Those of you who follow the lead of Rep. David Hess and shoot from the hip without knowing the facts and figures and people you attack - not knowing the full story is political bliss isn't it?

The real life problems with state budgeting in the past has come from spending according to what money comes in. That means the state downshifts its responsibilities to towns, cities and counties and short-changes programs that we, the people of New Hampshire, need. (And that means higher and higher property taxes and local fighting about spending.)

Instead of investing in economic development that would expand the state economy, our state leaders have mostly cut wherever they could - just as you Republicans wanted. Where does it lead? Pain and suffering for those people most in need of state services AND layoffs of state workers helping to provide those services AND increases in taxes and fees that hurt the people with low incomes the most. Not funding programs that help people survive is NOT JUST IRRESPONSIBLE, IT IS CRIMINAL. (Just like not having universal health care - which kills about 45,000 individuals in this nation every year!)

Those advocating telling people to shut up and move out - if you have been living in the same house for generations would you want to be forced to shut up and sell your house and move to some other state? Why be so mean-spirited and uncivil and lacking in our common values?

The second most important idea that came out of the forum sponsored by the House Ways and Means Committee is that tax system reform should be revenue neutral. That means any enacted state income tax would not increase the tax burden but would just shift the tax burden to just and equitable levels for both business and indivduals. Because of the diminishing state advantage and competitiveness (as stated by the economists) due in part to the high and growing corporate tax burden, we need to do something to create more opportunities for business startups and thus create more and better paying jobs.

We now have 55,000 unemployed and half again that many underemployed, and we are now losing our 30-44 population largely responsible for our workplace productivity (they in fact are shutting up and moving out-of-state). We have lost our competitive advantage in innovation and high technology jobs. We are frankly losing our New Hampshire advantage by not doing anything about our bad tax system. The highest property taxes in the land will not attract more companies to come to New Hampshire.

For those who would rather die than work toward a better common future, please hear this.

We are not Connecticut. Our state leaders are not irresponsible and will not spend us into the dire straits now suffered by Connecticut and California. We need a flat 4 percent income tax (only a flat tax would be constitutional), dedicated by a constitutional amendment to fund only public eduaction, enacted with provisions to eliminate state property taxes, the Business Enterprise Tax, and some portion of the local and county property tax burden. That means the state government would finally accept the full responsibility for funding public education and end for all time the inequities in our public schools. It might even do something about the highest tuition rates for our university system.

My advice - stop complaining and attacking other people AND START working on the solutions we need to become a better state to live in for everyone of us. We must depend on Republicans to come up with alternative ideas needed for the public debate to succeed.

We keep saying this state has "The New Hampshire Advantage" and that is "no
sales tax or income tax". Of course we are the worst state of all 50 states
for corporate taxes but no one appears to notice that but rather says
"companies will move here because there is no sales tax or income tax". Several reports have come out about the state losing it's young people and college grads choosing not to stay in this state. The proposals are to create zero size lots and "affordable" housing and that will keep them here. In a study about 8 months ago there was a survey of College students as to
the cities they most wanted to live in for the entire US. Out of the top 20
the closest to here was Boston and Worcester Mass. They choose the locations because of accessibility to transportation and good paying diverse job offerings beyond working at a shopping mall. Now a new study has just
been published in Business week for the top 40 Cities / metro areas in the
US to live and work in.
http://images.businessweek.com/ss/09/10/1022_40_strongest_us_metro_econo...

As I did the slide show to see what they showed I was struck by two
facts. One is not a single location in New Hampshire showed up and also
outside of Texas all the other states have both a sales and income tax but
businesses flocked to there due to the "Low cost of doing business there".
Now years ago my company tried to get me to transfer to the Dallas Ft Worth
area but I hate hot weather. Even though the state of Texas has a sales tax but does not have a income tax they do have multiple local
jurisdiction taxes that have you pay for everything. They don't tax a companies inventory until it is sold unlike this state that made all the smoke shops pay taxes on all of their inventory after they had already purchased the product because this state wanted the "new taxes" they had just raised on tobacco products.

Another item to note is because I follow information on transit systems
around the US virtually all of the cities mentioned in the report have on
line right now both heavy and light rail transportation or they are
currently building it because it helps to concentrate core services around
those areas. I gather none of them have heard about the New Hampshire
advantage.

By the way I often wonder why "The New Hampshire Advantage" with no sales or income tax did not draw the "Mall of America" to be built here. Instead the biggest shopping mall in the lower 48 , There is one in Canada that is bigger , was built in a state that has both a sales and income tax. I spent 22 years living in Northern Virginia that had the two fastest growing counties in the US for 12 years. It has millions of square feet of office space and shopping malls and still draws in companies that relocate to there but they have a sales and income tax.

Is the rank irresponsibility of this session's and last session's Democrats.

They knew that they did not have the money to pay for their whims, yet they still spent beyond their means, to the tune of a couple of hundred of million of dollars.

They knew that revenue estimates from 2000 through 2006 were barely holding their own, yet in 2007 decided to increase revenue projections to cover (sort of) their financial mismanagement.

They knew that revenue estimates in 2007 and 2008 were lagging, yet in 2009, they increased those revenue projections yet again, based not on financial data, but on how big a deficit they had created.

With that record, what are the chances that any new revenue sources would go to pay off our deficit rather than just be spent? What are the chances that this bunch will not just budget to what they want and disregard the actual projections of any new source? Who is to say they won't just inflate a new revenue source's potential just to justify their irresponsibility?

Nh may need to look at different revenue sources, but handing this group a blank check, as we have seen, is asking for more and more debt, new revenue sources or no.

Every time some editorial or letter suggests that enacting some new tax (income tax in this case) will be used solely/mostly to reduce some other tax (the dreaded property tax), I ask the writer(s) to answer one simple question:

Can you show me a case, from any state, at any time, where this offset of one tax against another has happened?

The silence, as now, has been impressive.

Hmmm. Now if we follow the stellar logic of the enshrouded Monitor editorial staff, we must change the current inequitable tax scheme on fixed property to another scheme that is eminently more equitable by attaching the Grate State's proboscis to its hosts' income stream.

Surely, given how badly the former damages the plebes, and how well the latter makes all those rich folk "pay their fair share", this same staff must be advocating for the abolishment of this anarchic, unfair property tax in favor of income redistribution. That would be the principled approach, based on the principal they claim to hold dear and near. Yet, I haven't quite heard that yet from their Clarion horn, or the lesser trumpeteers here on the posting boards. Perhaps my hearing is failing me from the deluge of noise from all quarters on this "very serious issue" of which Peter to rob to pay Polly.

I, for one, am all for a change in the Grate State's confiscatory scheme as this will afford those who favor darkly pigmented exchanges freer reign in a state that lived free and died. So please, bring it on, but by all means, get rid of that heinous property tax!

- C. dog waits with baited breath for liberal lapdogs to muster a retort to warn their masters danger is nye upon them