State lawmakers prepare for crucial votes today on whether to increase business taxes to raise the 6 billion dollars needed to fund schools and balance the budget. But observers predict tight votes.
The plan under consideration would make permanent 1999’s “temporary” statewide education property tax. It would also hike the business enterprise tax by 25 percent, and up business profits and telecommunications taxes. According to Doug Hall, of the New Hampshire center for public policy, this blend is wholly consistent with the state’s historic reliance on business taxes to fund its obligations. Hall says when push comes to shove lawmakers are as hesitant about rethinking the state’s traditional funding schemes as they would be dismantling New Hampshire’s very emblem.
Nobody would want to be around and be responsible is the old man crumbles. The Same thing is true I think with the tax situation. Nobody wants to be responsible when the whole tax structure has to change. So a lot of this has to do with the basic psyche of the state the political psyche…not education.
Andru Volinisky, attorney for the plantiff towns in the Claremont suit, has a more pointed diagnosis of legislature’s psyche. He says lawmakers who support the proposal are delusional. He predicts the plan will prompt swift downgrades in the state’s bond ratings and yield higher costs for local school districts – a recipe for disaster with more than a few culpable chefs.
When money is needed to repair a roof or to fix a building. It should be thought that the republicans are responsible for increasing the cost of that. Now the democrats have done all that much either, but it happens to be republican leadership that is driving the boat and it’s leading us right over the falls.
While Doug Hall, himself a former legislator, is less given to finger pointing, he does bemoan how years of wrangling over how to pay for an adequate education have left lawmakers little time to determine anything other than it’s price tag.
What kind of courses are to be offered in high schools? What kind of materials do we expect? What kind of teacher training? The questions of what is a quality education have taken a back seat and until we solve the financial issue, they’ll continue to take a back seat and I think that’s unfortunate for the state and the kids.
Both bodies of the legislature will take up the budget issues later today. While Governor Shaheen has yet to publicly condemn this latest republican plan, she hasn’t ruled out a veto. Nor has she ruled out a possible government shutdown if an agreement can’t be reached by the July 1st start of the new fiscal year.
