O’Brien: Agreement hides Hassan budgeting failures & excesses behind gauze of bipartisan compromise
Former House Speaker Bill O’Brien is pulling out all the stops in his attempt to derail the budget agreement announced today between Gov. Maggie Hassan and the Republican legislative leadership.
In an email apparently intended for a select group of sympathetic lawmakers, O’Brien blasted the governor by name but refrained from explicitly calling out his Republican colleagues who brokered the deal, Senate President Chuck Morse and House Speaker Shawn Jasper.
O’Brien said the compromise budget – which includes business tax cuts and the state employees’ pay raise but does not reauthorize Medicaid expansion – will “help Maggie Hassan hide her budgeting failures and excesses behind the gauze of a ‘bi-partisan’ compromise when she runs for U.S. Senate.”
O’Brien, titular head of the conservative GOP breakway caucus, criticized the compromise budget for spending “millions of dollars more in a budget that already has increased state-funded spending by almost 10 times the rate of inflation and has already given Maggie Hassan 75% of the $800 million in increased spending she wanted.”
The former Speaker asked the recipients to help him assemble the 120 votes needed to block the compromise agreement. “If each one of you will make some calls, ask for support and ask members to come to the 11:30 Majority Caucus,” O’Brien wrote, “we get the momentum we will need to avoid this final acquiesce to a Democrat Governor’s spending demands.”
The full text of O’Brien’s email follows below the fold.
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Dear Colleagues,
For all of you who believe that we should not,
- further increase spending in the budget,
- be fooled by a illusion of “bigger” tax decrease that is in part subject to the DRA certifying certain levels of revenues, an inquiry which they gamed three years ago in order to avoid having the tobacco tax decrease become permanent,
- have an opportunity to have public hearings so that the public can weigh in on whether a highly paid group of employees should be paid more,
- vote on new measures in a budget when it appears that the agencies are being told not to talk to (conservative?) legislators about budgets,
- increase spending when we haven’t received the audited financial statements that are due at the end of this month,
- rush into a new budget on less than 24 hours notice when the continuing resolution will run to the end of the year,
- assume we need to spend millions of dollars more in a budget that already has increased state-funded spending by almost 10 times the rate of inflation and has already given Maggie Hassan 75% of the $800 million in increased spending she wanted,
- ignore the fact that until a couple of weeks ago Maggie Hassan hid a $22.5 million account charge for unfunded pension obligations that should be in the budget and that seems to have been ignore in this so-called “compromise,” or
- help Maggie Hassan hide her budgeting failures and excesses behind the gauze of a “bi-partisan” compromise when she runs for U.S. Senate,
could you help us?
Could you spread the word not to vote for the suspension of rules tomorrow?
Could you help us gather together 120 votes we need to prevent the suspension of rules? If each one of you will make some calls, ask for support and ask members to come to the 11:30 Majority Caucus, we get the momentum we will need to avoid this final acquiesce to a Democrat Governor’s spending demands.
If each one you contacts a couple of like-minded conservatives not on this list and tell them to hold fast and require that we as legislators do not pass a new budget or new spending without public input, we can defeat this last minute deal. We can avoid a budget deal that is bad for New Hampshire.
We have quickly put together this list, but there are many more of us. Can you confirm for us that you will help by reaching out to as many as you can?
Thanks,
Bill