Gov. Chris Sununu’s budget spends more on tax breaks for big corporations than it does on the most pressing issue facing the business community: workforce development and job training.
This is a major priority of the public, but it wasn’t for the far right, and so it was inconsistent with Gov. Sununu’s goal of unifying the far right on the budget – a budget that even former House Speaker Bill O’Brien has praised.
With these business tax breaks, New Hampshire’s budget will lose close to three-quarters of a billion dollars through 2026. That’s neither fiscally responsible or conservative, and even Republicans in Kansas – facing big deficits and raising property taxes – are taking back the tax breaks they gave to the corporate elite.
The massive tax cuts for the wealthy elite in Gov. Sununu’s budget means the taxes of big corporations will go down, while your local property taxes will go up. By looking out for the wealthy elite, critical and cost-effective priorities like workforce development and job training fell by the wayside.
Every month there are close to 20,000 job openings posted in New Hampshire. But, since Gov. Sununu has taken office, our unemployment rate has actually gone up, and our businesses are struggling to recruit, retain and skill up our workforce. It is the most pressing and actual need identified by both labor and business leaders.
But, time and time again, our friends in the Republican majority voted down all of our efforts to help attract, retain, and skill up our workforce – from Gateway to Work, to the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, to bolstering our recruitment and our skills training to meet current in-demand employment.
Many Granite Staters are on second or third careers, want to get training, want a chance to succeed, want to support their families and their communities, but they got no support from this budget.
Many graduating Granite State high school seniors want a job in the trades, or as an auto tech, or in financial services, but this budget does nothing to provide those basic opportunities, and, on top of that, this budget has forced community college tuition to go up 5 percent.
All hard-working Granite Staters want is a common-sense jobs plan and an opportunity to succeed, not more tax breaks for those at the top.
We recognize the far right of the Republican party doesn’t support workforce development and job training, but this shouldn’t be about unifying one political party around the budget. It should be about a budget that expands economic opportunity for everyone, not just those at the top.
And, it should be about the most basic question posed by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’ ”
In the end, Gov. Sununu’s partisan budget does a whole lot for the wealthy elite, but nothing for folks just looking for the skills they need to get a new job.
Because it doesn’t deal with the number one issue identified by labor and business leaders, this budget has failed our workforce, our businesses and our economy.
(Mary Jane Wallner is state representative for Ward 5 of Concord and for Hopkinton. She is the ranking Democrat on the House Finance Committee. Dan Feltes is state senator for Concord, Henniker, Hopkinton, Penacook and Warner, and serves on the Senate Finance Committee.)