The budget story the Union Leader will Never Print

Fundraising letters from the G.O.P. dropped the instant Governor Sununu signed the budget. Yet the signing happened in private, without the press coverage the governor is usually so fond of. Why?
     New Hampshire is a purple state. The parties are about evenly split, but more voters prefer to remain undeclared, somewhere between the extremes. Yet G.O.P. fundraising letters trumpet the signing of “the most conservative budget New Hampshire has ever seen.” In other words, the budget represents the desires of a minority on one end of the seesaw, not the majority in the middle or on the opposite end.     
     Why are extreme conservatives so delighted with this budget? It puts New Hampshire in the national spotlight with multiple conservative support groups. First, the school-choice movement funded by evangelicals, for-profit education corporations and key donors such as Betsy DeVos, because it includes “the most extreme voucher bill in the nation.” Secondly, the white-supremacy movement; the budget incorporates a version of their pet bill to ban discussion of norms that harm minorities and women. Third, anti-abortion forces; the budget adopts some of their language toward the goal of eventually forcing women to bear every child conceived.
     Why are these bills in the budget? Vouchers are expensive, but the others have no price tag. Instead, stuffing unpopular measures into the budget lets legislators support them without a specific vote in favor. They can claim, as the governor does, “I can’t veto the entire budget over just one measure.”
    Meanwhile, this budget continues to downshift costs to towns. It cuts business taxes for the fourth time in a decade. It shares some revenues with towns but takes away even more in education funding. To top it off, it lowers the interest and dividends tax to zero by 2024. Fewer than 1 in 20 filers pay interest & dividends tax. A sliver of those gain the lion’s share of the $125 million annual cut to state revenues. (See chart below.) It is not hard to imagine that a number of them are hefty campaign donors.

Most voters do not support these measures. Over 3,000 people signed in against the voucher bill, and only a few hundred for. The bill restricting topics of conversation is counterproductive and unconstitutional. Expectant mothers undergo late-term abortions for only the most tragic of reasons; how cruel is a bill that would force them to carry and jail any physician who terminated a failed pregnancy? And who but the greediest, most self-interested politicians would give $125 million in tax cuts to wealthy investors at the expense of property taxpayers and renters?
    Yet the GOP celebrates with good reason. By supporting the “most conservative budget New Hampshire has ever seen,” Governor Sununu, Commissioner Edelblut, and legislators seeking the national spotlight, now have conservative star power with large, national organizations that will support gubernatorial, congressional or presidential runs. And New Hampshire has become the model for how a minority can overpower a state. (See below)
     This budget reflects outside forces, wealthy self-interest, and the “Freedom Caucus” bullying the New Hampshire we love in a direction contrary to the values of the majority of Granite Staters.