Why Has The Granite State Fair Tax Coalition Changed Its Name?

Exposing the Granite State Fair Tax Coalition (GSFTC) as just another left wing front group for Christian Socialism and the Democrat party tax and spend agenda was easy. (Here, here, here, here, here, maybe here,  here as well, and don’t forget here.)

But will it be any easier to unmask their newest facade?  That’s right, the GSFTC is dead but not gone.  It has been replaced by the exact same organization, all the same Liberal/Progressive players, but with a shiny new name.  GSFTC is now Granite State Priorities (GSP).

How do I summarize this transition in a nut shell?  Same old whore, new dress.

The NH Fair Tax may be dead but the mission is the same, the left wing partner organizations are the same, they just changed the name, the color scheme, and added some flash features to the web site.  Fortunately for us the stupidity remains.  Check out the text from their “about” page.

Granite State Priorities is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)3 organization that began in 2006 in the name Granite State Fair Tax Coalition as a public policy project of the NH Council of Churches, out of concern that New Hampshire’s inadequate and inequitable revenue system is eroding the foundations of our state and quality of life for more and more people.

Granite State Priorities believes that the foundation of a thriving economy and shared prosperity is a sound public sector.

We bring concerned citizens together to achieve common-sense revenue reforms necessary to sustain our state and communities and make taxes affordable for all.

…

Follow me here.

New Hampshire has an inadequate and inequitable revenue system.  We need to work together to achieve common sense revenue reforms to sustain our state and communities and make taxes affordable for all.

Do these idiots realize that even throughout the Worst Recession in History™ New Hampshire has consistently had the lowest poverty rate, highest standard of living, one of the highest average wages, lowest crime rates, lowest unemployment rates, and lowest overall tax burdens in the entire nation? Who isn’t bright enough to know why?  You guessed it.  Granite State Priorities.

So how does that press release go?

‘We at Granite State Pick-Pockets (GSP) ask you to ignore the fact that New Hampshire is, overall, one of the safest, and best places to live on the planet.  Despite having more opportunity to succeed here than almost anywhere, we’d like to scrap the ‘inequitable’ revenue system that has consistently produced these opportunities, and go for something like what Massachusetts, New York, and California have; a system with a larger  public sector, funneling more of your tax dollars into Democrat campaign coffers–something we like to call the shared prosperity of a sound public sector.

We need to help put people into office who will make New Hampshire Great the way California is Great.  Great big deficit, Great big taxes, Great Big state Government, and a Great migration of business, jobs and people, as far away from here as possible.   In this way, more of us will learn to become dependent on the state, dependent on our thriving public sector unions, and on groups like ours.  And as more people become unemployed, overtaxed victims of crime and poverty, we promise that we will sit on our high horses up in Concord and not just tell you how to live, we will also tell you how we’re going to fix “it,”whatever “it” is, by simply raising your taxes.

We didn’t even know we were the victims of success.  Thank God the Greedy Socialist Progressives (GSP) are here to tell us about it.  So Granite State Priorities “priorities” must include every mistake every other state made to make all of them less desirable than New Hampshire.  Their priority is a broad based tax, same as it always was.  Same old whore new dress.

And before we forget.  Stop lying.  You are not non-partisan.

So that’s round one.  At the end of the day, Greedy Socialist Progressives is the same  UCC/NHCC/NHCA Democrat party front group it was as  the GSFTC.  Which brings us to the final question.  If the people and the priorities and the member organizations are all the same, why did they have to change the name?

cross posted: Why Has The Granite State Fair Tax Coalition Changed Its Name?

Deconstructing Elizabeth Warren in 135 Words

Elizabeth Warren's rant about "factory owners" benefiting from what other people paid for with their taxes begs at least two important questions.

First, where did the money come from that was taxed to build the roads, and pay the teachers, and equip the cops?   The answer is the factory owners--risk takers who created the jobs and provided wages to be taxed.  Without them, there are no wages, no taxes, and no government.

Second, how does Ms. Warren reconcile the fact that 47% of we the people effectively pay no taxes at all?  Why are they afforded unlimited access to the same roads, education and security services as factory owners  whose crime--at least in her eyes--is creating jobs for these "freeloaders" and by extension the very thing government needs to exist at all?

The Very Partisan Granite State Fair Tax Coalition Part II

The Granite State Fair Tax Coalition (GSFTC--Greedy Socialists Frisking TaxPayers Cash) is a partisan non-profit, which for years has insisted it is a non-partisan group advocating an income tax in New Hampshire.  But the GSFTC is non-partisan the way MSNBC is.  They use the dark side equivalent of the Jedi mind trick.  'The force can have a strong influence on the weak minded." And while there is nothing wrong with being a left wing partisan group, started by a social-justice driven religious organization, to advocate for a top down income tax, there is something wrong with acting like this is a non-partisan effort.

Our first look at the partisan make up of the GSFTC (God Says Fleece Taxpayers for Christ) was a rundown of their advisory board.  This revealed a panel of progressive and left wing water-carriers, who provide cover and material support for a specific leftist agenda: a state income tax.   They are democrats and democrat supporters, willing to use class warfare and a faux-morality-cum-guilt complex media campaign, to advocate for that state income tax.  Fish swim, birds fly, democrats spend and so must tax.  To insist they are non-partisan suggests a mental state that is non compos mentis.  Or to be a bit more colloquial; They are just a bunch of typical leftists.

In part II we look at the GSFTC board of directors; looking for some sign that there is someone in this cabal who is not just another statist stooge pimping for a broad based tax. Don't hold your breath.  The Board of directors is stuffed with "off the rack New Hampshire democrats," party chairs, candidates, donors, or leaders of left wing advocacy groups.  It is all partisan, top to bottom.

We begin with the GSFTC President is Laurel Redden.  Ms. Redden has run for the New Hampshire state House as a Democrat and is listed as a member of the Chair of the Salem Democrat Party. And, naturally, she has donated to her party.  The likelihood that she is not just another tax and spend democrat is very slim.

Redden is also a Public Policy Associate for the New Hampshire Council of (Social Justice) Churches (NHCC) where she pimps seminars about government budgets and 'morality' as a tool for wealth redistribution; where God and Jesus are used as props to soft-sell the social-justice/statist agenda.

The GSFTC Executive Vice President is Reverend William Exner of the New Hampshire's Episcopal Diocese, which is (also naturally) associated with the NHCC.   He is a part of an Episcopal church in which (apparently) it is not a sin to confiscate property if you can get the temporal state to pass a law which takes it from certain folks and gives it to someone in government, whose job it is to decide who gets the rest.  That someone is probably a big state bureaucracy run by left wing experts, and peopled with state union employees who spend half of it trying continually to re-define "the less fortunate" for whom the money is supposedly meant.

The new role of the leftist church (UCC, UU, NHCC members, and so on) includes seminars on how to organize folks to advocate left wing theft by making a-moral state budgets about moral issues to justify a confiscatory tax policy agenda.  After all, how the heck do you add new government dependents and state union workers, (the other government dependents) who must pay regular tribute to left-wing union leaders and democrat political campaigns, who then lobby for more taxes, and vote for more democrats, so we can have more state workers, who pay more dues to unions, who need to confiscate more and higher taxes and....

This is all some leftist thespian escapade abetted by folks like Reverend Exner, that ignores histories harsh lessons regarding the negative consequences of statist rhetoric, broad based taxes, and socialist-redistributive polices by top down governments.  And it is a problem a member of the clergy should understand.  Given the very essence of human nature, "Distress always expands to meet the supply of publicly funded services available to reduce it."  So no matter who or how much you tax, no matter how compelling your argument, you will eventually come up short.  There will always be more people willing to sacrifice freedom for a free ride than you can provide for, so you will always need to ask the productive classes to give more, but when you ask the government to do it by force, you are advocating a downward spiral until there is nothing left but dependents and a sliver of a well-connected ruling class.  Social justice is a Marxist idea spun with Orwellian linguistics that actually seeks this division so we can only assume it's advocates are either ignorant to the eventual outcome or are planning to be in the ruling class.

Whatever the outcome, there is no morality in facilitating a dependency culture whose foundation is a Ponzi scheme doomed to collapse.

The Groups Vice President is Mark Fernald.  Enough said?  Fernald is another New Hampshire Democrat and perennial left-wing candidate for (insert name of office here).  He supports democrats, donates to democrats, pimps their causes, and deals the class warfare rhetoric every chance he gets.  Just Google him and bask in the glory of social justice rhetoric.  Again, nothing remotely non-partisan about it.

Treasurer Peg Fargo is the VP of the League of Women Voters in Manchester  and their Legislation Co-President.   As I pointed out in the first installment, the League itself is a left wing front group that uses women's issues to advance the lefts agenda. 

Next up, Director John Hatten.  Mr. Hatten is the Co-Chair of the Concord Democrat Party and the occasional democrat campaign donor.  Still looking for that non-partisan tilt.

Director Sally Embley is active locally in Webster NH.  She has participated on Webster and Hopkinton Solid Waste, Conservation and recycling committees.  She supports pay to throw and does not like to see state programs get cut; she also supports a broad based tax. Small chance she is not a democrat? Not sure, but not likely.

Director Carol Backus is a Retired Public Relations director for the NEA, the largest teachers union on the planet.  She also gives to the cause.  Not exactly small investments in the left wing agenda and not remotely non-partisan.

Director Tim Dunn (J Timothy Dunn), was the Democrat NH House rep who co-sponsored compulsory school attendance until the age of 18, as well as advocating hell-on earth for home-schoolers.  Mr. Dunn has also both endorsed and supported the scumbag John Edwards.  Still not feeling the Non-partisanship.

Director Sandy Issacs is with Compassion and Choices- assisted suicide and similar related interests put up primarily by the left.  Sandy is also a member of the Dublin/Jaffrey/Rindge Democrat committee.

And finally, we have Director Helen Schotanus.  Helen is with the NH Department of Education and a reliable democrat donor as well.

So is it possible for an abundance of prominent and active democrat and left wing activists to run a non-partisan group that just happens to advocate for their tax agenda?  Sure, it's just not actually non-partisan.

But as I stated in part one, there is nothing wrong with that if they are upfront about it.  The GSFTC is not. So the people deserve to know who they are dealing with when the GSFTC comes knocking.

 Cross Posted

Is The Granite State Fair Tax Coalition Just Another Left Wing Front Group?

Is The Granite State Fair Tax Coalition Just Another Left Wing Front Group?

The Granite State Fair Tax Coalition claims to be a non-partisan, non-profit group whose mission is to convince the people of New Hampshire that we need a broad based income tax. 

What that works out to is using percentages and formulas with a focus on deception, misdirection, and Alinsky-like class warfare rhetoric, to corral (see also 'Guilt') enough support to dismantle a system that for years has made the state of New Hampshire one of the best places to live and work in the nation; for quality of life, low overall tax burden, health, safety, low crime rates, job opportunity and freedom.

You might ask yourself why someone would start a non-profit to mess with that kind of success?  What kind of crank sees a state ranking on top in almost every category and decides, let's mess that up?  The answer? Democrats and social justice junkies who can't advance a massive and nearly irreversible spending agenda without a broad based tax. 

So to get to Moscow on the Merrimack the partisan, left leaning, New Hampshire Council of Churches formed what is now known as the Granite State Fair Tax Coalition (GSFTC). It is run to this day by social justice-activist clergy and radical leftists and progressives 'attracted to the idea' of pretending an income tax would not ruin the New Hampshire Advantage.

Of course the only people it "attracted" were tax ans spenders. 

There is not one person on their staff, their advisory board, or leading their list of affiliated groups that is not either a democrat, working for the democrat social-justice agenda, or who is not a large dollar donor to democrat candidates or causes.  How you can possibly claim to be 'non-partisan' under these circumstances defies belief, yet they continue to make that claim and it is time to call them out on it.

My mission here, and in posts to follow, is to show you who runs this scam so that you can grasp what their real motivations are.  To grow the size and reach of government by defining 'fair' to mean more taxes and more spending on the radical left wing agenda.

Part I  The GSFTC advisory Board: "More Progressives than you can shake a stick at."

The GSFTC advisory board members listed on the GSFTC web site, as of 6-29-2011, are as follows.

Hilary Cleveland is the wife of Republican New Hampshire Congressman James Cleveland but like any good university professor is a proper progressive no matter what anyone else may try to tell you.  While she did support moderate and progressive (r)epublicans prior to 2004 since then Hilary has dropped the veil and donated $1,000.00 to the mad socialist Howard Dean, supported John Kerry after that, and recently gave $500.00 to New Hampshire's own leftist from the left side of the state, Ann McLane Kuster (McKluster). 

She justifies this change by blaming George W. Bush, which the left and media hailed at the time as a coup, but regardless of her reasons-to which she is entitled--just because you have or had an (R) next to your name, it does not make you a Republican.  Hilary has always leaned progressive by the look of things. As a founding member of the New Hampshire Chapter of the the League of Women Voters a left wing political advocacy group pimping womens issues to advance the democrat socialist agenda that should seem obvious.  So I'm happy that she's finally come out to embrace who she really is.

Marilyn Mahoney is a lawyer and democrat donor.  She supported the McKluster campaign in 2010 and liked her so much she gave twice.  If actions matter and associations are relevant, Mahoney is more like McKluster than not which is almost as far left as you can go without falling off the scale. 

Former Governor Walter Peterson, may he rest in peace,  was another token small 'r' republican with a history of progressive tendencies. He had a soft spot for left wing groups posing as moderate groups like the Live Free or Die Coalition and republicans for Lynch.  He was succeeded as Governor by Meldrim Thompson.  Governor Peterson's donation history includes fealty to New Hampshire's political first-families; Bass, Gregg and Sununu.  But Lynch wasn't the only democrat he stood behind.  He donated $500.00 dollars to Maine's Democrat State committee back in the 90's, $500.00 to NH Democrat Dick Swett, and to another democrat in Tennessee.  His wife is well known for her recent support of Obama.  While honored and respected, it is a well know fact that Mr. Peterson was a progressive republican and his association with GSFTC only makes that more obvious.

Philip Dale Pregent is Mayor of the liberal ghetto we call Keene and acts the part of the proper progressive. My favorite quote so far has to be this, in regard to the launch and support of Michelle Obama's obnoxious Let's Move campaign ...

"This is a long-term plan," notes Mayor Pregent. "If we start with the kids, we can get to the parents and, ultimately, move toward a healthier lifestyle."

Social justice is also a long term plan.  Let's Move is just the "Happy Meal" with water and a fruit cup. Get the kids, then you get the parents.  This is probably not the only instance where this kind of thinking follows the Mayors mind.  He's got plenty of left leaning environmentalist tendencies as well so more evidence is just sitting out there somewhere waiting to be discovered.

Mary Rauh was a Democratic candidate for Congress in the second Congressional District in 1998, has been a consultant for the Public Policy Initiative for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, has been or is the secretary for the New Hampshire Women’s Policy Institute, and the Chair of Women's Fund of NH.  Her husband is John Rauh, 1992 Democrat candidate for the US Senate from New Hampshire, and between them they have donated thousands to democrats over the years.  Their relentless partisan support of the left wing agenda is without question.

Ellen Shemitz is the Executive Director of the New Hampshire Association for justice (NHAJ) is the least obvious democrat on the list if you ask Google, leading a group that seeks to defend constitutional rights and keep the justice system accessible.  But don't be fooled.  She embraces the lefts social justice scheme to advance her personal cause.

Ellen is now putting her skills as leader to work for the Obama campaign as a member of our New Hampshire Child Advocacy Task Force.  "Barack Obama is a committed advocate for children. 

He embraces the essence of the American Dream—that every child should have the chance to reach his or her full potential,” she said.

...

Ellen was born in Connecticut, but moved to the Granite State after law school. 

She was drawn to the study of law because of its power to protect the vulnerable and advance social justice. 

NHAJ looks like little more than the New Hampshire chapter of the American Association of Justice (AAJ).  AAJ is one of the NHAJ's partner organizations and they share very similar legal goals.  AAJ is the largest association of ambulance chasers, out to screw business owners and industry in their quest to advance "social justice" through democrat lawyers suing everything that moves.  AAJ is also linked with "Working For Us," an Andy Stern/ SEIU's pressure group, with a manifold of links to some of the lefts most prominent political and union power brokers and democrat policy objectives.

Don't let Google fool you. This explains why Ellen would be advising alongside a group of redistributive pro-tax social justice advocates disguised as non-partisan coalition concerned about taxes.

The last two names on the 'Advisory board' for this so-called "non partisan" group are also democrats (Surprise!), Doug and Katie Wheeler. They have together donated thousands of dollars to democrats to advance the lefts tax and spend agenda. Here are Katie's large dollar donations, and also here.  And here are Doug's paltry left wing contributions--paltry in comparison to his wife's, and still more than the sum of every donation I have ever made in my life to candidates.  Doug even made a donation to-GSFTC adviser Mary Rauh as well.  Awwwww.

All tolled these 'Advisers' for the so-called, would-be, 'Fair Tax' coalition have plunked down plenty to support the left wing agenda, have all supported left wing candidates publicly, and most of them are democrats or have been democrat candidates for public office.

It is fair to say that they represent an ideological block that wants the same thing as the left wing in New Hampshire--more taxes.  The entire democrat tenure (of the past few years at least) was about spending us into a broad based tax.  GSFTC is just more of the same advocated by democrats and progressive republicans who support state confiscation of your property to spend on their partisan agenda.

That's fine as far as it goes when you are up front about it.  And to the last--as much as I disagree on policy--they are entitled to those choices and I take no objection with their right to make them or advocate them.  But to suggest that this list of people can be called non-partisan is patently absurd.

They are all Statists; a wholesale voice for bigger government, more regulation, a more powerful centralized national government, diminishing state sovereignty, and the right of the "State" to extract as much money from the people as it feels it needs to fund it. This is the ideology these folks have backed, supported, and have been a part of for years and years.

And we are just talking about their advisers.

It suggests that the GSFTC is little more than another watering hole for leftists; a "non-non-partisan" front group to advance the democrat party pro-tax agenda, wealth redistribution, and all the state meddling and nanny state nonsense that newer and larger streams of revenue are needed to produce and maintain, under the idea that what they want is 'fair.'

It is nothing of the sort.

But you know what makes it better?  They could admit to being partisan because the Board of directors just paints a bluer picture.  That post is next.

Cross posted 

Questons For The 'Pro' Income Tax Folks.

I have some questions for the pro-income tax folks out there.

Who are 'The Rich?' You always want to tax the "rich" to make it "fair."  So who are they and what is the income cut off?

How much will it cost us to create the necessary bureaucracy to handle a new income tax and all the family fun related to collecting, processing, returning, disputing, investigating, litigating, and so on? Include state salaries, benefits, pensions, operating costs, and estimate total department growth, administrative costs related to dealing with another bunch of state union employees, and will the increased dues paid to the unions through these state workers (who vote for pro-tax democrats) still be tax-deductible,or can they be considered income for taxing purposes without deduction?

What will the state do with the money, aside from grow uncontrollably?  And how long will they pretend to legislate it only for specific forms of tax relief (of the 'fair' variety) before they start tying strings to it and making town selectmen and councilors behave like Dickensian orphans to get a piece of that pie?

Which lobby will become the most powerful first once we have nearly invisible, unencumbered revenue pouring into Concord?

How much will property taxes go down?  And how long before they go back up and then surpass where they were when you lied about tax relief while promoting a new income tax?

Don't we already tax profits and income from the job creating class through the BET and BPT?

Will this new tax replace those taxes, and are we going to stop taxing business profits as personal income for LLC and S-corps or (as I suspect) are you just going to tax these folks again. (Bride of LLC Tax).

How long will before people realize you are scamming them?

Who actually funds the very partisan Granite State Fair Tax Coalition? Are they from other states who are pissed off because they can't compete with us in New Hampshire?

If you like income taxes so much, and they are so "fair," why don't you just move to a state that has them already?  Are you put off by their lower quality of life, higher overall tax burden, larger populations of unemployed, higher poverty rates, higher crime rates, and invasive meddling bureaucracies of those other states?

Why are you incapable of making any connection between the kind of taxes and government you claim to want, and the kind of state you end up with after you get them?



cross posted