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A Dramatic Rethinking of State Government

by: Dean Barker

Mon Jul 06, 2009 at 07:32:15 AM EDT
Lauren Dorgan goes there... to the scary world awaiting our next budget:
That budget will start out with a $550 million hole, estimates Steve Norton of the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Research, who gets to that number by tallying up about $450 million in federal stimulus money, primarily for education programs and Medicaid, plus the $110 million the state plans to seize from a state-established medical malpractice fund.

...The next budget, Norton said, may require a dramatic rethinking of state government.

Now we're talking.  Maybe change some aspects of county government, eliminate the executive council, and of course, maybe, just maybe, taking off the Pledge shackles and thinking about having the state's wealthy pay their fair share?

Or... we put a mega-prison in Berlin instead.  

No - wait! How about a combo mega-prison racino?

Or...a North Country that isn't a dumping ground for unpleasant sources of revenue in hard times.  A North Country that is the Northeast's magnet for sustainable organic farming and alternative energy sources like wind and wood pellet. A North Country that is the driver's seat of the state's economy instead of the spare tire. A North Country folks want to move to, not away from.
Dean Barker :: A Dramatic Rethinking of State Government
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A Dramatic Rethinking of State Government | 9 comments
geography and population dispersion (4.00 / 3)
The North Country has approximately the same population, approx. 33,000, as Concord spread over a much larger area...while we always talk about it, solutions are are hard.
High spped internet has been the mantra... It is not reasonably close to major markets, nor are there easy transportation options to bring products to market. Tax incentives are available for job creation, but that has not spurred a boom. The ideas you suggest are germain, but not going to happen soon.

for transparency sake ~I represent Union print shops
I'll give you a 4, because everything you say is true, (4.00 / 2)
but I'll raise you one too:

if the North Country has the same population as Concord, then maybe we should put the mega-prison in Concord, perhaps right next to the state-house.  Think of the jobs and revenue!

birch, finch, beech

[ Parent ]
I am thinking (0.00 / 0)
don't uprate in anger
I am not supportive of prisons or casinos, but where's the green economy better suited ? North Country...if we can install a delivery system to distribute the potential power generated...if Mascoma comes up with the right enzyme..if if if if we build it out they will come

for transparency sake ~I represent Union print shops
[ Parent ]
There IS a major prison in Concord. (4.00 / 1)
Has been for generations, and the capital city also held the state hospital for the mentally ill. The suggestion that the state government plays NIMBY doesn't hold up.

It's unusual, I suppose: you don't see such facilities in Boston or Sacramento. Perhaps it's because we're a small state with a commuter legislature.

[ Parent ]
Please be aware the State House is not all there is to Concord (0.00 / 0)
Concord is a great small city with many neighborhoods and much that is not related to State politics. We have long been the dumping ground for the state and we bear the tax burden to prove that. Before you advocate an additioal state institution in Concord that pays no property taxes and further burdens city services such as fire and emergency responders please think of the people that live here. Don't punish us with your dislike of what the State government does or does not do. Most of our voters believe in a fair and equitable tax and other progresive ideas.
[ Parent ]
Or maybe we shouldn't be building (4.00 / 2)
mega-prisons at all, anywhere in this state, either in theory or as a way to fund our state budget, which is the point I am (being not successful at) making.

Or to put another way: becoming New England's home for America's incarceration-palooza is yet another way of kicking the can down the road on addressing the dysfunctional revenue system we Pledge to.

birch, finch, beech

[ Parent ]
when things go bad, things go bad (4.00 / 1)
California had all the possible taxes(dysfunctional revenue system)imaginable and has hit the wall on this budget cycle...so how are we so much worse ? It's the times...when revenue drops, revenue drops. But our real estate never surged as high, and did not fall as far. We are better off than many other states, as much as it is hard for you to recognize.
If you remember last year when the R's wanted to spend the Rainy Day Fund and Lynch wanted to bond school construction instead I wrote that the clouds were then only gathering...well the clouds broke on 9/15 with Lehman Bros. collapse. We are spending from the fund...along with Stimulus and Recovery funds, gobs of money are being spent to revive the economy killed by Bush policies.

I still believe we will survive and prosper as a state in the future.

One of the verities of recessions/depressions is that they always end. The difficulty for budget writers is to project when the increasing revenue streams that come from recovery and upturn will occur and to what degree. Real Estate transfer tax revenue has fallen with falling home prices and falling home sales. It and business taxes, and tourist revenue will all grow again in the future, just when though, no one knows.

I would rather look at Green Jobs than prisons any day.

By the way it is interesting to note that Canada has many fewer problems than the U.S. as it has become our largest supplier of 'foreign oil'.

We had visitors this weekend from Toronto, where college costs less, lawn chemicals are outlawed(even at golf courses) and the medicine is socialized...sounds tempting...they also got less snow than we did this year.  

for transparency sake ~I represent Union print shops

[ Parent ]
Wouldn't It Be Nice... (4.00 / 2)
Wouldn't it be nice if our candidate(s) for Governor in 2010 would shake off the shackles of supposed political poll interpretations and have a serious discussion about all of our options -- spending, education reform, prison reform, tax reform, reorganization of state government, and everything related?

Ohhh, wouldn't it be nice.  It certainly would be smart.  

it sure would be nice (0.00 / 0)
not to have the north country used as the state's dump for anything NIMBY. I was furious when I read that Senator Slots wanted 2 casinos in the north country. I never voted for him - why should he get a say in what happens up here?

Thanks to GOP gerrymandering it's going to take dynamite to blast Gallus out of his seat - and rest assured, if there is distasteful money to be made, Gallus will ensure it has a home - in fact, he'll sell it to them.  

sanctimonious purist/professional lefty

A Dramatic Rethinking of State Government | 9 comments

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