After slashing state spending for higher education and cutting services for seniors, the disabled and at-risk children, state House Speaker Bill O’Brien says, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
O’Brien told Kevin Landrigan he anticipates cutting another $400,000 from the 2014-2015 budget. State Senator Lou D’Allesandro, who serves on the Senate Finance and Ways and Means committees, wants to know where the cuts will be made.
“Will they eliminate all funding for higher education, pushing through another double-digit tuition increase? Will they cut additional aid to cities and towns, raising local property taxes? Will they cut health care for seniors, people with disabilities and children? The people of New Hampshire deserve to know.”
Senate Democratic Leader Sylvia Larsen and Rep. Cindy Rosenwald, a member of the House Finance Committee, called on the GOP gubernatorial candidates to level with New Hampshire voters about their plans for the budget.
“Ovide Lamontagne — and Kevin Smith — should tell us now if they support Bill O’Brien’s radical new plan,” said Larsen, “and if so, they should tell New Hampshire what they would cut.”
“The people of New Hampshire deserve to know what Republican leaders plan to cut in order to pay for their next round of tax giveaways,” echoed Rosenwald.
Last spring, when the GOP House leadership insisted on cutting the state cigarette tax by ten cents a pack, the Department of Revenue Administration estimated the tax cut would cost the state $14 million in revenue if sales were consistent with the previous year.
House Speaker Bill O’Brien, however, argued the tax cut would actually increase state revenue:
“This tax cut is an important step to regain our advantage and bring business here to New Hampshire. We strongly believe that reducing this tax will result in more revenue, more economic growth and more tax cuts.”
Kevin Landrigan reports state officials now project that the cut will result in a revenue shortfall of — surprise, surprise — $12-$15 million for the year.
[Administrative Services Commissioner Linda Hodgdon] confirmed that through nine months the tax is $11 million off forecast, and $9 million of that is attributed to the tax break.
State officials can now accurately compare pack sales through this nine-month period to the previous three quarters last year when the tax was higher.
At this rate the tax cut could cost the treasury at least $12 million and as much as $15 million for the year.
At a town hall meeting in Claremont, Congressman Charlie Bass faced a hostile crowd of constituents over his vote for the Ryan budget plan. His response? Let’s call it something else.
In Claremont, many said that they were worried that Bass wanted to lower taxes on the wealthy. They worried about his association not with Romney but with Ryan, the author of the Republican budget.
Bass voted for Ryan’s budget plan, which has helped to make Ryan a Republican hero, and target for Democratic criticism.
At one point during the Claremont meeting, Bass seemed uncomfortable with Ryan’s prominence. When asked about the Ryan budget, Bass said, “I hate to call it that. It’s the Republican budget in Congress.”
When Rep. Frank Guinta first ran for Congress, he took what he called a “tough stance” and opposed the use of federal funds for Portsmouth’s deteriorating Memorial Bridge.
Asked about whether he would support earmarks for replacement of the Memorial Bridge, he said he’s taken “a no-earmark pledge.” As such, he said, if a project is not a “federal responsibility, other funds than federal funds are going to have to be found. It’s a tough stance, and it doesn’t mean the project’s not worthy. But the budget is $1.3 trillion out of balance. We have to bring the budget into balance.”
After a year in office, his tough stance has apparently given way. Guinta now supports a massive river dredging project for the Port of New Hampshire and replacing, rather than rehabilitating, the Sarah Mildred Long Bridge — and he vows to use his seat on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure to help secure federal funding. “I’m here to govern,” he now says.
Guinta said funds could come from various sources, including the states of New Hampshire and Maine; a five-year, $260 billion Highway Bill making its way through Congress; and grants including Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) funding.
To critics who say the transportation bill is larded up with unnecessary spending, Guinta said, “I’m here to govern.” He cited the Constitution as his basis for making infrastructure projects a national, Federal responsibility.
When Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner testified before the Senate Budget Committee, New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte was vocal in her criticism of the administration for not embracing the Bowles-Simpson deficit reduction recommendations — until she was asked about the report’s proposals for raising revenue.
Geithner was responding to questions by Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), and at one point turned the tables on her. He asked Ayotte if, given her “affection” for Bowles-Simpson, she would support its tax reform that raised trillions in revenue for deficit reduction.
“Are you willing to embrace the broad balance of Bowles-Simpson? Then there is a lot to talk about,” he said.
Ayotte would only say that it is up to the president to take the lead on the budget.
Rep. Cynthia Chase takes a look at how the state is faring under the budget, opposed by Democrats and moderate Republicans, that cut funding for many state services that formed our social safety net.
- [T]he finance committee decided to keep the federal [Medicaid] reimbursement funds. … The net result: a $250 million cut to our hospital operating budgets over two years.
- A recent report by the U.S. Department of Justice said that the New Hampshire mental health system is in crisis.
- The Children in Need of Services (CHINS) program … has been cut to 50 children from over 1,500, with the fallout being experienced by schools and families across the state.
- [T]he cost cutting to higher education has left New Hampshire in-state students with the dubious distinction of graduating with the highest debt load of any state in the nation.
- This Legislature has passed the most frightening relaxation of gun laws seen in modern times.
- Other items facing cuts are Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, heating assistance, social service agencies and senior services.
“The majority in Concord,” she concludes, “appears to see no reason why they should be concerned about the needs of others less fortunate than themselves.”
The nation’s tradition of fomenting a popular distrust of learning, which Richard Hofstadter documented in ”Anti-Intellectualism in American Life,” is on full display today in the GOP-dominated New Hampshire legislature.
Two new reports document how the Granite State now leads the nation in dismantling public education. A study by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities reports New Hampshire produced the nation’s sharpest decline in state funding for public higher education with a 48% reduction from 2011 to 2012.
Not surprisingly, a separate but related report by the Project on Student Debt confirms that New Hampshire college students also lead the nation in loan debt at graduation. The Granite State’s college graduates left school in 2010 with an average debt of $31,048, the most in the country.
When Gov. Lynch opposed the university system budget cuts, he stated the obvious. “We need a well-educated workforce to succeed in the future.” Not so, retorted state House Speaker Bill O’Brien:
“Not only does throwing more and more taxpayer money at funding college education cause more problems than it solves, it inaccurately signals that college attendance is the only route for success in life, insulates an efficient industry for the reality of market needs, and imposes taxes on average working families and blue collar workers to fund others’ tuition,” O’Brien said in a statement.
Yesterday, Rep. Charlie Bass visited a literacy program at Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth that he voted to defund. Reach Out and Read is a national, nonprofit organization that promotes early literacy by providing books to children and advice to parents during doctors’ visits. Last year, the program gave out books to 20,000 New Hampshire children at 40 health care facilities around the state.
Dr. Suzanne Boulter, an adjunct faculty member at Dartmouth Medical School and medical director for the state’s Reach Out and Read Program, said she was devastated when she learned of the House vote to eliminate the program’s federal funding.
The funding pays for one-fourth of the cost of running local programs, Boulter said, and goes toward the purchase price of books. The local programs have to raise the rest of the money through grants and donations.
She added that, while the Concord program will most likely be able to make up the loss of the federal funding, other programs in the state may have to fold.
She said many programs receive other grants and donations based on a federal match. Without that match, Boulter said, she is not sure the private donors will continue to give.
Bass defended his vote to eliminate federal funding for Reach Out and Read.
“Just because I voted to reduce funding for this program doesn’t mean I don’t support the ideas underlying it,” he said.
Rep. Terie Norelli, co-chair of the The National Conference of State Legislatures’ Task Force on Federal Deficit Reduction, led a bipartisan delegation to Capitol Hill yesterday. The state legislators lobbied the congressional Super Committee, which is seeking to craft a bipartisan debt reduction plan, and urged them to spare states from severe budget cuts.
“We know that there will be cuts,” New Hampshire Representative Terie Norelli, a Democrat, told reporters during a briefing at the offices of the National Conference of State Legislatures, which organized the lobbying trip. “What we are asking is that cuts to state budgets be proportional to everything else that’s on the table.”
Some have suggested that the best outcome for the states would be for the committee to fail, thereby triggering $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts. Those automatic cuts specifically exempt Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, welfare and food stamp programs.
Norelli emphatically rejected that assertion on Wednesday. She said deep cuts to K-12 education, military installations and other priorities would still happen if the committee is unable to reach a deal, and that the states want the committee to take a comprehensive approach.
“Not succeeding is unacceptable,” she said.
Working families, faith leaders, and small business owners held a community vigil yesterday in front of the State House to describe the toll taken by underemployment in the Granite State. They called on the Legislature to devote the next session to creating good, living-wage jobs.
“Underemployment undermines our moral commitment to maintaining a strong society. We must ensure that residents have access to opportunities for economic mobility and growth. Simply creating jobs is not enough — we must focus on creating opportunities for the people in this state.” —The Reverend John Gregory-Davis, Meriden Congregational Church. (AFL-CIO release)
Kristin Fredrickson, who has been unemployed for two years, rings a bell to mourn the loss of good jobs in the state. Kristin Locke, a mother of three who lost her job as a a tax auditor due to state budget cuts, will lose her health insurance at the end of the month. (John Tully/Monitor Staff)
Yesterday, St. Joseph Hospital laid off an additional 44 staff members as a direct result of state budget cuts.
The move will mean an end to the hospital’s Adult Day Health Center on Amherst Street that provided care for 45-55 Alzheimer’s and dementia patients, as well as the Resource Development department, which was charged with fundraising and philanthropic endeavors, [hospital spokesperson Melissa Sears] said.
The job losses come on the heels of an earlier announcement by the hospital that it is closing Rockingham Ambulance and Granite State Mediquip and laying off the 174 employees who worked for the two organizations.
Over 1400 jobs, most in the private sector, have now been lost in New Hampshire since July 1 as a direct result of state budget cuts.
1,376. That’s the number of jobs lost in New Hampshire, since July 1, as a direct result of the state budget passed by the GOP-dominated legislature. The Portsmouth Herald reports hospital workers and state employees have been hardest hit by the budget cuts.
ORGANIZATION LOCATION JOBS NOTICE
Catholic Medical Center . . . . . . Manchester . . . 101 . . . Aug 18
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Hospital . . . Lebanon . . . . 300 . . . Aug 10
Elliott Hospital . . . . . . . . . Manchester . . . 182 . . . Jul 26
N.H. Court System . . . . . . . . . Concord . . . . 68 . . . May 12
N.H. DOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . Concord . . . . 42 . . . Jul 30
N.H. Legal Assistance . . . . . . . Nashua . . . . . 14 . . . Aug 21
N.H. Public Television . . . . . . Manchester . . . 20 . . . Jun 2
St. Joseph Hospital . . . . . . . . Nashua . . . . . 174 . . . Aug 2
Southern N.H. Medical Center . . . Nashua . . . . . 100 . . . Jul 28
State of N.H. . . . . . . . . . . . Concord . . . . 130 . . . Jul 17
University of New Hampshire . . . . Durham . . . . . 200 . . . Apr 13
Wentworth-Douglass Hospital . . . . Dover . . . . . 45 . . . Aug 11
Republican legislators responsible for the state budget dismissed the report:
When reached for comment through a spokeswoman, House Speaker William O’Brien, R-Mont Vernon, issued a statement that said, “Clearly, this is a smokescreen by the Democratic party to detract from the news that they have admitted to breaking campaign laws….
[State Rep. Will Smith] said it is to be expected that budget cuts would cost jobs, but he added not all employment is of economic value to the state….
