New Hampshire Voters, Hold On To Your Wallets Part 2

The following article appeared in the New Hampshire Union Leader:

It Begins: Here Come The Tax Hikes

HOW DOES $185 million in tax and fee increases sound to you? Good? Well, then you’ll love the latest Democratic budget plan to emerge in the state House.

If the House Ways and Means Committee gets its way, the state will suck an additional $185 million from the economy in the next two years. The bulk of that is a $145 million cigarette tax increase. The plan also raises the real estate transfer tax and several fees, including motor vehicle registration fees.

It’s a bigger pot of money than Gov. John Lynch has requested. Lynch wanted a smaller cigarette tax hike, and he wanted the Land and Community Heritage Investment Program (LCHIP) funded with existing revenues. The Ways and Means Committee raises the real estate transfer tax to fund LCHIP.

But by pushing for his own tax hikes, Gov. Lynch let Democratic legislators know that raising taxes was OK with him. And they are running with it.

It is interesting that they would risk their majority by not sticking to the moderate Democrat script. They are supposed to spend the next two years lulling the voters into false sense of security by rejecting big tax hikes. Then, after the next election, wham!

But as with their counterparts in Washington, who are setting the people up for the largest tax increase in history, Democrats in the New Hampshire House are so giddy in their newfound power that they are forgetting to play it safe.

Taxpayers, take notice. A $185 million hit is just the beginning. There will be more to come. These tax-and-spenders just cannot help themselves.

To read the first part of the hold on to your wallet posts read this, I have a feeling these are just the first two posts of many.