyone you know -- it's that good.

Carpetbaggers vs. immigrants

For the Monitor
Created 06/17/2011 - 00:00

Letter
John R. White, Wolfeboro
A glimmer of hope shines in Concord: The Free State/Tea Party Express seems to have lost a few wheels on the way to the station. Some of the GOP faithful are beginning to doubt the wisdom of Speaker William O'Brien, he who must be obeyed, and his campaign to dismantle the machinery of government in New Hampshire.

Up to now, O'Brien has been able to browbeat his party reluctants into doing things his way. Those who deviated have been summarily relieved of committee assignments, threatened, slandered, verbally abused and libeled. Grudgingly, for the most part, they have sustained the party super-majority.

So who is this William O'Brien who rules the House with an iron fist? And how, in only his second term in the Legislature, is he commander of the House?

He's a carpetbagger from Massachusetts, a Democrat when he was law partner of Tommy Finneran, erstwhile speaker of the Massachusetts House who left that post in disgrace.

In New Hampshire, O'Brien latched on to the Free State movement; in the aftermath of the 2010 election he courted the radicals and won the speaker's chair. He owes his power to a group dedicated to the destruction of state government, reducing the civil obligation to the protection of life and property - nothing more. Strangely, that protection of life and property seems to devolve upon the individual - why else the over-weaning concern that every man carry a gun?

O'Brien is a carpetbagger, as differentiated from an immigrant. Lots of us here in New Hampshire are immigrants. I'm one - moved here in 1991. The difference?

Immigrants come here to change their lives; carpetbaggers come to change your life.

JOHN R. WHITE

Wolfeboro

Jackie Cilley's Legislative Action Alert, Week of June 13, 2011

Legislative Action Alert
Week of June 13, 2011
Jackie Cilley
jcilley@aol.com

Of Lupines and Electric Towers

Bruce and I skipped Maine last weekend and instead took a drive to Sugar Hill. We were glad we did. The town was celebrating the second weekend of a 17 day Lupine Festival dedicated to the ornamental plant in the pea family. Despite the forecasted isolated shower that became a steady rain throughout the day, no amount of grey skies could overshadow the landscape of brilliant pastel colors.

As we climbed hills into town we saw other visitors pull to the side of the road and emerge with cameras in hand. Some of the shutter bugs were obviously amateurs with their miniature Nikon Coolpix Touchscreens used to snap a pretty picture. Others lugged out their tripods to hold their Canon EOS 1DS Mark III to capture a singular image that might end up in some magazine or framed on somebody’s wall. The panorama would not disappoint either.

We visited the open air market where lupines were present in every modality possible. Photographs and canvasses of watercolors and oils sported everything from a single lupine with a fat bumblebee at work pollinating to vast meadows of color. There was pottery with signature lupine and lupine inspired candles for sale throughout the market.

Among the vendors stood a booth whose orange bows and signs contrasted sharply with the pastels of lupine. Messages of “Stop Northern Pass” and “Stop the Towers,” belied the booth’s unique purpose. It was, in fact, the other reason that we had made the trip at the invitation of one of its most vocal and passionate volunteers, Nancy Martland.

This signage had been visible in front of virtually every property leading into or out of Sugar Hill. The landscape for many residents will profoundly change if Northern Pass comes to fruition. The community will change for all of them.

For those unfamiliar, Northern Pass is a partnership project of Northeast Utilities, Connecticut-based owners of Public Service Company of New Hampshire and HydroQuebec, a Quebec Province generator of electric power. Its purpose is to bring high voltage DC (direct current) power lines from Quebec to a substation in Franklin, NH that will convert the power into AC (alternating current) and send it on its way to Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York.

Folks throughout Coos and Grafton counties are up in arms over the project. More than 2,500 have shown up at public meetings or hearings on Northern Pass. The potential change to their landscape is disheartening enough, but the issue that has them mobilized and unified is the use of eminent domain to take their land. While PSNH has rights of way for some of the project, eminent domain will be needed to acquire all of the land necessary for completion.

To prevent this, opponents encouraged legislators to bring forward HB 648 to restrict the use of eminent domain by a utility company to cases in which the electricity is needed for system reliability. That bill passed easily in the House but foundered in the Senate where it was re-referred to committee.

It was over a story in the Alert on this legislation that Nancy contacted me and we began an e-mail correspondence about the impacts to her community from Northern Pass. It was at her urging that Bruce and I were in Sugar Hill.

As the rain intensified and we wrapped up visiting all of the vendors, Nancy invited us for a cup of coffee at her home about a mile away. She and her husband Carl live in an 1850 farmhouse that sits about halfway up a steep hill. Sitting on her sunporch one can see for miles around. In the distance Cannon Mountain and the Kinsmans range shape the horizon. Closer in and across the street the land slopes gently away with its meadow grasses and abundance of colorful lupine.

As we admired the view, Nancy pointed out where the 140 foot towers would slice right through the middle of the skyscape. I suspect that the coffee invitation was designed for us to see just that. It was, of course, not only the Martland views that would change irreversibly with Northern Pass but those of many other landowners in the community.

It’s easy to see how their lovingly groomed property will lose its market value. Even now sales have been stymied over the potential of Northern Pass. Moreover, the damage to the tourism business in the area seems inevitable if Northern Pass is completed. It is difficult to imagine anyone wanting pictures of lupine with electrical towers in the fore- or background.

Opponents of the Northern Pass project are counting on their government to ensure protection of their property and their way of life. They are despondent at the re-referral of HB 648, but are looking forward to a happier result as this bill is worked on and brought to a vote next year. In a political climate in which an increasing number of our legislators believe that the market can be an arbiter of all disputes, it is clear what the outcome will be if government fails to carefully defend our citizens’ interests. Even 2,500 opponents are no match for the billions of corporate dollars being expended on this project.





Contents

Page
Thought for the Week: Of Lupine and Electric Towers 1
Late Breaking News 3
The Week in Brief 4
Gov’s Veto Pen Getting Plenty of Use 4
All Eyes on the Budget 6
Where are the Jobs? 8
One Mom’s View 10
Update on Redress of Grievance Committee 12
Hold Onto Your Hats – Sneak Preview 2012 13



Late Breaking News

Breaking the stalemate on budget negotiations, the Senate caved to House demands to include a 10 cent decrease in the cigarette tax. This makes New Hampshire the only state in the country to decrease such a tax. Interestingly, the reduction in what is purported to be a loss of some $15 million in revenues was dubbed “revenue neutral” so there was no off-setting reduction in expenditures in the budget. Most economists interviewed on the decrease had earlier indicated that it would not result in significantly higher sales of cigarettes. If their prediction is correct revenues will decline.

On Wednesday, June 15 the NH Supreme Court ruled it would be unconstitutional for the legislature to mandate the NH Attorney General to join the lawsuit against the Patient Projection and Affordable Care Act. The Court agreed with the testimony provided by Attorney General Delaney when legislation directing him to join the action was heard before the House Judiciary Committee. In its ruling, the Court stated the bill “which removes entirely from the executive branch the decision as to whether to join the state as a party to litigation, would usurp the executive branch’s power to execute and enforce the law…..[the bill] violates the separation of powers clause and is unconstitutional.”

The unanimous decision by the NH Supreme Court didn’t deter Rep. Andrew Manuse of Derry from arguing that the legislature should simply ignore the ruling and do what they wished. If Rep. Manuse and others like him get his way there will be tens of thousands of dollars in court fees before this one is settled.

Some legislators may have already planned for the possibility of the Court’s ruling, however. There is plenty of legislation in the pipeline to eliminate or water down the court’s role. One bill, for instance, will restrict the courts to only assessing the constitutionality of their own actions, but not the legislature’s (that is, if the legislature passes a law it will be able to determine whether its own acts are constitutional). In light of everything that has happened to date this year, I hope readers will agree this is dangerous to the nth degree!

The Week in Brief

Committees of Conference are in full swing and working toward a deadline of Thursday, June 16 at noon. By that date all CoC’s must have completed their work and members must have signed the report generated by the committee. This report contains either the negotiated language of legislation or stipulates that the committee could not come to agreement which leads to a bill dying a quiet death. Each chamber must act on CoC reports by Thursday, June 23.
The schedule can be found at http://bit.ly/kzecxx. NOTE: The schedule has been found to be incomplete at times so if you want to be certain about the status of any bill you may wish to contact the House Clerk at 271-2548 or the Senate Clerk at 271-2111.

Gov’s Veto Pen Getting Plenty of Exercise:

SB 3, Comprehensive Changes to the NH Retirement System:

On Wednesday, June 15 Governor Lynch vetoed SB 3, a bill that raised pension contributions of employees to cover debts incurred by municipalities and the state over 16 years and reduced benefits to retirees. In an interesting statement accompanying his veto, the Governor indicated that he was vetoing SB 3 in anticipation of additional changes to the pension system that have now been tucked into the budget bills.

It is becoming increasingly evident that the maneuvering with the pension system has far less to do with sound fiduciary management and far more to do with politics – which is just what got the system into the problems that were tackled four years ago by the legislature. This is underscored by the fact that the Committee of Conference on the budget accepted an amendment that would nullify the recommendation of the Board of Trustees of the NH Retirement System. With the guidance of experts and actuaries the Board of Trustees lowered the assumed rate of return on the pension trust. The immediate impact of that action was to increase the contribution of the state and municipalities. Consequently, the $160 million reduction over the upcoming two years that these stakeholders expected would have been cut to $47.6 million.

So what do fiscal magicians do when they don’t like the numbers coming from a credible formula?? Wave their wands and change the formula, of course. In this instance the Committee simply said they were not taking the experts advice, they nullified the vote of the Board of Trustees and delayed the changed formula until 2013, and got the “savings” they wanted at the outset. The savings are, however, a shell game.

Once again the legislature is poised to put into place a formula that allows the state and municipalities to underfund the NH Retirement System and to ultimately break even more promises to public employees. Under the changes that had already been made to the pension system employees will be paying considerably more for fewer benefits than they were promised when they made the commitment to serve our communities and state. If the same lack of ethics and integrity continues to prevail at our statehouse public employees better plan being told they will make up for the shortfall that the current legislature is deliberately creating.

So, here’s my suggested language for any future contract negotiated between public employees and the state/municipalities: Disclaimer: No matter what has been negotiated, please understand that it may be nullified by future legislatures. No matter what promises we are making today, please understand we will probably lobby to have those broken by some future legislature who will be empowered to do so. No matter what trade-offs you make between salary and benefits, please understand you will likely have to pay for all of it in the end anyway. Oh, and by-the-way, we reserve the right to not only break all of our agreements but to call you thugs and parasites when we are doing so.

HB 218, Weaking the Rail Transit Authority:

You may recall that the House introduced HB 218 with the intent to repeal in its entirety the Rail Transit Authority in New Hampshire for no other reason than that they were ideologically opposed to the concept of rail transit. State representatives did this despite a loud outcry from the business community and other stakeholders who believe that rail transit will offer an economic boom to their region. The House passed the legislation also despite the fact that the Rail Transit Authority cost NH taxpayers nothing and had received a $1.5 million grant to conduct a feasibility study – monies that would have been lost if the RTA had been repealed.
When the bill made it to the Senate that body removed the original language but replaced it with language that removed important functions of the RTA. Subsequently, the Governor has vetoed HB 218 and in his veto message made the following points: I am vetoing this legislation because business leaders, particularly in Nashua and Manchester, have clearly said that this bill will hurt their efforts to grow their businesses, to create jobs and to attract new companies to New Hampshire…The support of the business community is validated by an independent study that concluded that the development of rail in the capital corridor could result in more than $2.4 billion in new business sales and nearly 1,000 new jobs created and sustain in New Hampshire in the first twenty years of operation.
HB 109, Prohibiting Local Planning Boards from Mandating Sprinkler Systems:
Given how often throughout this legislative session we have heard that decisions need to be made at the local level, HB 109 stood out as something of an anomaly – though it was hardly the only bill to do so. This legislation would have prohibited local planning boards from setting their own standards for fire suppression systems in one- and two-family dwelling as a condition for receiving local permits. The Governor cited this in his veto message and went on to say: I believe that the decision of whether or not to require fire sprinklers for new or renovated residential development should remain a local one. The state should not dictate a required course of action. It is obviously the local community that is impacted from new residential development both in terms of land use and in terms of bearing the costs of providing increased fire protection services. This legislation will remove local control over an important issue.
HB 329, Requiring Parental Notification Before Performing Abortion on a Minor:

Despite having signaled that some form of parental notification would be acceptable to him, Governor Lynch stated that he had concerns about HB 329, legislation that required parental notification before an abortion is performed on a minor and instituting criminal penalties for failing to meet the requirements of this proposed law.

In this veto message, the Governor stated: The decision whether to complete a pregnancy or seek an abortion is a serious and life-changing one for any pregnant woman. Minors need and benefit from the support and guidance of their parents…However, any law must make reasonable allowances for cases where that is not possible. I am particularly troubled by the lack of an exception for victims of rape, incest and abuse.”

Budget Negotiations Take on Circus Atmosphere

It was probably inevitable no matter how the Senate tried to hold it together and play nice in the sandbox. The House has been so far out of control over this past legislative year that no amount of reason even from members of their own party could produce a thoughtful and rational process.

The Committee of Conference began on an agreeable enough note with the major decision on what each body was willing to spend (regardless of the needs of the state) was deftly managed. With little fanfare the conferees arrived at a spending level that was $17 million more than the House had wanted to spend, $23 million less than the Senate projected in spending and a whopping $267 million less than the Governor felt necessary to meet the needs of the State. All that was left was to determine where the money would be spent.

As the budget conferees slogged through the process of allocating dollars to various programs of state government, suddenly at the eleventh hour earlier in the week as the deadline loomed for the committee to have completed its work, House members brought in some 20 or so last minute and, in some cases, highly technical amendments. Why this surprised Senate conferees is a mystery as exactly the same thing had occurred in the waning hours of the House Finance Committee’s work on the budget.

Senate Finance Chair Chuck Morse went ballistic, publicly berating his House colleagues. “I spent months putting this budget together in a sophisticated manner, and you offer an amendment that could affect everybody in this state and we haven’t debated it. This is absolutely wrong,” he bellowed. “You could have drafted them and you could have had them to the Senate in time to read them all. This is absolutely wrong…We don’t govern like this.”

The media widely covered the story on the initial breakdown of negotiations over the amendments issue. However, Senator Morse’s statement of having “spent months putting this budget together” is also noteworthy. In fact, the Senate Finance Committee members have only had the budget for a little over a month to work on. Morse’s reference to having spent “months” on the documents lends some credibility to rumors that have swirled for the past several months that he worked with gubernatorial wannabe John Stephens to craft New Hampshire’s biennial budget without unveiling that to his Senate colleagues.

The Senate has until noon on Thursday, June 16 to sign off on the budget, while the House has until 5 p.m. The House has indicated it is unwilling to sign off until the ten cent a pack decrease in the cigarette tax is included – something that sent Senator Morse into a another paroxysm of anger. He accused House leadership of reneging on a behind-closed-doors deal that had been brokered over the budget. Saying that “the Senate is totally offended by the actions of House leadership” and that neither he nor New Hampshire would be held hostage over this matter. It remains to be seen who caves first.

Some noteworthy changes in the budget from the Committee of Conference:

• Leasing of Cannon Mountain has been pulled for this year.
• Changes to the Comprehensive Shoreland Protection Act contained in both the budget bill and a separate piece of legislation appear dead for this year. The House wanted to use this as a bargaining chip over their mission to repeal New Hampshire’s involvement in the regional greenhouse gas initiative program. The separate bill on repeal of RGGI has been vetoed by the Governor.
• Elimination of collective bargaining rights are off the table for the time being.
• The CoC compromise restored some funding for programs at the Department of Environmental services saving the shellfish monitoring and the pool and spa inspections programs.
• About $2 million was added back to the severe cuts to the University System of NH. However, that is not sufficient to prevent the layoffs and tuition increases that are projected to result in massive cuts in state aid.
• The new bed tax on hospitals as well as the loss of federal monies to care for the poor and indigent remain in the compromise budget.

Of central interest in the development of New Hampshire’s biennial budget is whether the manner in which the state raises revenues and the priorities that it sets in spending those revenues create a more conducive climate for economic growth or a less nurturing climate for expansion. The reviews are clearly not in on a document that has yet to see the ink placed on it never mind dry. Nonetheless, indications are that the budget that will be in place on July 2, 2011 will have serious and negative consequences for workers throughout the state and for the businesses who depend upon a middle class having adequate financial resources and being willing to spend some of that on the necessities and niceties of life.

My personal prediction is that we will soon find ourselves sliding backward in economic terms with rising unemployment, increasing home foreclosures and decreasing home values and a decreasing standard of living in New Hampshire. Below are some of the first indicators of what may be in store.

Where Are the Jobs??

For 18 straight months leading into 2011 New Hampshire’s unemployment rate inched its way down the glory days of below 5%. With only a temporary setback it continued on that path to its current status of 4.9%, one of the most favorable unemployment rates in the country.

Throughout the Great Recession, as it has been referenced, New Hampshire lost 28,000 jobs – that’s 28,000 New Hampshire citizens who found themselves without a job. Economists had initially predicted that those jobs would come back or be replaced by the middle of 2012. That prediction has now been pushed out by at least a year to mid-year 2013. http://bit.ly/kWyEiW

According to Dennis Delay, economist with NH Public Policy, the unemployment rate has been dropping, not solely because jobs are being created, but because some workers have moved out of state and some have simply stopped looking, a phenomenon referred to as “discouraged workers.” Had some not dropped out of the rate the actual unemployment would be 5.3% according to Delay.

So the question is: How will policies put in place by the current legislature help or harm the already stalled pace of job creation? Remember that all of these folks ran on the mantra they would “rein in spending and create jobs.” How are they doing?

If some of the preliminary numbers are any indication, not so good. In fact, to paraphrase Rep. Bachman “their report card would have a big failing grade on it!” The latest numbers illustrating that point include:

• 400 – 700 state employees will find themselves in the unemployment line by the end of this year
• 200 folks are slated to be pink-slipped by the University of NH as part of their efforts to deal with a 45%-50% cut in state aid to UNH
• 15-88 state police (the current range between the Senate and the House) may find themselves looking for employment.
• 15-88 state police (the current range between the Senate and the House) may find themselves looking for employment.
• 20 people with full-time jobs at NH Public Television were laid off last week
• Several dozen Department of Environmental Services employees may be pounding pavement soon. This figure will be over and above the general figure of lay-offs for state employees above.
• An as yet unspecified number of layoffs are anticipated from hospitals and healthcare systems throughout the state as a result of the new confiscatory tax on these healthcare providers. Hospitals are projected to sustain losses of $126.9 million this year and an additional $131.7 million next year.
• Dozens, if not hundreds, of jobs in the private, non-profit social service network are rumored to be in jeopardy as the results of budget cuts that affect the servies they provide. At one point during House negotiations this number was rumored to be upwards of a couple thousand under the worst scenarios. Given the reinstatements of some programs by the Senate, job losses are unlikely to reach such levels. However, many area agencies serving the elderly, those with mental illness and those with developmental disabilities will find themselves needing to make tough choices.

Some job losses are more difficult to immediately quantify but those affected know they are coming. For example, the aggregate cuts in spending on roads/bridges, school building and hospital building and expansion is projected to hit the construction industry hard say industry insiders. Many workers within these trades have already gone without employment or have been under-employed throughout this lingering recession. Cuts in a diverse array of construction projects will prolong this misery for these workers.

Projected job losses will have an escalating ripple effect within each community throughout the state. Over the coming months we will see more mortgage defaults, more properties foreclosed upon, loss of property tax revenues to already cash-strapped municipalities, fewer dollars flowing within the community and supporting local businesses and added stress to social service providers such as hospitals and mental health centers who have already been severely impacted by new taxes and loss of federal dollars as in the case of hospitals or loss of state subsidies to care for the indigent in the case of mental health centers.

This phenomenon of an economic dominoe effect has been discussed in past issues of the Alert. For a very succinct overview of what is happening to our economy please see http://bit.ly/lFfgMI. This two minute and fifteen second clip by Robert Reich, noted economist and former Labor Secretary under President Clinton, tells you everything you need to know about why the economy is in the shape it is in. And, it happily just happens to agree with what I’ve been saying in several issues of the Alert!

Personal Perspective on Budget Impacts:

The budget that is about to pass is only marginally less draconian and painful than that passed by the House that drew 5,000 of our citizens in protest. There will be a few more children at risk helped, but the majority, some 400, won’t be. There will be a few more individuals with disabilities assisted, but many won’t be. Remember that although legislators reinstated some monies they also changed the law that requires full funding for the developmental disabilities waitlist. They need that for what they know will be a shortfall. There will be more individuals with mental illness provided services, many more won’t be.

I’ve made the lists of cuts and talked about the impacts of these several times in the Alert. However, simply enumerating each slash to our social service network fails to capture the personal pain that will be felt by our fellow citizens. That personal perspective was shared by Gloria Ruff of Keene in her testimony before House finance. With her permission I share it with you.



Testimony of Gloria Ruff on Proposed Budget Cuts:




I am here as the stepmom to a 19-year old young man.

80% of those in need of developmental services are unsafe to leave at home alone. The increasing freedoms that most parents enjoy as their children grow in age and independence are denied families who have members with disabilities.

Job coaches, respite, both in-home and semi-independent out-of- home supports and placements are not just nice things to have-they are human needs that cannot wait. The families and the disabled themselves are denied as full and productive a life experience as they could have. If supports are cut, my son will be home with me 24/7, bored and lonely, as he is not safe at home alone and will need supports and training for employment.

I appreciate you being here to listen to the public speak, but mostly I’m angry. I’m angry that draconian measures are laid on the shoulders of our most vulnerable populations and their families to balance a budget. All of these groups you’ve heard from today are worthy.

I’m most angry that so many people have had to take time away from their jobs and caring for their families to travel here, hat in hand, to beg our representatives to simply do what is right.

I’m sick of politicians alternately bragging and hand-wringing that they are here to make the hard choices. I submit that they are not making any hard choices because their decisions do not affect them! A hard choice is whether to keep a roof over your family’s head by working productively-while risking a member’s safety, or to stay at home to ensure their safety and putting the whole family in need of welfare services. A hard choice is whether to pay one’s ever-increasing property taxes, or to sacrifice other necessities such as warm clothing, heat in the winter, a healthy diet, or medicines.


I’m angry that cutting the legs out from under anyone struggling to get or to stay on their feet as a responsible citizen is even considered in such a wealthy state, especially when taxes are being cut and even eliminated for those best able to afford them. To add insult to injury, new money is being sought to pay for ridiculous things such as state militias. I suspect I’m not alone in my anger.

Thank you.

Gloria Ruff
Keene, NH




Update on Redress of Grievances Committee

You may recall a discussion in the Alert of the highly conflicted House Redress of Grievances Committee. This committee allows legislators to take up petitions of private citizens against the courts of our state, to hold open hearings about which impacted parties may or may not be notified and to propose remedies for the petitioner which may or may not include overturning court decisions and/or impeaching judges and masters. The recognition that it is something other than “justice” that is likely to be dispensed by a highly political body should be immediately apparent to even a judicial neophyte. The clear and present danger to the constitutional balance of power that has survived since our founding should strike fear into the heart of every rational person.

In a recent editorial, Judge Edwin Kelly, the target of one of the current petitions before the Redress committee, provides an historical and well-reasoned perspective of the implications of continuing on with this body. He also elaborates on the conflicts that the Chair of this committee, Rep. Paul Ingrebretson had that went well-beyond what he acknowledged in stepping down on the widely reported petition brought by David Johnson. Ingrebretson and many members of his caucus including House leadership had role-played this committee in 2009 and had already formed an opinion of this case as well as the remedial action he would take. It is clear that leadership knew precisely what would be presented in hearings before the committee and what decisions they wanted. The media spotlight that has shined on them may have given some pause with moving ahead now, but there are already new petitions being filed for the upcoming year.

Judge Kelly masterfully explains how this new creation of the current legislature is undoubtedly upsetting the careful balance between the three branches of government established by far wiser individuals than are now governing us. His guest editorial is well worth the read and can be found at http://bit.ly/iZBTPO.



Sneak Preview:

Strap Yourselves In: They’re About to Go Into Over-drive!

Maybe it’s because they won so impressively last fall. Maybe it’s because they believe they have been touched by the Almighty to enlighten New Hampshire’s citizens who wandered in the darkness before they arrived on the scene to save us. Maybe it’s because they are so ardently ideologically driven that no information save that confirming what they already believe seeps in.

Whatever the reason one thing is clear: The Statehouse gang doubled down in ways that can only the labeled extraordinary – and not in a good way. The hundreds upon hundreds of citizens who showed up at the Statehouse during this legislative session to protest extremist bills have not deterred our stalwart guardians of the public trust. Just a peak at some of what’s in store for the next legislative session includes the following:

• 2012-H-2504-R, Requiring the courts to give every woman who gets a restraining order a gun and a box of ammunition and provide her with instruction in shooting. I know, I know you think I’m making this up! The prime sponsor for this creative government-mandated and sponsored self-defense program is Rep. Robert Kingsbury who represents Belknap, District 4, Laconia. Rep. Kingsbury is a self-described member of the John Birch Society since 1962. http://bit.ly/iJxspI Can somebody explain what the good citizens of Laconia were thinking when they put him in government? Has anyone from Laconia watched what he has done when in office?

• 2012-H-2026-R, Establishing a permanent state defense force. The New Hampshire army is back! Despite the fact that this bill failed to garner sufficient support for passage in the current year it’s back for a second go-round. The sponsor of this New Hampshire protection plan is Rep. Daniel Itse, Fremont, Rockingham, District 9.

• 2012-H-2107-R, Prohibiting a person from being charged with speeding unless there is a victim of the offense. This is the Free Stater Dream Act. Passage of this bill will make it penalty-free to be a Roadrunner on our streets unless one accidently mows someone down or crashes through their front window. Please note, however, that being scared into a heart attack is unlikely to allow you to press charges as a “victim.” Rep. George Lambert, a Free State Project member serving Hillsborough, District 17 from Litchfield is the prime sponsor of this bill and other equally loopy bills such as that prohibiting prosecution for a victimless crime – think doing drugs on this one which for some inexplicable reason is important to this crew.

• 2012-H-2175-R, Urging congress to privatize all aspects of social security. Not content to simply allow their federal counterparts to unravel the social contract that our country proudly entered into with our seniors seven decades ago (and which Republicans of a by-gone era supported), state legislators want to send a message to dismantle it. We all know how well the stock market has performed over this past decade, now don’t we?? I’m sure that these same folks are just licking their chops over helping us manage our little nest eggs, not to mention being able to extract fees for doing so. Rep. Jerry Bergevin of Manchester serving Hillsborough, District 17, an avowed libertarian is the prime sponsor.

• 2012-H-2176-R, Requiring the teaching of evolution in the schools as a theory. Maybe I’ve been out of school for too long, but I could have sworn that we already refer to the Theory of Evolution. But perhaps the sponsor has something a bit different in mind here? The prime sponsor is the same Rep. Jerry Bergevin as above.

• 2012-H-2320-R, Requiring the teaching of intelligent design in the public schools. Ahhh, perhaps this one coordinates nicely with the above – teach evolution as some pseudo-science guessing game and forget that there is any such thing as separation of church and state. Rep. Gary Hopper of Weare, serving Hillsborough, District 7 is the prime sponsor.

There are plenty more where these came from – 57 pages in all so far and those are only House bills. We’ll be adding to that list over the summer and fall so that you are full apprised of legislation being introduced in your Statehouse. That last point may be difficult to remember at times given what we have been thought this year, but it is an important fact that each of us should keep at the forefront of our minds. This is our state and we didn’t agree to turn it over to folks with this kind of extreme agenda. We are the only ones who can take it back. That is going to take a concerted effort toward letting our families, friends and neighbors know what is happening. Please spend time over the coming months sharing the information on what was introduced and what passed this year as well as what has been introduced for next year. Our only hope of bringing common sense and reason back to our state government

Pickup Patriots on Mitt Romney: He Sucked at Job Creation...anywhere but here!!!

Romney and Speaker O'Brien must operate with the same set of principles: Job creation anywhere BUT HERE. Romney as CEO of Bain advised corporate behemoths to expand - in India and China - while O'Brien created a company that outsourced legal jobs to India.
Not only did Romney pull an O'Brien when he was in the private sector - create jobs anywhere but here - but when he was in the Governor's office, job creation wasn't on his political radar.

The tagline for both pols could read:

“Job creation anywhere BUT HERE.”

According to Ron Paul's campaign in a message released after last night’s debate, Romney sucked at job creation while Governor of Massachusetts:


“From 2003 to 2007 while Romney was Governor, Massachusetts ranked 47th in the nation for jobs growth. Job growth was 0.9% (National average 5%) Market Watch

After Romney’s first year in office, Massachusetts ranked 50/50 Market Watch

Between 2002 and 2006, manufacturing payroll employment declined by over 14% (3rd worst in country) - national average was 7% Boston Globe

Average weekly wage of workers in Massachusetts increased by $1 between 2001 and 2006 (inflation adjusted) Reuters

Real output of goods and services grew just 9% (the rate for the US as a whole was 13%) Reuters



Yours in hauling out the political trash...

www.pickuppatriots.com

Jackie Cilley's Legislative Action Alert, Week of June 6, 2011

Legislative Action Alert
Week of June 6, 2011
Jackie Cilley
jcilley@aol.com


When Middle Ground Doesn’t Exist
Late last week an area newspaper carried an editorial titled “The Right Place is in the Middle.” The point was this right-leaning paper was in agreement with the left-leaning Boston Globe that there should be compromise, a meeting in the middle (more to the right of the middle according to the editorial) over the national budget – the perfect spot was somewhere between Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan and that supported by the Obama administration.

The editorial echoed other recent articles and letters to the editor suggesting the public wants negotiation and compromise, it wants “civility in discourse” and it wants to see those who represent us working together. Ideas of finding the middle ground have been on my mind a great deal lately.

As a former elected official I believed compromise could be a path to better outcomes. While I may have fallen short of always meeting others halfway, I nonetheless fully embraced the notion that negotiation and compromise were admirable approaches to governance. I believed what I believed most folks believe. And, I believe that most folks do, indeed, believe that.

The current chasm in policy arguments is causing me to rethink this. I find myself repeatedly coming back to one central question: Is it possible to find middle ground between a myth or lie and fact? Is it possible, for example, to find an consensus view of our nation’s history between Sarah Palin’s distortion of Paul Revere’s ride and the historical account that even Revere himself conveyed to the ages? Is it possible to find negotiated solutions to climate change between those who don’t believe it is occurring at all and the overwhelming majority of the world’s credible scientists who say our climate is changing in dangerous ways propelled, at least in part, by human activity? Is it possible to find meaningful economic solutions between those who adhere to the thoroughly debunked idea of supply side “economics” and those who subscribe to almost any other supportable economic theory?

A case in point of an adherence to a baseless ideology is the story of Arizona (a state that just so happens to have the highest number of legislators who have signed the Grover Norquist pledge explained in an earlier issue of the Alert). Since 1992 Arizona has cut more than 45 individual taxes and fees. In the current year, the Arizona legislature once again passed a package of tax cuts that will trim an additional $538 million from state coffers despite running a deficit in excess of $3 billion.

The particularly interesting thing about Arizona lawmakers’ unflagging march toward yet still lower taxes is that every single time they have instituted a tax cut they have used the exact same mantra that businesses will now be able to “create new high paying jobs and grow the economy.” The actual factual results: Arizona is 48th in job creation, it has lost 300,000+ jobs since the beginning of the recession, has some of the highest foreclosure rates in the country while continuously shifting the tax burden to local property taxpayers and away from businesses (this will have a very familiar ring in New Hampshire soon), and has sold off most of its state assets including its state Capitol which it must now lease back – ultimately costing the state far more. Add to those pieces of data that 18.9 percent of Arizona’s citizens lack health insurance and more than a quarter of a million children in the state do not have coverage.

Arizona is a microcosm of what is happening on a national level and in state after state currently. It has served as a laboratory for the fullest experiment of supply side economics we have seen in this country. On every single measure the evidence is clear and compelling that the policy is an abysmal failure. Certainly the notion that repeatedly cutting taxes produces “high paying jobs and grows the economy” has been utterly discredited. How does one find middle ground when one side of the debate is grounded in a false premise?

The problem closer to home in New Hampshire goes even deeper. The argument proffered by the Free State/Tea Party faction with increasingly more influence over the Republican side of the aisle is that government is largely unnecessary save for “the protection of life, liberty and property” interpreted in the narrowest possible way. How do we find workable middle ground solutions to challenges in education when one side begins with the position that public education is unnecessary? How do we find negotiated consumer protections when one side argues that the very market from which certain harms arise will self-correct – if, and that’s a big “if,” it does at all it will only do so after significant harm has befallen some group(s) of consumers.

One conclusion that I have drawn from these considerations is that folks may say they want compromise and negotiation but they most assuredly don’t want halfway solutions. We all really want sound solutions, solutions that produce real, measurable results, to the problems we face. We often make the assumption that these are more likely from compromise. In truth, that can only happen if both sides begin with evidence-based positions/approaches and negotiate from there. There really isn’t a viable mid-point between a lie and a truth, between a myth and a fact.


Late Breaking News
As the Alert was being readied for distribution today (Thursday, June 9) the first Committee of Conference on the biennial budget met. While the policy decisions underscoring the budget have yet to be hammered out, arguably the most important decision was made this afternoon. House and Senate conferees agreed that they would spend $24 million less than the Senate used in revenue estimates.
You may recall that there was a difference of $75 million between the House’s utterly draconian budget and the Senate’s merely really painful budget that was itself $244 million less than the Governor’s proposed budget. It now appears that the difference between the two chambers will be $51 million and there will be more cuts coming.

The budget conferees have from now until Thursday, June 16 to come to agreement on where the revenues they have agreed to will be spent. There was considerable difference between the two chambers on priorities within the budget with the Senate clearly directing more funding to Health and Human Service programs for persons with mental illness and persons with developmental disabilities. The next schedule meeting of the CoC on the budget is Sunday, June 12 at 1 p.m. in Rm 210/211 of the LOB (Legislative Office Building) .


The Week in Brief
The deadline of June 23, the final day for any legislative action on all Committee of Conference reports, looms ahead for the legislature. Among the highest profile and important pieces of legislation going into the CoC process is the biennial budget. Negotiations on the budget began this week. There is no indication at present how much time may be needed to resolve the differences between the House and Senate over the budget.

Schedule of Committees of Conference a Mystery:
Tracking Committees of Conference may be far more difficult than is typically the case. Despite having there being a rule that CoC’s must be given a 24 hour notice in order to allow interested parties to attend these public discussions, there have already been CoC’s held at the same time that notice was provided about there being a committee meeting. So much for that transparency thing.

Granite State Progress, a “multi-issue progressive advocacy group,” located in Concord, NH issued the following bulletin on Thursday of this week:

An urgent alert to everyone that there are several committees of conference meeting today with NO PRIOR NOTICE.

If you are following a COC, do not rely on the online posting or the postings in the Clerk's office -- there was a committee that started at 1:00 pm today -- the exact same time it was posted. Please call friendly legislators and find out whether your conference is meeting. For those following the Budget, there is a 2:00 pm coc.

Granite State Progress has spoken to several lawyers in the last hour. We are seeking to file an injunction since law clearly states 24 hours notice is needed. It is unclear whether Democratic members of the committees were informed prior; it is abundantely clear that advocacy groups and consumers have had no prior notice.

IF ONE OF THE COMMITTEES YOU ARE FOLLOWING DID A LAST-MINUTE MEETING, PLEASE CONTACT US. We will be seeking specific examples in addition to the physical evidence we have - time-stamped print outs of the online postings and mid-morning pictures from the Clerk's Wall. Please copy both zandra@granitestateprogress and caitlin@granitestateprogress.org on the example. Thank you so much.

Although it cannot be trusted to list all CoC’s that have been scheduled there is a legislative website listing scheduled CoC’s (at least those they don’t mind your knowing about in advance). The schedule can be found at http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/committee_of_conference/cofc.asp

Vote on Right to Work More of a Mystery:
For the third week in a row NH House Speaker Bill O’Brien refused to call a vote on the infamous HB 474, Right to Work Act. Following the Governor’s veto of this bill that has been discussed on several occasions in the Alert, the House has included it in the House calendar as a possibility to be taken up. Each week has come and gone without the Speaker doing so and despite several calls from fellow legislators to put it to a vote. The Speaker has from now until December 31 of this year to hold that vote and many fear that he will pick a time when those supporting the veto are outnumbered by the two-thirds required to overturn the veto.

In the mean time rumors abound about relentless strong arm tactics used to encourage legislators to change their vote or to take a walk. This week, according to sources, House leadership stooped so low as to use the death of former Governor Walter Peterson. Following the demise of this universally admired statesman, a number of legislators claimed House leadership suggested they simply say they attended the Governor’s funeral and could not attend Wednesday’s House session. That did not happen, but it certainly showed the lengths leadership is willing to go meet their agenda. Shame or embarrassment seems to be an utterly emotional ability among these folks.


The Road’s End for Select Legislation??
Over the next three weeks the legislature will wrap up its work and legislation not retained, re-referred to committee or tabled will head to the Governor’s desk. Once a bill reaches his desk, Governor Lynch has the option of signing it, vetoing the bill or allowing it to become law without his signature. As we have seen with HB 474, the Right to Work Act, that process has already begun. Below are is an overview of the disposition of some of the bills that we have followed and reported on in the Alert. In cases of vetoes, of course, we may not know the epilogue until much later in the year.

Will New Hampshire Keep Its Own Minimum Wage?
Despite the fact that the minimum wage was originally championed by at least two well-regarded Republican governors and despite the fact New Hampshire has had its own minimum wage since 1949, both the House and Senate resoundingly passed a bill that repealed New Hampshire’s minimum wage. That legislation has now reached the Governor who swiftly vetoed it. Unfortunately for our workers and for the traditions of our state, HB 133 repealing the minimum wage passed both the House and Senate by veto-proof majorities (239-106 in the House; 19-5 in the Senate). There is little reason to believe that this bill won’t make its way into law.

Is RGGI In or Out?
In the tortuous manner that some legislation makes its way through the pipeline of the legislature, there is now a bill on the way to Governor’s desk that would repeal New Hampshire’s participation in the regional greenhouse gas initiative. It’s not the bill that started out to do this, but it accomplishes the goal nonetheless. You may recall the Alert tracking HB 519 that started out to repeal RGGI. The House passed that bill with a veto-proof majority. Once it reached the Senate, that body rewrote the whole bill retaining the program and changing the way that it functioned as well tied its fate to any state that decided to leave the program. The Senate’s action sent the House into a snit leading that chamber to replace the original of language of HB 519 onto SB 154 an important bill to the Senate containing changes to the Comprehensive Shoreland Protection Act.

I hope you’re still with me here because the trail of these two policy positions further winds its way along. The Senate clearly signaled its intent to retain the RGGI program, but it really wanted its changes to the Comprehensive Shoreland Protection Act. So, it did several things to accomplish its goals. First, it tucked the language of SB 154 on the CSP into HB 2 the narrative of the budget bill. As added insurance that it would get its changes to the CSP, the Senate went ahead and concurred with the House amended SB 154 even though that bill now contained the repeal of RGGI.

The Governor has indicated that he will veto SB 154 when it reaches him in the next few days. The fate of this legislation containing two major policy matters is unknown. The House passed the original repeal of RGGI with a veto-proof majority so presumably it has the votes to override a veto. The Senate, on the other hand, has sent a clear message that it wants to retain the program. The hope, then, is that the Senate will sustain the veto. Did you follow all that??

Expansion of Death Penalty:
New Hampshire is likely to soon have an expanded use of the death penalty. HB 147 was a priority bill for speaker O’Brien who has already dubbed it the Kimberly Cate Bill after the mother murdered in his home town of Temple. Under the House version of HB 147 the death penalty could be invoked for murder committed during a home invasion. The Senate amended the bill to extend the use of the death penalty to murder committed wherever a person was entitled to be.

The Governor signaled his intent to sign the bill in its original language as passed by the House. Despite changes made by the Senate it is still widely anticipated that it will receive his signature.


Turns Out Senate Has Its Own Drama
Talk to political observers over this legislative term and invariably the discussion would turn to whether the Senate was ideologically aligned with the House. Veteran Statehouse players consistently ruminated over whether the NH Senate would be “more disciplined” than its sister chamber. The use of the term “discipline” here refers to whether the most important goal for Senators was to be re-electable and re-elected over and above even their core ideology. Being ideologically pure is not always the best prescription for being re-elected as federal officeholders who signed onto killing the popular Medicare program are finding.

The jury is still out on this issue relative to the NH Senate. There are, however, some early indications that it may be difficult for those with extreme views to contain themselves and follow along with the goals of leadership in the Senate. Last week, for instance, a group referred to by Statehouse watchers as the Sanborn Caucus (named for Senator Andy Sanborn of District 7) created quite a stir for the larger Republican caucus.

According to several sources, shortly before the vote on the Senate’s budget was set to take place, the Sanborn Caucus informed Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley that they would not vote for the budget unless another billion dollars was lopped off. Word has it that it was immaterial to this crew where the billion dollars might come from, they just wanted that amount cut willy nilly from the bottom line. It is worth noting that several of these elected officials campaigned for office saying they would take a scalpel to the budget not an axe. Clipping 10% off the biennial state budget that is already trimmed by at least 5% which by itself fails to meet the needs of the state seems pretty much like an axe or a machete or a buzz saw. In addition to Sanborn, the purported members who meet regularly in this caucus include Sen. Jim Forsythe of District 4, Sen. Fenton Groen of District 6 and Sen. Raymond White of District 9 (for a list of communities comprising each district please click this link).

You might consider reaching out and asking these axe-wielders what else they want to cut in a budget that currently downshifts more than $100 million to local communities, leaves our elderly behind, lays off more than 400 public employees, hits our hospitals with an unexpected $115 million in new taxes and another $135 million loss of Medicaid funds to name a few impacts. Ask for specifics and if you can’t get specifics, question just how serious and thoughtful a representative he is for you and for New Hampshire.

Additional fissures of the Senate majority were evident on the vote to reduce the high school drop-out age. The bill that would allow students to drop out at age 16 rather than the current 18 years of age is strictly ideological and is thoroughly unpopular with the general public in New Hampshire. Even the most conservative newspapers in the state advocated against this regressive measure that flies in the face of New Hampshire’s recent achievement as second in the nation for low drop-out rates. Ignoring the outcry against this bill and voting against the recommendation of the Senate Education Committee to kill the bill was the Sanborn coalition of Sens. Sanborn, Forsythe, Groen and White as well as Sen. Sharon Carson of District 14 and Sen. Jim Luther of District 12. If they’re willing to lop a billion dollars off the budget it probably makes sense to them to encourage as many students as possible to exit early and reduce the burden of educating them – you suppose??

Susan Bruce's Column for 6.10.11

Guinta, Bass, and the Ryan Plan 

Republican Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin came up with a budget plan that was applauded by his Teabaglican pals in the US House. NH Congressman Charlie Bass got behind it. Congressman Frank Guinta first complained that it didn’t cut enough – but then he got behind it, too. Senator Kelly Ayotte announced that if the Ryan plan came for a vote before the Senate, she’d support it. Then everything started to unravel, as more and more detail about the Ryan budget surfaced. 

Republican economist Mark Zandi found that the Ryan budget would eliminate 1.7 million jobs in the first two years. Economists across the political spectrum warned that the Ryan plan would set back the long-term growth and competitiveness of the US economy. The Ryan plan makes deep cuts to education, training, science and technology R&D, and transportation infrastructure investment. One can see how this would further the “American exceptionalism” that these folks love to get all weepy about. A country with crumbling infrastructure, falling behind in science and technology, while cutting over a million jobs could only be described as exceptional. 

Oh, but wait! There’s more. The Ryan plan also calls for turning Medicare into a voucher program. Those folks currently aged 55 or older would continue to get Medicare, as we know it. Everyone else would get a voucher from Medicare to buy private insurance from the many companies who are just dying to get in on insuring senior citizens. As insurance costs continue to rise, seniors would be paying the difference themselves, from their Social Security pension, which would also be privatized under the Ryan Plan. The vouchers would not increase to meet rising health costs. None of the doughty Republicans are using the term “rationing” or even “death panels,” though certainly both would apply. 

Charlie Bass supports this plan to eliminate Medicare. He’s awfully upset though, that his support for a voucher program is being called support for a voucher program.  A couple of groups paid for a TV ad that criticizes Bass’s support for the voucher program. In the ad, a former Bass supporter talks about what the changes in Medicare would mean to her family. The National Republican Congressional Committee tried to get the ad pulled off the airwaves, claiming it was a misrepresentation of the truth. The ad stayed. It’s the truth that Charlie Bass wishes to conceal. He’s not brave enough to stand up and tell the truth about what he’s supporting. His favorability ratings in NH CD-2 are at 29%. 

Frank Guinta also supports this plan. At his recent town hall meetings, he’s pointed out that this won’t apply to anyone over the age of 55, as if that makes him some sort of hero. There is no thought given to those who lost their savings when the economy tanked, no thought given to those older folks who lost their jobs, and still can’t find work, or are still underemployed. It would at least be honest if Frank and Charlie suggested rebuilding the poor houses we once had for the state’s future senior citizens. 

Meanwhile, the US House continues to run much the same way the NH House is running, on the premise that cutting spending and revenue will magically restore our economy. Even though those spending cuts are eliminating jobs, the magic GOP budgets will make everything okay. All we need to do is destroy Medicare and Social Security and that will fix everything. Just don’t ask them to stop borrowing money to fund tax cuts for billionaires, or to stop borrowing to fund the many wars we’re currently embroiled in. 

The Pentagon is the biggest entitlement program and none of the budget peacocks have any intention of doing anything about it. As I’ve pointed out before, the Pentagon can’t pass an audit, and can’t account for trillions of dollars. One would think that our deficit talkers would find that unconscionable. One would be wrong. There is no talk of making the Pentagon accountable. The only talk is of shoveling more money at them, and continuing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Every dollar we spend on war is a dollar we aren’t investing in the future of the nation. It’s a borrowed dollar at that – so it’s part of the debt we’ll be leaving our children. These Teabaglicans would further impoverish senior citizens, and rob them of health care to line the pockets of their friends in the insurance industry and Wall St. At the same time, they are desperate to keep on funding the tax cuts for the wealthy, since they themselves benefit from them of course, as do their donors. 

Charlie Bass voted for every bloated Bush defense budget. He voted for every bloated military appropriations bill. He also voted seven times to increase the debt ceiling. Now, suddenly, he wishes to be seen as Mr. Fiscal Responsibility?  The Republican facility for rewriting history is truly a wonder to behold. Or, as Sarah Palin might say, “Ring, Ring, Kaboom!”