It's Veto Time

 Governor Sununu smiling after solving the problem of deli cheese labeling at  Market Basket

Another legislative session has come to an end. Over a thousand bills have been passed, killed, or held in committee.  After months of working on a budget, first in the House, then in the Senate, and finally in Committees of Conference, a budget was also passed. Even though the legislature gave Governor Sununu at least 90 percent of what he asked for, he vetoed it. 

The Committee of Conference (CoC) removed the paid family and medical leave program that was something he actually campaigned on. As I mentioned in my last column, other states use it as an incentive to attract skilled workers. We seem to think that being NH is sufficient attraction.

The sticking point is something the governor is calling a tax increase. A couple of years ago, business tax cuts were passed that decreased the business tax rate incrementally. Some of the decreases have already taken effect – including one at the beginning of this year. The vetoed budget puts the next cut on hold. A tax cut that isn’t being enacted shouldn’t properly be called a tax increase, but once again, if the words “income tax” and “guns” were removed from the lexicon, our NH Republicans would have nothing to say. The very last thing we want to do is have an adult discussion about our tax structure.

The freeze on this tax cut would only affect about 60 out-of-state big corporations. Most small businesses don’t even pay the business profits tax. Unfortunately most of us aren’t especially well educated about the state budget, or where the money comes from to fund our state government. The NH Fiscal Policy Institute did a good analysis of the current money flow, which you can find on their website, nhfpi.org, dated May 22. 

In the absence of a budget, the state is running on a continuing resolution that expires on October 1.In the meantime, however, towns aren’t getting the property tax relief that was part of the budget, and school districts aren’t getting the infusion of funding that they so desperately need. The new secure psychiatric hospital won’t be happening, the affordable housing fund will not be getting $5 million, and rates for mental health and substance abuse providers will not be increased.    

Governor Sununu’s mask of affability has fallen off, and what lurks underneath is an ambitious Trump acolyte. He’s more interested in feathering the nest of his own political future  than doing what is right for the state. The care and feeding of big business is very important to him, since they are his donors, and he’s going to need them even more when he runs for higher office. 

In the current age of ideology, doing right by your state means passing budgets that don’t invest in the state or its people. In New Hampshire, “living within our means” is a bogus justification for our unwillingness to invest. We have means – NH is the seventh wealthiest state. We choose not to use those means in order to perpetuate the illusion that The Pledge is working for NH in the 21^stcentury. We have intentionally failed to properly fund education for decades. Now we have an unqualified Commissioner of Education who is doing his level best to dismantle our system of public education. That failure to invest is one reason why the state has so much trouble attracting young people. We’ve got plenty of wealthy retirees – but at some point they’re going to need caregivers to wipe their behinds. Where will those workers come from? 

The governor is expected to veto a bill that would create a state minimum wage, and set it at $10 an hour. NH uses the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, which was established in 2009. Ten years ago. The cost of living hasn’t been frozen in amber, but attitudes about paying workers certainly have. Rents have increased by 28.33 percent in that time period, which has a dramatic effect on the lives of low-wage workers in our state, given the lack of affordable housing. At $10 an hour, NH would still have the lowest minimum wage in New England. At $10 an hour, workers still can’t afford rental housing. Paying wages too low to live on is an expression of contempt for workers.

The veto will be couched in terms of how it would hurt business, because that is always the only real concern. There’s a lot of breast beating about how businesses can’t find workers, but there’s no willingness to take any corrective action. NH has an abundance of low wage service jobs. A lot of working folks juggle several of them at once. Workers in other states don’t seem to be sufficiently motivated to move to NH for a low wage career. Hard to imagine, isn’t it? Don’t they know it’s New Hampshire?