Our
state’s august legislative body finally wrapped up the voting on 2013 bills
about 2 weeks ago. They should have been done much sooner, but the liberty
crowd did their very best to obstruct and needlessly bog down the process. There
were endless roll call votes on issues that didn’t merit such attention. They
didn’t win anything; they just wasted taxpayer dollars and the time of their
colleagues. Their war cry is “gummint is broken” and so they’re doing their
level best to break it so they can say neener neener. The lesson? Do not elect
people who hate government to be the government.
All
the delay and obstruction means that the 2014 bills are behind, and the weather
has conspired to put the legislature even more behind. After next week,
legislators can count on two session days each week for most of March. It’s
unfortunate that leadership (minority or majority) can’t seem to do anything
about the obstructionist cabal.
The
committee process is where one can still find representatives actually working
together and listening to new information. At a recent executive session on HB
1170, the bill to repeal NH’s death penalty, 4 legislators came forward and
said that because of all they had learned, they’d changed their minds about the
death penalty. They’d come into the process as supporters. They cast their
committee votes to recommend that the full House repeal the death penalty. This
is what we always hope we will see: our citizen legislature working together
for the good of our state.
We
don’t always. At a hearing of SB 319, a bill to establish a 25-foot buffer zone
around women’s health clinics, Senator Sam Cataldo was far more interested in
airing a grievance about a union work site that he’s been nursing since 1966.
He brought it up at least half a dozen times to women who testified in support
of the bill. It was so disrespectful. One of the men who came to testify in
opposition to the bill is affiliated with a terrorist group, the Army of God.
Remember them? Eric Robert Rudolph, Clayton Waagner, and James Kopp are some of
the more famous bombers and murderers. In no other aspect of our society would
protestors and self-styled “sidewalk counselors” be allowed to harass people.
Just
imagine the outcome if a group of earnest sober people started counseling
patrons at our highway liquor stores. Or if a group committed to nonviolence
began counseling about anger management in front of a gun shop. This harassment
is allowed to continue because after all, this only affects women. We turn a
blind eye to enabling terrorists because after all, it’s only women. If we were
attempting to legislate MALE reproductive systems, all protests in front of all
medical facilities would end forthwith. Fortunately, the Senate voted to pass
the bill, so now it moves on to the House.
The
Senate also voted to pass SB 318, a bill to establish the crime of domestic
violence. It’s always been prosecuted under other statutes. At the hearing for
this bill, Senator Boutin suggested strengthening the bill by adding stalking
to the statute, a suggestion everyone applauded. It was added to the bill as an
amendment.
As
always, there are endless gun bills, and other bills aimed at eliminating
revenue streams from our state government. Meanwhile, NH has the 11th
worst infrastructure in the United States. We have over 300 bridges on the red
list for structural impairment. We cannot finish work begun on highways because
there is no money – and still we are told that NH has a spending problem, not a
revenue problem. We do have a spending problem: we’re averse to raising enough
money to spend on fixing our decaying infrastructure. We will firmly bury our
heads and pretend that it’s some other guy’s problem for as long as we can.
When a dam fails, or a bridge collapses – well then maybe we’ll start thinking
about the future.
Meanwhile,
companies will continue to relocate to states that have the kind of
transportation and telecommunications infrastructure that will support their
business needs.
A
bill to increase the minimum wage will be coming up soon for a vote. Already
Americans for Prosperity and other similar minded special interest groups are
howling with outrage about how this will kill jobs. NH has the lowest minimum
wage in New England. Massachusetts and Vermont have the highest. Both states
are faring far better than NH in adding new jobs. Most people who are paid
minimum wage are adults. Most are women, trying to support children. No one
works harder than low wage workers.
At
the same time, NH has some of the highest housing costs in the nation, and
there is great resistance to building multi-unit housing, because THOSE PEOPLE
will move to town. We heard it for years in Conway. Welfare recipients from
Massachusetts were just waiting to move to affordable housing. All the public
transportation and safety net programs we offer here were a veritable beacon to
the impoverished.
A
new study from the Economic Policy Institute finds that 83% of the income
growth in NH between 2009-2011 went to the top 1%. Meanwhile, the jobs that
have been created since the recession are mostly low paying service jobs. This
is not unique to NH. This is what’s happening all over the country.
At some point we (the societal we) will have to make some decisions about work, pay, poverty, and the future. If not, we’re likely to hear the sounds of tumbrels rumbling in the distance.
Sow the same seed of rapacious license and
oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its
kind. ~ Charles Dickens, A
Tale of Two Cities
© sbruce 2014
Published in the Conway Daily Sun Newspaper.
2 comments:
Every citizen should be extremely concerned about the nonsense legislation that these elected individuals are bothering with. We have a huge homeless and jobless problem in our state and nation. Panhandling appears to have skyrocketed as have so many other issues. Our infrastructure is dangerously aged and no attention is being paid to it nor all other more pressings problems. We have an abundance of low IQ elected officials who are wasting valuable time on garbage and not on the reality we face in our state and nation. Very frightening.
The genius of our form of government is that nothing moves fast or unobstructed. It is talked about, thought about by The People and those people have to chance to voice their concerns and support to their representatives. It is when things are pushed through at a high speed that we should be concerned. It also makes me personally question it more when there is a rush.
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