Lynch lets the Tax cat out of the bag
Sunday, June 14, 2009 at 08:47AM
In an editorial in the UL Mr. Lynch exhibits his trademark skills as a prognosticator of promises he intends to break by airing his tax and spend laundry in public. Disguised as it is as a dissertation on the hard choices a government must make--he uses it as an opportunity to warn us that he lacks the backbone to make those choices and is more than willing to let others make them for him, regardless of the consequences to his already riddled armor of "integrity."
It culminates in this nugget from the end of the editorial where the implications for New Hampshire's future come unravelled. Warnings that etch in granite a possible epitaph for tax freedom to which years of irresponsible stewardship (under Lynch and the democrat majority) have intentionally been leading us.
In response to the concerns about the current proposals, legislative leaders and I have joined together to ask the Department of Revenue Administration to look at the state's existing taxes to determine if the state could increase revenue by making taxes fairer, by stabilizing the bases of existing taxes and by closing loopholes that allow some to escape paying their fair share.
[...]But we must come together to meet our responsibilities as a state to secure public safety, protect our most vulnerable citizens, educate the next generation and preserve our high quality of life.
And here's the punch line.
And we must do so without further burdening the local property taxpayer
Mr. Lynch's insincerity is abundant. "By making taxes fairer." "By stabilizing the tax base." These are code words for Broad based taxes. But any effort at relieving property owners of their tax burden must be seen as nothing more than a concerted effort by government to relieve themselves of their responsibility to us.
New Hampshire only has so much property so it should only have need for so much government. And even in that properties development, should not any increase in government to address such growth be limited to the growth itself? Is it not this relationship that keeps control in the hands of the people (the people who own and use New Hampshire) instead of the temps elected to Concord who act as little more than our intermediaries with the bare necessities of state government so required? To what end do we allow this relationship to exceed our ability to control it by permitting extractions of revenue from sources wholly unrelated to the very infrastructure without which there would be no need for taxation at all?
Renters, business owners, and home and propoerty owners all pay propery taxes as part of their living expenses, yet somehow this is not enough money for our government? Ask yourself just how much government do you really need?
Government is continually finding ways to add costs to the relationship that exceed the scope and value of the state they are shepherding. And it is the continued divergence in this relationship that should signal a gross mismanagement of the public trust with which they have been employed. An abuse focused on advancing the ends of government before the people. Of advancing operating costs beyond the physical limitations of the state. Of expanding government to no other end except more government.
The only way for regular people to control that expansion-regardless of their understanding of law or parliamentary procedure or of governance in general, is to control the flow of revenue. As long as we hold the purse strings, government must work for us and answer to us. But relinquishing that control to other sources, like income from gambling or a sales or income tax, is an abandonment of the public obligation to control their own government equal to governor Lynch's abandonment of his obligation to lead rather than follow.
Political power and influence is naturally limited by the availability of revenue.
Since government is not meant to exercise power outside the influence of the voting residents of the state the only true way to avoid further burdening of the local tax payers is to ensure that they continue to wield more political power than their appointees in Concord by controlling and limiting the fuel that feeds excessive and unnecessary government.
Property owners, business owners, and renters, all control the flow of income to the state. If they allow the government to bypass that control, they abrogate their control as well, reducing their freedom to Feedom.
Reader Comments (2)
Because, next year... any stimulus money is gone, baby gone.
At the same time you see all these press releases from CD reps about money they've collected for this or that project. CSP has a few every week. I think some of that is expecetd uses for stimulus money but some is just outlays in appropriations bills that the CD reps have limited control over.
And of course some is pork.