Rochester Concerned Taxpayers

Residents point to gambling to solve revenue shortfall
May 16, 2008
Seacoast Online

DURHAM — Don’t raise our property taxes or establish an income or sales tax.

A poll released Monday revealed Granite State residents may not be paying too much attention to the budget crisis in Concord — but are quite sure raising property taxes would be the worst thing lawmakers could do to remedy the educational funding dilemma and state revenue shortfalls.

Learn more: Read UNH Survey Center poll at www.unh.edu/survey-center/news/pdf/gsp2008_spring_tax51208.pdf

The University of New Hampshire Survey Center poll showed, by an overwhelming majority, residents do not want to see the addition of a broad-based income or sales tax — but they are more open to an expansion of legal gambling to help the state boost its revenues.

Despite a potential $200 million shortfall in the state budget ending in June 2009, only 17 percent of Granite State residents said they have heard a lot about the state’s budget difficulties.

“A sales tax or income tax doesn’t seem to be going anywhere,” said Andy Smith, director of the Survey Center. “It doesn’t make the job of the state Legislature any easier.”

The House was expected to vote on a budget cutting and revenue enhancement plan this week that includes multi-million dollar cuts in the legislative and judicial branches — and a plan to raise cigarette taxes by 25 cents a pack if sales don’t increase substantially by October.

According to the survey of 500 adults, residents are reluctant to enact major changes to augment the state’s revenue system from a combination of business taxes, rooms and meals taxes, revenues from the sales of cigarettes, alcohol, and lottery tickets — and a statewide property tax for primary and secondary education.

When asked which change in state funding would be most harmful to the state’s quality of life, 37 percent said an increase in property taxes, followed by an income tax at 19 percent, sales tax at 18 percent, expanded legal gambling at racetracks 14 percent, and decreasing state services at 11 percent.

“Legalized gambling is the least (politically) unpopular of the revenue options,” Smith said. Independents and Republicans preferred expanded gambling at 37 and 44 percent respectively as the best choice to increase revenues — while 33 percent of Democrats supported an income tax.

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.

This alert from the National League of Cities says that the mis-named “Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Bill” is going to get a vote next week.

That bill will federally mandate monopoly bargaining for police, firefighters and EMTs nationwide, in addition to forcing states and municipalities to negotiate over almost all terms and conditions of employment, including safety considerations, which has led to unions prohibiting firefighters from using newly-bought safety equipment because it wasn’t mentioned in the contract.

For this reason, and several others, the New Hampshire House, even under Democratic control, has repeatedly killed bills this session that would have expanded the scope of monopoly bargaining.

In addition to it being bad policy, it’s also just plain wrong to have the federal government come in and impose all this on states. Until now, the feds have realized that what works in one state with public sector unionism doesn’t work in others, but now, at the IAFF’s behest, they’re about to change that. We can only expect that this is merely the first step.

Unfortunately, that didn’t stop Senator Gregg from being the prime sponsor of the bill, and Senator Sununu from signing on as a co-sponsor.

Right now, if just a few Senators withdraw their support, they’ll be able to sustain a filibuster. That’s why I’m asking everyone on here to call Senators Gregg and Sununu and tell them to withdraw their support.

Sununu: (202) 224-2841 Gregg: (202) 224-3324

Here’s also a Heritage Foundation paper on the bill.

Mandatory Collective Bargaining Bill Scheduled For A Vote on Monday, May 12 – Oppose Mandatory Collective Bargaining

On Monday, May 12, the U.S. Senate is scheduled to begin consideration of the mandatory collective bargaining legislation, the Public Safety Employer -Employee Cooperation Act of 2007 (H.R. 980/S. 2123). NLC strongly opposes this legislation.

This legislation would preempt local government authority by forcing local goverments to negotiate with labor unions representing public safety officers over the terms and conditions of employment with labor regardless of state constitutions, state laws, and local laws.

Call your Senators and urge them to “VOTE NO” to Mandatory Collective Bargaining (S. 2123/H.R. 980).

To find your Senators’ telephone numbers in Washington, please go to NLC’s Legislative Action Center at: http://capwiz.com/nlc/home/

Thursday, May 8, 2008
Fosters

The Rochester City Council filed a new flight plan Tuesday night — one that called for not landing at Skyhaven Airport.

Last month, the council, on a 9-4 vote, opted to have the city own the airport. It was a rescission of a 6-6 vote in February that failed to advance a position on the city’s intent regarding the airport.

Tuesday night’s vote was 7-5 with remarks by Deputy Mayor Elaine Lauterborn putting a credible face on the folly of Rochester owning the facility adjacent to Route 108 and near the top of Rochester Hill.

In April, Lauterborn voted to pursue city ownership. Tuesday night she conceded the city cannot take on even minor costs associated with the facility.

“The smallest percentage of the money that is the responsibility of Rochester is still a significant amount,” Lauterborn said.

As for capital improvements that will most surely evolve to keep the airport current in future years, the deputy mayor offered, “I do believe the PDA (the Pease Development Authority) is in a better position to deal with the capital costs” that will be made necessary in the future.

The City Council got it right this time.

There have been three votes on Skyhaven and the council has flown back and forth and back again. While no one was advocating another flight in the wake of Tuesday night’s vote, there were signs of leaving a hangar door open until May 30, the present deadline for a decision on whether Rochester will absorb the airport and its uncertainties or let it go to the PDA with its knowledge of general aviation and managing an airport.

City Manager John Scruton wasn’t going to speculate on whether there would be another shift in the wind and the usually seldom inscrutable Councilor Sandra Keans simply said, “one never knows.”

City councilors felt the direct heat of public opinion Tuesday and there were times when it wasn’t pretty.

It was an energized opposition crowd that voiced its feelings in unmasked anger.

“You won’t get in again,” a woman warned first-term Councilor Geoffrey Hamman, who again voted for city ownership.

Fred Leonard, no stranger to Rochester politics, stepped over the line in throwing a sign in the direction of Hamman. This came after he shouted — while the voting was taking place — “Some people have no honor” adding in anger, “There’s going to be a revolution.”

Pity the revolutionaries with Leonard as a member.

The suggestion of Rochester owning an airport in the best of times is not something with which many people will feel comfortable. While politics in Rochester is cyclical, it’s a community in which the cycle can turn on a dime.

The city’s streets and roads are a mess and have been for some time. The money to make lasting repairs is seldom present and even when it is, the quality of the work has been known to raise some eyebrows.

Confrontation is as much a part of Rochester city government as corn beef is with cabbage.

Rochester is a community in which political maturity does not get high marks. But so it has been as long as some septuagenarians can remember. It doesn’t have to own an airport to spice things up.

The thought of a Rochester City Council being the final arbiter in matters of importance to the airport and its future creates a cold and clammy feeling.

Let it go. The Pease Development Authority is prepared and qualified to take over Skyhaven Airport and save the Rochester City Council from itself.

Let it go. Please, let it go.