Sununu and the Charge To The Congress

I had the good fortune to be able to go to a house party last night where former Governor and now chair of the NH Republican Party John H. Sununu was speaking. Hubby and Christopher came along with me (although not for long -- Christopher started getting fussy, so hubby left early to bring him home while I stayed behind). My son has now met more politicians by the age of 1 than I ever have in my lifetime. :-)

Anyway, there was a purpose to Sununu's appearance last night: to get the GOP energized. The goal for next year: to get the Democrats out of the governorship and the congress and give the state back to the people.

I'm just going to repeat the talking points that Sununu pointed out.

1) Since Sununu has been out of office int he mid 1990s, the Pew Charitable Trusts has been giving increasingly bad grades to New Hanpshire's Quality of state services, going frrom a C in 1999 to a D+ in 2008.

2) Spending has increased under the Democrats in charge. This year, despite Governor Lynch touting spending cuts, the budget actually includes 6 to 10% increases in addition to the 17.5% increase in last year's budget. Other states have managed to decrease their budgets by 5% over the last two budget cycles.

3) 38 new and increased taxes and fees are included in the budget, including taxes on small business (LLC Tax), campsite tax and gambling winnings as well as increased taxes on tobacco, vehicle registration fees, condo and land sales fees, boat registration fees, and business profit tax expansion.

4) In addition, more taxes may be coming down the pipline, including a new tax on mortgage refinancing, income tax on capital gains, estate tax, sales tax on entertainment, and increases of the gas tax and business enterprise tax.

5) The New Hampshire Retirement System for state employees (which includes teachers, firefighters, police, municipal and general state employees) has built up a huge unfunded liability leaving employee's retirement security in question. Since 1996, it has grown to a total unfunded liability of $7 billion. The towns are responsible for 30 to 35% of the burden and will have to pay the balance from local property taxes.

6) The local Democrats are counting on one time stimulus money to pay for this, but they are also trying to take money from the Joint Underwriters Association (JUA), a private malpractice fund owned by doctors, to the tune of $110 million to pay for this, too. The deficit not covered by revenues in this budget total $500 million.

We should expect responsibility at the local level, and we should expect it at the state level. Although this blog will be working on getting out the issues within Franklin, we shouldn't forget the fact that the state level is screwed up, as well, and we should work towards getting the word out that way.