How Not to Balance the Budget

HOW NOT TO BALANCE THE NH BUDGET
I have been talking a lot about the projected $500 million deficit that is looming for the next two year biennium here in NH.

On Tuesday I was in a convenience store in Somersworth doing business door to door campaigning. The headline in the New York Daily News caught my eye. The NY governor is predicting a 12.5 billion deficit for next year - that is right, 12.5 billion for one year! That is 50 times higher than the NH deficit. They are going to balance that budget by cutting spending in emergency sessions using drastic measures. Governor Paterson said, "When you're in that amount of trouble, everything is on the table, not because you want it to be , but because it's the only way to manage."

So why do you think that NY does not just consider a sales or income tax or both to solve the problem, as my opponent said she will consider "if her constituents want it?" It is because they already have sales and income taxes! Normal New Yorkers - $20,000 to $100,000 per year citizens - already pay 6.85% in income tax. And the average sales tax in the Big Apple state is over 8%. So if income and sales tax is the way to solve a budget crisis, NY should be in great shape, right?

Wrong! A bigger trough of income just creates more feeding frenzy at the trough. New York put those taxes in place years ago to solve their budget deficit problems and now they have much bigger deficit problems.

Citizens of New Hampshire, learn the lesson of New York! Income and/or sales taxes did not solve their budget problems, they exacerbated the problem. Now the governor of New York has gotten the message. Balance the budget by reducing spending. And everything needs to be on the table to do it.

To balance our budget next biennium, we need to reduce spending not increase taxes. The State of New York has given us a timely lesson. We need to take it to heart.