What About the Yacht Dwellers?

The New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute (NHFPI) recently released a report called, Taking the Measure of Need in the Granite State. NHPI looks at NH issues, and also examines problems with the federal poverty guidelines.

The poverty rate in NH is the lowest in the nation, at 9.2 percent. The federal poverty threshold was created in the 1960’s. At that time, a research showed that a family of three spent approximately one third of its budget on food.  After that, official poverty thresholds were created by multiplying the cost of a minimum food diet by three. Over time occasional adjustments have been made to account for inflation. In 1995, the Census Bureau created a supplemental poverty measure, which didn’t replace the poverty threshold, but exists to provide alternative information.

No adjustments have been made for the cost of housing. These days, housing costs account for upwards of two thirds of a poverty level budget. That’s another problem, the poverty threshold does not account for geographic differences in housing or other costs. As we all know, NH has some of the highest energy costs in the nation – as well as some of the highest property taxes and housing costs. Rent, day care, and health care costs combined make up at least half of the average working family’s budget.

The report finds that jobs in NH don’t match up with the cost of living. Only 30% of the jobs pay enough for a single parent with one child to have an “adequate” standard of living. The availability of those jobs depends greatly on where one resides in the state. The further north one travels, the more likely it is that the region is dependent on low wage service jobs. The cost of living does not decrease proportionally.

We all know that young people flee our state to avoid crushing student debt. We know they don’t come back because the employment prospects are limited and the exorbitant property taxes limit their ability to buy a house. There’s a shortage of rental property, so the rents are too damn high. We also know that many towns rely on volunteers to serve as firefighters and EMTs. This creates a conundrum in an aging population.

What are we doing about it? Well….nothing. We rely on volunteers to populate our legislature. Many of them are old and retired, and their sole interest is protecting their pensions. Some are businessmen whose sole interest is either passing or preventing legislation that applies to their businesses. Some are younger people who have no visible means of support. They generally do have a lot of expensive video equipment and plenty of weapons.

We are a state that lacks any kind of vision for the future. We live in and are legislated by the past.

Senator Jeb Bradley has been tweeting out lovely photos of his climbs up our 4000 footers in our various state parks. The same state parks we fund with user fees. NH is the only state that does it, because every other state was smart enough to realize that it doesn’t work. We are so miserly that we’ve created a mess. To fix the state parks would require a large infusion of cash. Our visionless legislature has been kicking the infrastructure can down the road for decades. You have only to drive down East Conway Road to see the results of that brilliant strategy. It would have been cheaper and smarter to keep up the maintenance of our roads and bridges all along, but that would have meant spending money, and we don’t do that here. As I’ve said far too many times – we prefer to pay the pound of cure. NH would rather amputate a limb than buy a band-aid.

The NH Senate will be voting on extending the NH Health Protection Plan (NHHPP) this week. Our Republican brethren don’t want to do it, because only people who can afford health insurance deserve it. The 50,000 low-wage workers in our state that are currently covered by the NHHPP apparently aren’t “deserving.” Greg Moore, the head of Americans for Prosperity in NH, was quoted at a hearing on the bill, as saying that “we aren’t getting a return on our investment,” when it comes to the NHHPP. The health of our residents isn’t worth investing in. It’s all about money for the Moores of the world. When everything has a price, nothing has any value.

Moore is a mouthpiece for the Koch Brothers, the funders of Americans for Prosperity. He was included in secret budget meetings last year. The Kochs aren’t creating any jobs here, other than Greg Moore’s. Luckily for the Kochs, we know that money is speech, and they get to speechify aplenty in a state where they have no investments other than AFP and the Free State Project.

The Senate is intent on attaching a work provision to the NHHPP. These are people who have been marinating in Reagan mythology for so long that they’re unable to accept reality. The welfare queen was a myth, and so is trickle down economics. When the NHHPP was first proposed, State Representatives Laurie Sanborn and Neal Kurk penned a letter to the editor that bemoaned the fact that “low income yacht dwellers” would be taking advantage of “free” health care. Has anyone found a low income yacht dweller in NH? The Republicans in our legislature believe that workers will quit their good paying jobs so that they can get “free” health care. Because that “free” health care will pay their rent and buy their groceries? These same legislators conveniently forget the fact that low-wage workers pay taxes. The same taxes that fund the NHHPP. 

The report from NHFPI shows that we use an outmoded tool to assess poverty, in a nation (and our state) where it is increasing. It’s difficult to imagine that this is an accident. The wealthiest country in the world doesn’t want to have accurate information about the poverty of its citizens, because that might require doing something about it. Right now, we’re more than content to blame that poverty on the poor.

published as an op-ed in the April 1 edition of the Conway Daily Sun 

Deliberately Decreasing Our Means

Every biennium the legislature creates a new state budget. This budget is required to be balanced every year. This happens no matter what party currently holds the majority in the House, the Senate, or the Governor’s office. Right now the legislature is winding down. The Committee of Conference reports will have been voted on by the time you read this.

As always, the most interesting item to watch is the budget wrangling. The House got started a bit late this year; probably because the O’Brienistas created so many diversions that everything was late. On days when the House is session, bills that will be coming up for a vote fall into two categories in the calendar: Consent and Regular. The Consent Calendar is comprised of bills that come out of committee with a unanimous vote to either pass or kill. They’re generally non-controversial, and are easily dispatched with voice votes. O’Brienistas made it a “thing” this session to yank as many bills off the consent calendar as possible, just to gum up the works and create delay.

Rep. Neal Kurk chairs the House Finance Committee. Kurk has long been a fiscal conservative, but generally someone who could be sensible when the situation called for it. This biennium apparently Kurk was so giddy at GOP control of both houses that he’s thrown caution and good sense out the window in favor of ideology. He partnered up with Free Stater Dan McGuire to create a hastily written budget that was guaranteed to ensure that NH would continue lose ground economically and hurt a lot of people along the way.

The original version included $88 million in DOT cuts, which meant rest areas and some bridges would be closed. Half the workforce would be eliminated. Federal funds would be lost, the widening of I-93 would be jeopardized, and some 2500 miles of roads and 1000 bridges would have been turned over to cities and towns to pay for. Apparently Meals on Wheels was a socialist program that needed to be cut, and Service Link was completely de-funded. Dan McGuire proposed $2 million in cuts to the NH Veteran’s Home, which would have resulted in 25 veterans losing their place to live. Some changes (the proposed cuts to the Veteran’s Home were too much for even the most rabid members of the right) were made, and eventually the budget found its way to the Senate. The Senate made some cosmetic changes and added business tax cuts. Because when you claim that there isn’t enough money to adequately fund the needs of the state, the only thing to do is cut revenue! 

A recent op-ed in the Laconia Sun penned by Senators Jeb Bradley and Jeanne Forrester claimed that the Senate decided to reduce business taxes at the end of the budget process. On January 8, Senator Bradley introduced a bill to lower the business profits tax (BPT). On January 8, a bill Bradley co-sponsored was introduced to lower the business enterprise tax. (BET).  Those bills were both passed by the Senate and Bradley tabled both. The intent from the very beginning of the session was to lower business taxes. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous at best. They’re telling us on the one hand that we must live our means while the other hand is slashing the means we live on.

The lowering of the BET and the BPT are touted as the way to bring business to our state. The fact that businesses actually want good infrastructure, lower utility costs, and an educated work force is lost on our representative ideologues, who are firmly steeped in the kind of economic policies that have failed to work since the Reagan administration. NH is a wealthy state, yet we refuse to raise sufficient revenues to fix the things that need fixing and invest in the future. As a result, we have the 11^th worth infrastructure in the United States. Award winning NH civil engineer Darren Benoit tells us that if we start right now, it will cost us $1.5 billion to fix everything. NH also ranks at about 100^th place out of the 50 states for state funding of our university system. We want an educated workforce, but we do not want to pay for it. If a budget is a statement of our values, than it’s painfully clear that the budget writers don’t value our state or its people.

The budget for tourism, the second largest industry in our state was level funded in this budget. This will not hurt the southern part of the state. It is likely to impact the North Country. Be sure to thank your GOP representatives for voting against the best interests of our area. It’s also worth pointing out that this budget fails to invest in repairing our state parks, something that would also benefit the tourist economy.  

A variety of self-congratulatory legislators are boasting that the substance abuse treatment budget was increased. It was but the Senate added those increases. They were not in the original House budget. The increases came about because even the most rabid ideologues couldn’t pretend that there aren’t significant numbers of young people dying from heroin overdoses.

Another aspect of all of this that goes unmentioned by our budgeteers is the downshifting of costs. Items the state doesn’t adequately fund (like infrastructure) get passed on to the counties and municipalities, which will likely be passed on to you, in the form of an increase in your property taxes.  

As I write this, the Governor has stated her intent to veto the budget unless changes are made. The NH GOP is wailing about the need to compromise. Their definition of “compromise” appears to mean that the House Republicans get to write the budget; the Senate Republicans get to change it, and the Republicans of both bodies compromise with each other in the Committee of Conference. The CoC process included the compromise of closed door meetings with Greg Moore of the Koch funded Americans for Prosperity. After all that internal GOP compromise (with a dash of Koch-promise) the Governor is expected to meekly sign it, displaying her willingness to compromise.

This budget fails to address the needs of our state and blows a big hole in future budgets by cutting business taxes. It guarantees that nothing will ever get fixed properly, because we will have to live within our deliberately decreased means.

Published as an op-ed in the June 26 edition of the Conway Daily Sun newspaper. 

AFP-FSP Twins Separated at Birth

This is Greg Moore, from the NH branch of Americans For Prosperity. AFP is a far, far right political advocacy group, funded by the Koch brothers. Here we see him urging members of the Free State Project (armed libertarians moving to NH to take over and dismantle our state government, then threaten secession - also funded by the Koch brothers) to run for office. 

Carla Gericke is the President of the FSP. 
Mark Warden is a soon-to-be former State Representative, pondering a run against State Senator Lou D'Alessandro. 
Dan and Carol McGuire are Free Staters and state reps, living in Epsom. 

This is from the Free State Project website:

We are not a political action organization. We are not tied to any political party or organization; we do not run candidates for election; we do not financially support or endorse candidates; and we do not oppose or endorse legislation. 

Hmmm. One of these things is not like the other. They aren't a political action organization - they just want to act politically. This doe-eyed disingenuous routine is getting old. 

Note: It's true that they aren't tied to any political party. They mostly run as Republicans, but they encourage people to run as a member of whatever party is most likely to get them elected.


h/t to anonymous tipster
h/t to Tuck at miscellany blue.

UNH Logo - Tempest in a Teaparty Pot

The University of NH has been trying to find a logo to replace the current Thompson Hall tower logo. A NY design firm was engaged and came up with some less than stellar concepts.

Naturally, in the state that ranks a firm 50th in the nation for state funding of our university system, that's created a bit of a buzz. Oh, the outrage! The clutching of pearls!

Just exactly who is it that is yanking on those strands of pearls?

Greg Moore, state director of Americans for Prosperity, who said he's been digging into the finances of UNH and the USNH system, said,” this appears (unfortunately) to be an all too common a pattern in terms of a lack of disregard of the mission of both the school and system, which is providing a quality education at the lowest cost possible for the families of NH.”

Greg Moore....Greg Moore - that name sounds so familiar. Oh, I remember!

Speaker O’Brien, after numerous clownish debacles in the early weeks of the legislature, has hired a fellow named Greg Moore to be the “House Policy Director.” Moore was formerly the policy and communications director for John Stephen. Apparently the new Policy Czar will prevent the Speaker from trying to improperly toss Democratic legislators out of office. Perhaps he will ensure that no more embarrassing bills will go public, like the one Rep. Lars Christiansen filed to get rid of the judge who convicted a child rapist Christiansen seems to have taken under his wing. We taxpayers are paying the Speaker’s babysitter $75,000 a year. 

Mr. Moore certainly wasn't worried about providing quality services at the lowest possible  cost to the taxpayers of NH, when he was feeding from the taxpayer funded trough. That's a mighty hefty salary for a guy who repeatedly failed to prevent the Speaker from bringing shame to the state.  Then there's the fact that  Americans for Prosperity is a right wing political advocacy group. This guy gets paid to bloviate on behalf of the Koch brothers. We should listen to him....why?

“$100,000 is an obscene misuse of taxpayer money. Yes, taxpayer. I don't care what fund it comes from, taxpayers support UNH,” Alicia Preston, group member and alumnus, said.

You may remember Alicia Preston, who served as communications director for Craig Benson, the only one-term Republican governor in recent NH history. The GOP governor that the NHGOP never mentions. He is their Voldemort. Ms. Preston has a PR firm, and has worked for Guiliani, Pataki, Jeb Bradley, and Frank Guinta. Are you starting to see a pattern yet?

Alumni John Hikel said, “The logo is just a symptom to another part of the problem.”  

This alum is Rep. John Hikel of Goffstown, who recently filed a criminal complaint against 189 of his fellow legislators because he was unhappy with the way they voted on a partial repeal of NH's Stand Your Ground law. 

All right wingers. ONLY right wingers. It's the NH version of the war on Christmas.