Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Fosters
Why aren’t more New Hampshire residents concerned with the state budget? They are busy trying to balance their own.
New Hampshire is facing a revenue shortfall of as much as $180 million for the biennium that closes at the end of June 2009. Gov. John Lynch is wrestling with how to reduce the spending that was authorized last year while at the same time avoiding anything that resembles a broad-based tax.
A new poll by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center found 79 percent of the people surveyed reported hearing little or nothing about the state’s budget difficulties.
While only 17 percent of the people polled said they have heard a lot about the budget struggle, three-quarters of the number surveyed do know they want nothing to do with an income tax or a general sales tax. Fifty nine percent said they’d vote against a state Senate candidate who supports an income tax and 55 percent said the same about a Senate candidate who supports a sales tax.
Increasing property taxes are no more popular than an income or a sales tax.
The tax burden in New Hampshire, while lighter than in many states, is pushing down on families from one end of the state to another. It is being felt from our state’s border with Canada to the one with Massachusetts and from the Salmon Falls River to the Connecticut River.
If present revenue projections are not enough to fund the programs and services that have been authorized, it is time to get busy making the cuts that will necessary to bring the budget into balance. It is also a time to reject any and all new requests that carry a price tag, no matter how small the amount might be.
The voters of New Hampshire will not be burdened by the weight of an income tax and a general sales tax and the property tax as are their relatives and friends in neighboring states. The people of New Hampshire will take pre-emptive action against those they suspect of such thoughts and retaliatory steps against those who betray their confidence.
It isn’t just the Statehouse on which the people are focused. They want more accountability from city and town councilors and boards of selectmen as well. Their pockets have been picked for too long. It is time to say no to the myriad interests who think of the public purse as a plentiful well of limitless depth.
The survey ought to serve as a wake-up call for those members of the Senate who still harbor visions of using the state’s budget dilemma to pull a broad-based tax bag over the heads of New Hampshire voters and residents when the Legislature next convenes. Those who think differently ought to consider retirement — of making this their last year of service to the people.
It might not be evident to everyone cloistered behind the gray granite walls of the Statehouse, but there are working men and women in New Hampshire who are struggling to house and feed their children — people who are not all but guaranteed an upward wage or salary adjustment each time they ask for one; people who think of a “COLA” as a soft drink, not as a raise in pay; people who do not expect to retire with benefits allowing them to live in a way to which they would like to become accustomed; people who are unsure of having a job this time next year or next month.
Don’t talk about more and higher taxes to the people we’ve just described and the thousands of people who live in a similar manner.
There may be fewer than one-fifth of the people who have heard a lot about the budget debate, but there are a great many more who know they are already paying more in taxes than they can afford and in too many cases carrying a burden greater than they ought to be made to bear.
Maybe this will be the year those who don’t get it will be rejected and/or replaced with others who are in touch with the thinking of the people of New Hampshire.