Lauren Dorgan weighs into the conflicting claims about the increase in the New Hampshire budget. If we ignore cuts already made from 2007, and $200 million in accounting gimmicks in this year's plan, and a half-billion dollars in one-time federal stimulus money, budget supporters say that General Fund spending drops by 1%.
To Arlinghaus, of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, Lynch isn't being straight if he's basing his budget crunching on the plan crafted in June 2007. "For the governor to say this is either flat or a cut, he has to pretend he didn't do anything last year," Arlinghaus said.
To be fair to the Governor, if you compare this budget to another budget that never really happened, and don't count the spending increases, this budget is level-funding. It only increases if you acknowledge reality.
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