Pelham - Windham News 4 - July 23, 2010


The Word Around Town... Letters to our Editor


In My Opinion... by Jordan Ulery Shameless Mismanagement Abounds


by Representative Jordan Ulery, District 27, Hillsborough County First, the so-called “austerity” budget failed and then had to be fixed in a one- day Special Session. What was discussed in that spectacle were increased taxes and fees previously rejected, and the breaking of promises made to grow


business in New Hampshire. This so- called emergency fix was the direct result of a failure to lead and manage by the administration. Instead of making hard, but necessary decisions, the majority party opted for their tried-and-failed song of “increase a tax on (this term, quite literally) everything.” As the TV commercial goes, “but wait, there is more.” In their rush to tax and spend your dollars, the Administration of New Hampshire took an unprecedented step of immediately applying certain taxes. That is correct, immediately, with no notice to the Department of Revenue, no notice to retailers, no notice to wholesalers – just tomorrow, start paying a tax – and by the way, this tax is hidden in a bill thick enough to keep a home warm all winter if burned. In Ways and Means, a so-called equity tax on non-smoke tobacco was proposed and, over the objections of many, passed. That tax was to take place on July 1, meaning that those who collect the tax would have had a least a month to re-mark their product and re-program their check-out scanners; in short, there would have been notice, which is only right. A long time ago, St. Thomas Aquinas, Patron Saint of Law Makers, stated


that a law that is not published cannot be enforced. That is fair, equitable, and the reasonable process that should be expected of your legislators. This administration, with a seemingly lack of sense of fairness or of the rule of law, implemented, overnight, a tax in Section 45 of Special Session House Bill 1 (the fix-a-broken-budget bill). While I do not subscribe to chew or snuff, nor do I even like cigarettes, I do know right from wrong. It was and is wrong for the Democrat- controlled legislature to pass a bill that immediately imposes as tax, upon signature of the governor. It is wrong for the Governor to sign such a bill. Not only was it wrong on the basis of the edict from St. Thomas, it is wrong from a sense of decency and fair play.


It


is wrong from an administrative point of view as well. How can a tax collector be fair and even handed when the Governor forces the tax collector to immediately collect a tax businesses do not even know exists, and have not been notified that they would be responsible for collecting from an unsuspecting public? Our Democrat-led legislature and the


Governor’s office did a disservice to the people of New Hampshire when they rammed through an incomplete, un-vetted, and unreasonable tax law to fix yet another unreasonable and unsustainable budget bill. The people of New Hampshire deserve better than this type of mismanagement.


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In My Opinion is strictly an OP-ED column that stands on the opinion of one writer, Jordan Ulery, as opposed to a newspaper reporter who does not provide an opinion but reports the facts. This column, in many instances, is a counterpoint to published sto- ries and does not re- flect the unbiased re- porting policy of the Pelham~Windham News or the opinion of the management, advertisers, and own- ership of Area News Group.


Hillsborough District 27 Liberty Alliance Rankings


The New Hampshire Liberty Alliance recognized


the work of the Members of the General Court serving Hudson, Pelham, and Litchfield this past Sunday evening. Their annual “Liberty Rating” was released, scoring votes as pro-Liberty or anti-Liberty made during the preceding session. Pro-Liberty votes reflect votes protecting individual rights, encouraging personal responsibility, and recognizing the superiority of freedom over coercion. Anti-Liberty votes support interventionist government activities and pre-suppose that the government knows better than the individual how to live their life. In general, an A represents a more libertarian view and a D represents a more socialist view of governance. Hillsborough House District 27 (Hudson, Pelham, Litchfield) ranked: Ralph Boehm: A- Lars Christiansen: B+ Shaun Doherty: B Laura Gandia: B- Robert Haefner: A- Valerie Hardy: D Shawn Jasper: B- John Knowles: C- Mary Ann Knowles: C- Lynne Ober: A Russ Ober: A Andy Renzullo: A Jordan Ulery: A- For more information on the scoring and the votes


made by the legislators, please visit www.nhliberty.org. Special acknowledgement was offered to Lars Christiansen, Lynne Ober, Jordan Ulery, Shawn Jasper, and Andy Renzullo for five consecutive years of “Outstanding Commitment to Liberty.” Valerie Hardy was cited for “Perfect Attendance” in earning her grade.


Representative Jordan Ulery - Hudson


Attorneys, Millionaires, and Me Are you fed up with the people who represent us


in Washington? Are you fed up with the people who follow the party line and vote away our freedoms? Are you wondering who these people are that are leading this country down the wrong path? Do attorneys and millionaires come to mind? As of November 2009, there were 157 attorneys (36


percent) in the House and 54 in the Senate; there were 237 millionaires (54 percent) in the House and 40 in the Senate. Thomas Jefferson said, “If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?“


Are we going to be part of the solution or part of the problem? We complain all the time that: the people in


Washington don’t listen to us, do what they want and forget about us, the ones who sent them there; that there’s never anyone in Washington that “really represents us,” that we always get the raw end of the deal! Ever wonder how they got there? We vote for them time and time again! Do we want more attorneys or millionaires in


Washington leading us down the road to who knows where? I say no! Now is the time to stand up for ourselves, shake off the status quo, and bring common sense back to our country! There is one candidate who is neither an attorney nor a millionaire, and who considers you family, friend, and neighbor. One who knows the pain of losing a job, paying the bills, and just making ends meet. That one candidate is me, Dennis Lamare. I don’t have all the answers to the problems facing this world, but I do have life experiences and common sense to take on the issues. I never take for granted the things that matter most to us: freedom, life, and the American Dream! I will always look to the Constitution to make my decisions to do what is right for America, good for New Hampshire, and keep the trust that you put in me as your Senator. This election, let’s finally do the right thing for ourselves and for New Hampshire! The right thing is when you cast your vote, vote as


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NH Communities Can’t Afford Any More Tax Hikes from John Lynch As selectmen in the towns of Hampstead and


Windham with 14 years of service, we have seen the relationship between the state and local government fluctuate dramatically on a regular basis. Whether highway support from the gas tax or the huge shifts that have taken place in education funding with the statewide property tax, the one constant has been change. Despite this, local cities and towns have historically worked cooperatively with the state to come together to find common ground. At least that was true until Governor Lynch’s last


budget.


Once partners in working together to provide services to our citizens, Lynch’s budget dissolved that collaboration with a cash grab from local property taxpayers in order to keep the state budget afloat. In order to pass a state budget that grew spending by


over six percent in the middle of a recession without adding a major new tax, the Governor decided the easy way to do this was by shifting costs from state taxpayers to local property taxpayers. He did this by cutting off payments to cities and towns that they had received for years, called revenue sharing, by increasing the rate that communities have to pay into the state retirement system, by suspending the state portion of cost sharing for water treatment facilities, and by capping the local share of the rooms and meals tax.


All told, this cost shift from the state to municipalities totaled over $114 million in the current budget, according the New Hampshire Municipal Association. Now, in our towns, we work hard to ensure that


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we provide services as efficiently as possible. We work hard to watch every dime and limit property tax increases. However, with the massive cost shift to every community in Governor Lynch’s budget, there was no way that we could ramp up our frugality to match the huge new hole that the state put in our budget. The result has been property tax increases over the past two years, and many of them have gone to those who can least afford it—our seniors and other fixed income individuals. We know that selectmen, aldermen, and mayors across New Hampshire have strived to explain these tax hikes to our constituents, and that it really isn’t that we can’t manage our budgets. However, just as a family that’s paying its bills would struggle if they suddenly and unexpectedly had to buy a new car, our cities and towns were caught blindsided with these major news costs passed on to us from the Lynch budget. That’s why we were so pleased to hear about John Stephen’s First In The Nation plan that commits to stop the downshifting of costs from the state onto local property taxpayers. Both of us recently had a chance to speak with John about his plan, and there is no question that he is very sensitive to the impact that property taxes have on both individuals and communities across the state. What we truly appreciate is that John Stephen gets the big picture. Taxpayers don’t really care whether their tax dollars go to federal, state, county, or local government. They care about how much money, in total, they have to pay. When we buy lunch, most of us don’t spend much time worrying about whether we pay with cash or with our bank card; we care about how big the bill is. John Stephen understands that if you want to limit state spending without raising taxes, you do this by actually cutting state government, not passing costs on to communities. Furthermore, he actually put out a bold plan to cut state government, giving him much more credibility that he truly knows not to shift costs along to property taxpayers. So, when politicians like Governor Lynch tell you that they held the line on growing state government, ask them if they did it by cutting spending or whether they simply passed these costs along to communities and forced local officials to do the dirty work of raising taxes because the “leaders” didn’t have the courage to pay for the spending they want. We don’t need any more unfunded mandates from state officials who like to pass the buck to protect their agendas; we need true managers who know that we are all in this together because the taxpayers expect every level of government to do their part to be responsible and accountable. Let’s start working together for the citizens.


Bruce Breton - Windham, and Richard Hartung - Hampstead


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