The following op-ed ran in this morning's print edition of the Union Leader
THE NEW HAMPSHIRE DISADVANTAGE
By EUGENE VAN LOAN III
Oh, gosh, another crisis in Concord. The Governor says we need to steal another $150 Million to plug the hole in the budget. Otherwise, we will have to plug it with gambling (the Senate’s preference) or a capital gains tax (the House’s preference). What are we to do?
We have already robbed from multiple Peters to pay poor Paul. For example, we have stolen $110 Million from New Hampshire’s hospitals and doctors who naively thought that the surplus they had built up in the so-called Joint Underwriting Association due to their overpayment of malpractice insurance premiums was their money. Also, as Charlie Arlinghaus of the Josiah Bartlett Center recently pointed out in one of his columns, we are probably going to steal millions more from the payers of turnpike tolls to finance repairs to roads driven by people who don’t have to pay tolls. And then there is the State’s theft from our own towns and cities of some $ 50 Million in revenue sharing monies. And finally, our friends in Washington are sending us approximately $160 Million in one-time “stimulus” funds which they have stolen from the next generation of federal taxpayers (our children). And on, and on, and on.
But, as T.S. Eliot said, “Everyone steals; it’s what you do with what you steal that counts.” So, what are we doing with all this loot? Are we at least spending it wisely?
Unfortunately, posing such a question in the halls of the Statehouse – particularly to Democrats - would be an exercise in futility. For the conventional wisdom in Concord is that there is no such thing as a spending problem; the only problem we have is a revenue problem.
Nevertheless, let me suggest that there is a place where the budget could be cut which would solve the Governor’s $150 Million revenue problem. It just so happens that the spread between what the Legislature determined in its last session to be the cost of a so-called “adequate” education and what the State is presently spending on education is $123 Million for the biennium. The current budget proposes to spend this additional money.
But what if the State doesn’t spend it? (It is not quite the $150 Million the Governor needs, but what’s a few million or so among friends.) To begin with, it does nothing to improve education; it simply represents money that the State will pay that local school districts will not have to pay. In other words, all that this expenditure accomplishes is to shift the burden of paying for education from one group of taxpayers to another group of taxpayers (both of whom, by the way, happen to be us) – with no net gain to the students who are the supposed beneficiaries of this ponzi scheme.
More important, spending this money will not even bring about the result that its advocates claim it will – ending the Claremont litigation. Legislators have been told that if they spend this money and finally comply with the Supreme Court’s Claremont mandates to define, cost out, and fund 100% of the cost of an “adequate” education, that will be the end of school funding litigation in New Hampshire.
The Legislature has been sold a bill of goods. Last week, I happened to tune into Bedford’s local community television station, BCTV. A program entitled “The New Hampshire School Funding Dispute” was airing. (You can find it yourself on the Internet.) It turned out to be a lecture delivered on March 26, 2009 at the Greek Orthodox Church in Manchester by Andru Volinsky, lead counsel for the plaintiffs in the Claremont lawsuit. After crowing about how his legal team had outfoxed the Attorney General’s Office and the Supreme Court, Attorney Volinsky couldn’t resist giving his audience a glimpse of the future. After noting that the Legislature was proposing this session to fully fund what it had determined to be the cost of an adequate education, Attorney Volinsky commented that the Legislature’s definition of adequate was simply not adequate. And then he let the cat out of the bag: “This scenario probably gets us back to court in September/October.” In other words, suckers, $123 Million is just the beginning.
I say we put a stop to this nonsense. The Claremont case has become the New Hampshire Disadvantage. It is the tail wagging the budgetary dog. I say take the completely unnecessary $123 Million expenditure out of the budget, send the gamblers back to Las Vegas and nix the capital gains tax. And if the Claremont plaintiffs want to go back to court, let’s have at it.
We have already robbed from multiple Peters to pay poor Paul. For example, we have stolen $110 Million from New Hampshire’s hospitals and doctors who naively thought that the surplus they had built up in the so-called Joint Underwriting Association due to their overpayment of malpractice insurance premiums was their money. Also, as Charlie Arlinghaus of the Josiah Bartlett Center recently pointed out in one of his columns, we are probably going to steal millions more from the payers of turnpike tolls to finance repairs to roads driven by people who don’t have to pay tolls. And then there is the State’s theft from our own towns and cities of some $ 50 Million in revenue sharing monies. And finally, our friends in Washington are sending us approximately $160 Million in one-time “stimulus” funds which they have stolen from the next generation of federal taxpayers (our children). And on, and on, and on.
But, as T.S. Eliot said, “Everyone steals; it’s what you do with what you steal that counts.” So, what are we doing with all this loot? Are we at least spending it wisely?
Unfortunately, posing such a question in the halls of the Statehouse – particularly to Democrats - would be an exercise in futility. For the conventional wisdom in Concord is that there is no such thing as a spending problem; the only problem we have is a revenue problem.
Nevertheless, let me suggest that there is a place where the budget could be cut which would solve the Governor’s $150 Million revenue problem. It just so happens that the spread between what the Legislature determined in its last session to be the cost of a so-called “adequate” education and what the State is presently spending on education is $123 Million for the biennium. The current budget proposes to spend this additional money.
But what if the State doesn’t spend it? (It is not quite the $150 Million the Governor needs, but what’s a few million or so among friends.) To begin with, it does nothing to improve education; it simply represents money that the State will pay that local school districts will not have to pay. In other words, all that this expenditure accomplishes is to shift the burden of paying for education from one group of taxpayers to another group of taxpayers (both of whom, by the way, happen to be us) – with no net gain to the students who are the supposed beneficiaries of this ponzi scheme.
More important, spending this money will not even bring about the result that its advocates claim it will – ending the Claremont litigation. Legislators have been told that if they spend this money and finally comply with the Supreme Court’s Claremont mandates to define, cost out, and fund 100% of the cost of an “adequate” education, that will be the end of school funding litigation in New Hampshire.
The Legislature has been sold a bill of goods. Last week, I happened to tune into Bedford’s local community television station, BCTV. A program entitled “The New Hampshire School Funding Dispute” was airing. (You can find it yourself on the Internet.) It turned out to be a lecture delivered on March 26, 2009 at the Greek Orthodox Church in Manchester by Andru Volinsky, lead counsel for the plaintiffs in the Claremont lawsuit. After crowing about how his legal team had outfoxed the Attorney General’s Office and the Supreme Court, Attorney Volinsky couldn’t resist giving his audience a glimpse of the future. After noting that the Legislature was proposing this session to fully fund what it had determined to be the cost of an adequate education, Attorney Volinsky commented that the Legislature’s definition of adequate was simply not adequate. And then he let the cat out of the bag: “This scenario probably gets us back to court in September/October.” In other words, suckers, $123 Million is just the beginning.
I say we put a stop to this nonsense. The Claremont case has become the New Hampshire Disadvantage. It is the tail wagging the budgetary dog. I say take the completely unnecessary $123 Million expenditure out of the budget, send the gamblers back to Las Vegas and nix the capital gains tax. And if the Claremont plaintiffs want to go back to court, let’s have at it.
Eugene M. Van Loan III, a practicing attorney in Manchester and Chairman of the Board of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy
Right on track!!! Thanks for calling theft exactly what it is, and highlighting the abusrdity of the Claremont decision. Legislation from the bench must stop.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely! Where does the power in New Hampshire reside? With the People! Plus, does the court even have any way to enforce its decisions?
ReplyDelete