Notice how they are arguing about ways to raise money

[Dreepa]

but no mentions that they could also CUT SPENDING!!!!!!!!!!

http://concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070621/REPOSITORY/706210349

[CNHT]

but no mentions that they could also CUT SPENDING!!!!!!!!!!

http://concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070621/REPOSITORY/706210349

The good legislature that we used to have voted for exactly $0 for LCHIP.

[Crocuta]

What exactly is this Land and Community Heritage Investment Program?

[Dreepa]

What exactly is this Land and Community Heritage Investment Program?

http://www.lchip.org/

[d_goddard]

What exactly is this Land and Community Heritage Investment Program?

According to Foster's, it is "a true partnership between state government, local communities and private citizens"

[CNHT]

It's having the state pay for things the private sector should be paying for....

[Crocuta]

Gotcha.  We've got crap like that here.

[Pat McCotter]

It's having the state pay for things the private sector should be paying for....

No, it's having the state make real estate buyers/sellers pay for these things.

[CNHT]

It's having the state pay for things the private sector should be paying for....

No, it's having the state make real estate buyers/sellers pay for these things.

Weeeeeeeeeeell, that's what I meant, with taxpayer's money! The state can't pay for d* without the taxpayers.

[CNHT]

State House Dome: House panels' focus: Taxes, taxes and more taxes

By TOM FAHEY
State House Bureau Chief
18 hours, 20 minutes ago

Members of the House Ways and Means Committee have their summer assignments: Draft tax bills.


Sales tax, income tax, property tax, businesses tax, luxury tax, beer tax, amusement tax, inheritance tax, second-home tax -- you name it. Oh, and gambling, too. They'll all get the treatment this summer and fall.

Committee chairman Rep. Susan Almy said she set up five subcommittees to perfect tax bills of all stripes. It was the responsible way to approach next year's session, she said, since the state will probably have to raise more money than it does now to fund the definition of an adequate education that is now law.

"When we get to the point where New Hampshire has to reform its tax system, we ought to do it with something that works and does minimum damage, rather than in a flurry of political pique when philosophies are raging," she said.

Almy said the work groups she appointed have instructions to produce, "technically, constitutionally correct bills for all major tax sources. They include those that I hate, those that two-thirds of the committee hate, but ideas that people have brought out."

She said the most unpopular option among committee members is gambling, such as making slot machines legal.

The one she likes the most, which she admits has slim chance of passing, is the income tax. Gov. John Lynch has pledged to veto any sales or income tax, and Senate Democrats backed him on that stance when they ran for office.

Chairman of the gambling subcommittee is Rep. Christine Hamm, one of two people who Almy said have not formed a solid opinion for or against gambling.

Rep. Priscilla Lockwood, a Republican who voted for an income tax back in 1999, chairs the income tax group.

Lockwood said Friday that she's keeping an open mind and looking for input from experts at the Josiah Barlett Center, Department of Revenue Administration and the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies.

"I really don't think that just an income tax all by itself is the answer, maybe combined with something else. I don't know yet. We just need to take a look," she said.

Almy said the committee is working off the assumption that the state will need up to $400 million, as calculated by lawmakers in the bipartisan Purple Group that has studied education costs. The new adequacy law set up a committee to figure the cost of schooling under the definition, which includes statewide kindergarten.

When the panel reports next February, Almy and company will have to figure out where to get the money.

The Purples were actually the source of a lot of the tax ideas, in a bill Almy calls the "kitchen sink." It includes a tax on estates over $3 million, a 3 percent luxury tax on the purchase of cars worth $30,000 or more and on "tangible personal property" worth $10,000 or more; taxes on entertainment, gambling winnings, an expanded tobacco tax, and a payroll tax for businesses with payrolls of $10,000 or more a week. Estimates are that a 1 percent payroll tax would generate nearly $200 million.

"That one's crazy," said former Ways and Means chairman Rep. Norm Major. "Every small business will get to that level, and this state runs on small business. Are we going to drive them away?"

None of this tax talk plays well with House Minority Leader Michael Whalley, a former Ways and Means member himself. "I don't remember any Ways and Means Committee studying taxes during the summer and fall," he said.

Whalley argued that the last stages of budget work in June were "a paper shuffle" to inflate revenues that justified higher spending. He said that locks in the need for a new tax, not only to cover school aid but to balance a budget that he says is off kilter by $120 million.

"They added more programs, expanded programs, and I think there will be a real shortfall. It was the will of many Democrats to build cost drivers into education and to expand state spending so they can get what they have wanted all along, and that is an income tax," he said. "In the long run, don't think the governor will be able to hold them back."

Numbers are getting harder to pin down on what kind of revenue the state would get from gambling. The more it spreads in other states, the less New Hampshire would make.

Right now, the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe is in negotiations with the town of Middleborough, Mass., on a deal to open a casino there. While those talks go on, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun are expected to see slot revenue of $1 billion each by 2010.

__

DAM MAINTENANCE: The $1.2 million settlement the state made with the group that leases the Pontook hydroelectric dam in Dummer is a help, but it's not a cure-all, state dam bureau head Jim Gallagher said last week.

The money will go toward operating and maintaining dams, not repairs on the 33 state-owned dams that need fixing. The new state budget included $1.8 million for the 10 most urgent repairs, but didn't cover all operations costs at 273 state-owned dams.

"This postpones the day of reckoning on dam maintenance," Gallagher said.

Dams are a sensitive issue in the wake of the 2005 Alstead floods and Mother's Day 2006 and April 2007 floods. People who live downstream from an aging dam get a little on edge after three consecutive years of 100-year floods.

A move this year to put some unrefunded gasoline tax money toward dam repairs and maintenance was postponed a year. The idea of taxing lakefront property 15 cents per frontage foot to cover dam costs stumbled out of the gate.

Between debt service on bonds from years' past and current operations, Gallagher doesn't see the settlement money getting the state through more than two years.

"We'll be all right for this biennium but beyond this we'll need a more permanent solution," he said.

__

LABOR APPOINTMENT: The Executive Council hosts a public hearing Wednesday at 10 a.m. on Lynch's decision to nominate Labor Commissioner George Copadis to another term.

Copadis, originally put in office by Gov. Craig Benson, has done and said the right things under Lynch. He worked hard to pass the minimum-wage increase that was a Lynch priority and has pitched in on crises like the closing of Car Components Technology in Bedford and paper mills in Groveton and Berlin. He most recently won wage payments for workers at three Hooters restaurants that closed.

__

STAFF CHANGES: Greg Moore, right-hand man to Health and Human Services Commissioner John Stephen, will be calling it quits on Aug. 1.

Moore, who worked on Stephen's 2002 congressional campaign, said he's had enough of government work for awhile, but won't say whether or where he's eyeing campaign work.

Reporters who struggled for years before Moore arrived to get quick answers from the state's biggest bureaucracy are going to miss him when he's not there to kick around anymore.

Alice Chamberlin, the governor's environmental policy director, has left Lynch's office.

A ban on the incineration of construction and demolition debris and renewable energy bills, both of which passed, were among her big projects this year. She had been with the office since Lynch's first term.

Also heading for the exits is New Hampshire Retirement System executive director Robert Leggett.

Leggett came on the scene just before the sparks flew in 2005 over unreported conflicts of interest by former chairman Ed Theobald.

The NHRS board plans to select an executive search firm this week to hunt for Leggett's successor.

[Dreepa]

The one she likes the most, which she admits has slim chance of passing, is the income tax. Gov. John Lynch has pledged to veto any sales or income tax, and Senate Democrats backed him on that stance when they ran for office.

They don't even hide it anymore.. they want an income tax... and they want it now.

[JellyFish]

They sicken me. I can't wait to vote against all of these pigs in 2008. They are the scum of the earth.

[d_goddard]

"Voting" ain't going to be enough. Not by a longshot.
We're going to need to be full-court press, hardcore activism for about 6 weeks starting in late September '08.
Lit drops (going door-to-door with "good" candidates' flyers), phone banks (calling up all the registered voters in an area), holding signs on voting day, and much much more.

A good idea would be to plug into the RLCNH group and the NHLA.

There is a special election for a seat on July 31st, the RLCNH and the candidate need help ASAP!
http://www.sos.nh.gov/seabrook.htm
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RLCNH/message/3543