The New Hampshire House has approved a $13.5 billion budget package that Republicans portrayed as responsible "belt tightening" during a pandemic and Democrats criticized as harmful to those who've struggled most over the last year.
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The House voted 205 to 178 to pass House Bill 1.
The two-year proposal now goes to the Senate.
Democrats objected to the elimination of 226 jobs in the Department of Health and Human Services and a $50 million cut to that agency's funding.
But Republicans countered that their proposal would aid in the recovery via tax cuts for businesses that struggled during the pandemic and that increased spending on health and human services was unsustainable.
