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House Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt (Salem) says the WMUR/UNH poll backs what Republicans have been saying all along -– that people are most concerned about the economy, jobs, and taxes. “What is most encouraging was the majority of those polled see that spending cuts are the best way to balance the budget, rather than new taxes. [Emphasis added]
What the WMUR Granite State Poll really said: 65% of New Hampshire adults support a mix of tax increases and spending cuts to address the state's budget shortfall. 29% prefer to rely on spending cuts alone.
Respondents were asked to select the approach they would choose to deal with the budget shortfall. 29% responded entirely with spending cuts, 21% said mainly spending cuts with some tax increases, 35% chose an even balance, 9% said mainly tax increases and some spending cuts, and 2% chose to address the budget shortfall entirely with tax increases.
"The days of bogus revenue estimates ... are over," Bettencourt said.
Republicans have funny names to frame their made up numbers. This one is "Goldilocks," which means "Don't you dare accuse us of a bogus estimate!," while the other one was the "Mark of the Beast," meaning "Ooohh Noes!!1!"
In other news, Democrats, who get elected to fix things, chronically lose ground to Republicans, who get elected by telling far better stories.
Yesterday, Dean noted that House Speaker O'Brien and House Majority Leader Bettencourt had called on the Executive Council to block the Department of Insurance from beginning the process to implement federal health care reforms.
Today, Pindell reports they won — at least temporarily. Insurance Commissioner Roger Sevigny withdrew the two implementation proposals from consideration by the Executive Council.
Commissioner Roger Sevigny said he should have explained more of the implications of these requests to the council and plans to bring these requests back to the council at another time.
He said that while he heard concerns over the requests and a Florida federal judge's decision that the heath care law was unconstitutional, the ruling was not a factor.
No doubt prodded by their expensive proxy governor, House Speaker Bill O'Brien and Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt are trying to make political hay over the news from Florida:
Following yesterday's ruling by a federal judge that struck down President Obama's health care reform law, House Speaker William O'Brien and House Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt called upon the Executive Council to block a contract on tomorrow's agenda that would have the state Department of Insurance begin the process to implement the federal law in New Hampshire.
...
House Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt
"Yesterday's federal court decision makes clear that Obamacare is an unconstitutional federal overreach that restricts our freedoms by forcing individuals to purchase health care or face serious penalties.
What's missing from this release is what O'Brien and Bettencourt plan on doing for Granite Staters like Hillary St. Pierre (remember her?) who are counting on this law to stay alive:
There are many layers of absurd to the coordinated attack from the right on one of the few new members of the NH House who happens to be a Democrat - the obvious hypocrisy, the abandonment of the GOP's campaign platform of jobs and the economy, the shameless politicization of the "consitution" - but I think this is the most germane part:
They said Brunelle filed legislation that benefited his position. For example, Bettencourt said, Brunelle filed legislation to increase the minimum wage, which relates to the Democratic Party platform. Other bills Brunelle sponsored include limiting the expense payments made to legislators, supporting federal earmarks for public safety and the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, and establishing a job creation tax credit for small businesses.
"It's as if they put a Democratic lobbyist on the floor of the House," Mirski said. "He cannot equally serve the interest of the state Democratic Party and his constituents on the floor of the New Hampshire House at the same time."
This is so shameless it deserves the full censure of editorials all across this state.
Bettencourt and Mirksi, and by extension all the GOP architects who devised this stunt instead of thinking of how use legislation to improve the economy, are trying to expel a legislator for filing bills that he believes will improve the economy. Bills such as small business tax credits. Bills the GOP has a huge majority to defeat in up or down votes if they want to.
The legislature is days old, and already they have abused, in a fundamental way, the honor they have been given to serve the people.
