By CHARLES M. ARLINGHAUS
New Hampshire's state budget process is falling apart. The only responsible thing for legislators to do is ignore the June deadline, pass a temporary two-month budget and give themselves another 60 days to pass a two-year budget that has been properly debated and analyzed.
The fiscal year covered by the old two-year budget will end June 30. Prudence would normally dictate that a new budget be in place before the old one expires. However, this year is different.
The governor and Legislature are facing a significant budget hole that they have been unable to resolve. The House and Senate passed different budgets. As happens with every budget, a conference committee has been working to split the differences between the two budgets.
This year, however, the conference committee process has been radically changed. The governor has come forward with a host of new taxes and tax increases that are in neither the House nor the Senate version. On Monday, his revenue commissioner presented a detailed memo with 11 new tax proposals to the committee, which must issue its report tomorrow.
Changes to our tax structure such as a new refinancing tax or a significant change to corporate tax laws are usually placed before policy committees. The proposal is turned into a formal bill with legal language and detailed provisions so we can know the intended and unintended consequences of any change in law. People affected by the new law are given a chance to examine the language, object to it, make a case for changes and bring matters of concern to the attention of the policy makers.
The conference committee is traditionally not allowed to bring forward new proposals. It exists to reconcile differences between proposals that have each been passed in the normal process of one legislative house or the other.
It is not necessarily unusual for a governor to come up with a new proposal sometime in the four months between his own budget proposal in February and the end of the budget in June. What is extraordinary is for the governor to present new ideas that didn't come up in his speech or in the House or Senate debates and present them not as laws but as guidelines just three days before the committee completes its report.
The ideas do not include specific, detailed language as laws do. They do not allow an opportunity for review by people and parties affected. They do not allow for an open debate about the implications of policy changes.
The only thing preventing an open and transparent process is the late, last-minute, hastily pulled together nature of the proposals. At this stage, there is no time left if the Legislature is going to present a report tomorrow so the budget can be signed before June 30.
The obvious solution is to change the time problem. I'm not talking about officially stopping clocks so we pretend it isn't really June 30, as some states around the country do. On the contrary, let's just admit we need more time to deal with the last-minute suggestions.
Six years ago, after Gov. Craig Benson vetoed the budget, the Legislature passed a continuing resolution allowing spending at current levels for the next few months while legislators crafted a compromise. On Sept. 4, a new compromise budget became law.
If the new budget is to include a plethora of new taxes that have not yet been through our normal transparent process, more time is a requirement.
Some people will claim that not passing a budget by June 30 is an admission of failure. On the contrary, I think it would be an honest and straightforward admission that there have been complications to the budget process this year. Legislative budget writers would send an important message about open government. More time would allow them to consider the governor's tax-raising ideas. Without the opportunity for an open process and an actual drafted law to consider and analyze, the governor's tax increases would have to be rejected out of hand just in the interest of fairness.
Last-minute changes without hearing are the stuff of political machines. Both parties could agree that a compromise has not been reached and the right of open debate makes an extension the fair thing to do both to protect the rights of the minority and to allow the governor to be heard. Passing last-minute tax hikes that had yet to be fully formulated three days before the budget is due to be finalized is the worst of all possible choices.
A continuing resolution will allow the Legislature to take a deep breath, hear from affected parties, and not rush to judgment.
Charles M. Arlinghaus is president of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, a free-market think tank in Concord.
New Hampshire's state budget process is falling apart. The only responsible thing for legislators to do is ignore the June deadline, pass a temporary two-month budget and give themselves another 60 days to pass a two-year budget that has been properly debated and analyzed.
The fiscal year covered by the old two-year budget will end June 30. Prudence would normally dictate that a new budget be in place before the old one expires. However, this year is different.
The governor and Legislature are facing a significant budget hole that they have been unable to resolve. The House and Senate passed different budgets. As happens with every budget, a conference committee has been working to split the differences between the two budgets.
This year, however, the conference committee process has been radically changed. The governor has come forward with a host of new taxes and tax increases that are in neither the House nor the Senate version. On Monday, his revenue commissioner presented a detailed memo with 11 new tax proposals to the committee, which must issue its report tomorrow.
Changes to our tax structure such as a new refinancing tax or a significant change to corporate tax laws are usually placed before policy committees. The proposal is turned into a formal bill with legal language and detailed provisions so we can know the intended and unintended consequences of any change in law. People affected by the new law are given a chance to examine the language, object to it, make a case for changes and bring matters of concern to the attention of the policy makers.
The conference committee is traditionally not allowed to bring forward new proposals. It exists to reconcile differences between proposals that have each been passed in the normal process of one legislative house or the other.
It is not necessarily unusual for a governor to come up with a new proposal sometime in the four months between his own budget proposal in February and the end of the budget in June. What is extraordinary is for the governor to present new ideas that didn't come up in his speech or in the House or Senate debates and present them not as laws but as guidelines just three days before the committee completes its report.
The ideas do not include specific, detailed language as laws do. They do not allow an opportunity for review by people and parties affected. They do not allow for an open debate about the implications of policy changes.
The only thing preventing an open and transparent process is the late, last-minute, hastily pulled together nature of the proposals. At this stage, there is no time left if the Legislature is going to present a report tomorrow so the budget can be signed before June 30.
The obvious solution is to change the time problem. I'm not talking about officially stopping clocks so we pretend it isn't really June 30, as some states around the country do. On the contrary, let's just admit we need more time to deal with the last-minute suggestions.
Six years ago, after Gov. Craig Benson vetoed the budget, the Legislature passed a continuing resolution allowing spending at current levels for the next few months while legislators crafted a compromise. On Sept. 4, a new compromise budget became law.
If the new budget is to include a plethora of new taxes that have not yet been through our normal transparent process, more time is a requirement.
Some people will claim that not passing a budget by June 30 is an admission of failure. On the contrary, I think it would be an honest and straightforward admission that there have been complications to the budget process this year. Legislative budget writers would send an important message about open government. More time would allow them to consider the governor's tax-raising ideas. Without the opportunity for an open process and an actual drafted law to consider and analyze, the governor's tax increases would have to be rejected out of hand just in the interest of fairness.
Last-minute changes without hearing are the stuff of political machines. Both parties could agree that a compromise has not been reached and the right of open debate makes an extension the fair thing to do both to protect the rights of the minority and to allow the governor to be heard. Passing last-minute tax hikes that had yet to be fully formulated three days before the budget is due to be finalized is the worst of all possible choices.
A continuing resolution will allow the Legislature to take a deep breath, hear from affected parties, and not rush to judgment.
Charles M. Arlinghaus is president of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, a free-market think tank in Concord.
