NH TEA Party Republicans Better At Revenue & Spending Estimates Than Democrats…Again!

I know… New Hampshire Democrats were losing sleep in hopes of some politically-beneficial revenue numbers, and guess what?  They were politically beneficial….To TEA Party Republicans.

The Union Leader is reporting that New Hampshire state revenues were slightly above estimates in July, with solid performances that suggest we are budgeting wisely so that the working families and small business owners in New Hampshire can continuing to drag us out of the economic quick sand in which Democrat tax and spend polices have had us trapped.

So How well did the TEA Party Republicans manage your money for July 2012?

A few highlights from the Article by Gary Rano…  

• • Business taxes returned $17.9 million, $2.7 million than budget writers anticipated and $2.8 million more than a year ago.
  • The rooms and meals tax produced $23.3 million in July, $2.4 million ahead of plan and $2.2 million more than a year ago.
  • The Department of Revenue Administration attributed the good results to an improved economy and good weather in June.
  • The tobacco tax was slightly ahead of target, producing $19.2 million in July, while liquor revenue also was about what was anticipated, returning $12.1 million. Also, the communications tax was on target returning $7.2 million for the month.
  • The real estate transfer tax is beginning to rebound after years of dismal returns. In July, the tax produced $8.5 million, 13.3 percent ahead of estimates and about $1 million more than a year ago.
  • Below estimates for the month were the securities, utility consumption, beer and gaming taxes. The only levy to produce less than it did a year ago was the beer tax, down $100,000 on returns of $1.3 million.

Numbers coming in slightly above plan.  The tax base building slowly without new taxes and fees.  None of that constant left-wing fiscal crisis.  (No 800 million dollar deficits.) Just another great reason to make sure Republicans continue as the responsible stewards of your tax dollars.  Yeah, Democrats will hate this so it must be a good thing.

Image Credit- Squawkfox.com

You are reading "NH TEA Party Republicans...Better at Spending & Revenue Estimates...Again!"  by Steve Mac Donald originally posted at GraniteGrok.com (Home)

Old Establishment Scared...The Liberty Wing Needs To Double Down

(originally posted Sept 6, 2011)

The liberty and freedom part of the NHGOP is already winning the war.  We just lost one battle.  The establishment is scared.   We are only a few votes away from preventing what just happened and they know it. The old moderate establishment is desperate and on their way out.  So stand up for your new GOP and be patient.  Keep electing your pro-liberty Republican candidates to office, to town committees, and as local committee chairs. You will be victorious in the end. And that end is not so far away as you may imagine.

But not if you abandon your party now.  And it is your party.

Despite that majority presence and influence some have insisted that the ouster of Jack Kimball is proof they need to leave the GOP.  Some folks are just looking for a reason to quit.  But I disagree as much as anyone can disagree about anything.  This is a sign that we need more liberty minded folks in the GOP. 

There are plenty of people in the party structure now who are looking for more back-up.  People who would love to get away from the old guard way of doing things.  Even folks who got strong-armed last week. 

We already have the votes to elect a Jack Kimball as state party Chair.  Even if we could agree that Jack was not the perfect guy for the job, we still have the votes to give it to someone who is.  But if you start backing out now, that will never happen.  The existing insiders looking for help will stop looking.  The old guard town and city committee chairs, beholden to the old way of doing things, will never get replaced.  We'll have given up when we had them on the run.

It is time to double down. Secure the victory. 

The Conservative, liberty, and TEA party movements in this state elected most of the conservative and pro-liberty members without old-establishment help last time around.   What makes anyone think we need it now?  We don't.  They need us.  So dig in, hit the ground, support your candidates, work together, and continue the revolution toward a new NHGOP.  The old one is already dead, it just doesn't know it yet.

We need to commit ourselves, with or without the party to keep democrats out of office, to retain the Republican majority, to add more pro-liberty Republicans to the ranks, and to elect a Republican governor. 

Besides, I now know who the ring leader behind the removal of Jack Kimball is.  I'm just looking for a few more pieces to the puzzle before I start exposing them.  And yes, it is about as establishment as you can get.

How Did Your NH House Republican Rank In 2011?

The New Hampshire House Republican Alliance has released its July 2011 score card for the entire first session of the Republican House majority. NHHRA Score Card PDF  file. 

I've culled my reps from the list (Hills 19) linked here.  I've also generated a list of the Republican bottom feeders for 2011 (Same link).  These are what we would call RINOs, moderate democrats who could never survive the bullying from the left, or might never get elected if they admitted that they have little or no interest in supporting the Republican party platform.

They are folks who are incapable of finding the 80/20 rule, or to be more precise the 70/30 rule, and in one instance (Ken Gould) we have a (r)epublican who only voted against the party 70% of the time.

The NHCP (formerly the NHDP) will call this a purity list, which is amusing when you consider how they treat their moderates, but let me assure you that it is no such thing.  It is more like an intervention.  Many of these troubled souls are in denial.  Trapped in Republican leaning districts they are pretending to be something they are not.  I'm just helping them (and their constituents) to accept that these House members may be democrats, actual independent/moderates, or just missing the boat often enough to get lumped in with people who have little or no interest in the goals of the Republican party.

There's nothing wrong with that.  But it's time to come out of the closet and stop pretending.  To embrace your "independent" or democrat roots, and run as what you are instead of pretending to be something you are not.

Pundits v. Palin

Mark Levin has had it with the institutional Republicans in the punditry class, Charles Krauthammer in particular, in regard to their endless nitpicking and attacks on Sarah Palin.  Levin is asking some important questions, questions I would ask the Union Leader to which I remarked earlier on facebook today, seems to hate the woman.   Every opportunity to manufacture negative press is an opportunity to fill column inches whose sole purpose is to convince people as Krauthammer seems intent on doing, that she is a dolt and unelectable, neither of which is true, but both of which put the UL in the same neighborhood as the liberal left just at a different address.

Which brings us to Mark Levin's remarks about Krauthammer (which I'd hijack and apply to the UL and all those (r)epublican folks who have it out for her as well.)

“So what is it? What’s the problem?” he said. “She’s solid on social issues. She’s solid on fiscal issues. She’s solid against these subsidies against big companies – in other words, she is not a corporatist. She’s not a crony or a believer in that. She’s solid on taxes and spending. I’m just confused. She’s solid on Israel. She’s solid on the military. She’s solid with respect to our allies. Is there some big issue that’s disqualifying? What – because the liberals don’t like her? …

She's solid on energy, all of it--suggesting we end all subsidies to all forms of energy and let the market do its magic, saving taxpayers billions and removing a rhetorical hammer from the hands of democrats.  No one else has the balls to say stuff like that. 

So is that the problem? 

No.  Liberals hate her because they can't control her.  No matter how much they smear her she wont do their bidding.  Their media can't control her.  The mainstream progressive power brokers in both parties can't control her.  And by "can't control" I mean, make her do what they want.   They can't seem to make her conform. And no one gave away the "attitude" any better than former NH GOP Chairman Fergus Cullen.

“Former New Hampshire Republican Party Chairman Fergus Cullen, who noted that the normal laws of political gravity don’t seem to apply to Sarah Palin,” said the catch-me-if-you-can act has to end sooner or later.

“At some point, the establishment has to be paid its due,” he said. “She gets sort of an initial pass, but at some point the goodwill gets used up.

"The establishment has to be paid it's due," shows us just how disconnected Cullen and the establishment are.  They've shown us their hand.  They call her names, insinuate things about her intellect, her tactics, and go on about her nonconformity, all the while promising that their establishment candidates can bring change to Washington.  Small change, perhaps but not institutional change.  They don't seem to have the testicular fortitude. Nor have they a clue that we do not like the establishment on either side.

Palin, on the other hand acts and talks like someone prepared to make changes and could care less about paying any party its due.  This suggests a willingness to be immune to the people pleasing that goes on in DC, the thing that turns otherwise decent candidates at every level into every other candidate you have since tried or wanted to replace.  It intimates a desire to represent people not power brokers.  And while some may suggest it's just talk, if that is all it is why are the progressives in both parties attacking her?

Just in case she means it?

Or maybe they are just upset at no longer being the Belle at the Ball.  Palin effortlessly attracts all the attention, something none of the other candidates do, even ones who share parallel disdain for DC as usual incorporated.  Or maybe they don't think she deserves it.  Maybe they are right.  But in a field of candidates, some of whom are iffy on key issues, most of whom would be lucky to get 5-9% of the vote on a good day, and few of whom can create even a fraction of the energy or momentum needed to unseat a sitting president, Palin has what they do not.  That just naturally pisses people off. It will piss of plenty of my readers too.

By my thinking that makes her the best candidate of all.

So back to Levin.

“So what is it? What’s the problem?” he said. “She’s solid on social issues. She’s solid on fiscal issues. She’s solid against these subsidies against big companies – in other words, she is not a corporatist. She’s not a crony or a believer in that. She’s solid on taxes and spending. I’m just confused. She’s solid on Israel. She’s solid on the military. She’s solid with respect to our allies. Is there some big issue that’s disqualifying? What – because the liberals don’t like her?

Well?  What is it? 

H/T Hot Air

 cross posted

Would You Rather Just Play Politics?

Yesterday NHBR.com (New Hampshire Business Review) included GraniteGrok in its content.  One of it's staff writers or editors (there is no by-line) commented on how the GOP establishment was not the only one taking shots from their right.  The Union leader, NH Journal, and Red Hampshire--which the  author refers to as "those in the GOP media world"--are now in the sights of GraniteGrok and their sometimes paranoid always angry Groksters.

The air-raid siren has been sounded so you less conservative, less liberty minded Republicans had best rouse the troops and scramble the jets or the also "sometimes paranoid and angry" readers of GraniteGrok are going to split the party in two.

So goes the tone of the NHBR.com piece.  So what does it really say?

It says they are biased, short-sighted, and uncomfortable with the facts.

NH Journal came under attack for fabricating a story and passing it off as news to skewer Jack Kimball late in the race.  Think Dan Rather and Memogate. Making up news to mislead or frighten.

One anonymous blogger at Red Hampshire came under attack for both being anonymous and taking the NHJ lie and agitating it even after it had been contradicted.  Norris Cotton, who could be working for NHJ, Bergeron, or Ray Buckley for all we know, continued bashing the false story on Red Hampshire and the players around it until one story was actually pulled. (For the record I do not advocate pulling any story unless it is so violent or vulgar it cannot be edited into something tolerable--let them swing on their own words is my motto.)

The union leader was simply using its bully pulpit to question the candidate they opposed in the race, which is what GraniteGrok was doing, yet somehow we are the ones who are "sometimes paranoid and angry?"

Unfortunately for NHBR it is actually the other way around.  Moderate bomb throwers attacking from behind fake names and made up "inside scoops" passed off as legitimate news by paid political operatives are the actions of individuals who cannot find a way to use the truth to stay in power.  It is, in fact, one of the things people find most offensive about the political process and it was on full display from the moderate establishment in the NH-GOP chairman's race.  NHBR is always entitled to their opinion, and that is certainly what this is, but suggesting that the party is about to split in two--which his how they close their comments--is the same kind of fear-mongering that failed to get Bergeron the brass ring. 

The NHBR piece does get two things right.  Yes, there were air-raid sirens, and yes someone is paranoid and angry, but it is not the conservative/libertarians, not at GraniteGrok, nor their readers.  It is the entrenched Republicans who refuse to acknowledge that the grass roots and TEA party folks learned what the democrats already new, copied it, added to it, and executed it.  And are now reaping the rewards of their efforts.  They have a better network, are more agile, and as much or more educated about the issues and how best to respond to changes in the political environment.

That is why the Republicans took so many more seats in the Legislature.  It is how they won the Speakers chair.  And that is why they won the chairmanship of the state party.  And guess what?  One of the guys at the fore-front of that movement is now pulling the levers as the Party chairman.

So I think the sometimes paranoid and angry Republicans who have been programmed to fear their own platform, who fear standing up to the one-sided political correctness of the democrats who use hypocrisy to bludgeon weak willed conservatives into silence, should just say thank you, get on board, and reap both the policy rewards of regaining control of state government, and the logistical advantages of a grass roots organizational structure that can compete with and even defeat the progressives in New Hampshire.

Or would you rather just play politics?

Picture from: babyblueonline

 Cross Posted