Tip Tour Cap At The Polls

Oh, that crazy Manchester spending cap is at it again.

No one with an once of political savvy thinks the spending cap will pass because proponents are not dropping leaflets from airplanes – they used up their resources getting the damn question on the ballot for the November 3^rd Manchester City election next Tuesday.

All the spending cappers have going for them now is the fact that the best candidates in that election are supporting the spending cap and the fact that in heroic fashion a small band of activists made it past the Manchester City gauntlet of anti-spending restraint activists. These pro-spending cap candidates are talking up this popular (with taxpayers) issue and driving it on.

But the teachers unions and wealthy liberals from out of state are spending great effort and fortune in an effort to get out the tax-me-to-death vote next week.

Now why would they go to that effort if the spending cap was an after thought of most Manchester voters? Hmmmmmmmmm.

Could they be afraid that if the cap passes a court may not throw it out because spending caps have become a well established and working tradition recently with chartered communities?

And if the cap passes, tax and spenders in Manchester will find them selves faced with a dilemma – having to pick from among priorities with an amount of tax revenue limited by reality not politics.

So its up to citizens in Manchester to take advantage of a hard fought opportunity and walk past and ignore the paid poll watchers, special interests, phone-bankers, signs, handouts, slippery mailers and rhetoric and vote for the spending cap.

Isn’t the over the top anti-spending cap campaign exactly why Manchester needs one?

"Summiting" A Slippery Slope

It’s always nice to have information, good reliable information, about how to cut government spending or at least slow it down. To get this kind of information you can go to the “experts” on the subject – people involved with government, think tanks, academics, administrators, etc.

For me, there is a set of experts often overlooked by mainstream budget cutters and policy wonks.

These experts have knowledge of what is spent at the state and municipal level and how effective that spending is. They know waste when they see it and always have suggestions as to what works and what doesn’t.

And if you ever need to know where in any strata of government employment what is known as goldbrickers reside, these are the experts who can fill you in.

I like to call them “former government employee experts.”

Here is a tax money saving suggestion in tight economic times. Offer a “debriefing bonus” to each state employee who has been lateraled a pink slip by someone else in government who is staying on for the duration of the budget cutting.

Disgruntled government employees are a wealth of knowledge not often tapped by other government employees. (I wonder why?) They sure bend my ear when they find out I may know something about their old department and have some small capacity to do something about it.

Now I don’t expect a debriefing bonus program to crop up any time soon but former state employees who want to let loose a bit regarding how their particular past employer ran things in his or her former department can contact The Coalition of New Hampshire Taxpayers in complete confidence we will put any suggestions to good use.

Who knows, maybe CNHT can take all that information and hold a summit.

A Hop, Skip, And A Dump In Hopkinton

You may have seen the news about the Town of Hopkinton and their teacher contract which was voted down by a two to one margin this past March at the traditional Hopkinton School District Annual Meeting.

They say 2009 was the first time in anyone’s memory a labor contract for teachers was voted down in education friendly Hopkinton.

Now you can say it happened twice - a sign of the times and a sign of past years of unlimited spending in this wealthy bedroom community.

Last Wednesday at the Special “second bite at the apple” Special Meeting, the high school gym was full to capacity (another reason for Hopkinton to adopt SB#2).

What drove the unexpected turnout? Special meetings usually garner less than 10% of voters and are popular with school administrators trying to grow their budgets after the traditional March meeting. This special meeting had 12% of Hopkinton’s registered voters show up.

Could it be the saturation mailing The Coalition of New Hampshire Taxpayers dropped on Hopkinton the day before the vote? It’s nice to think so.

Kudos to the Hopkinton Budget Committee members and Selectmen who spoke up at the special meeting.

Next will be another special meeting in December at which Hopkinton voters will be asked to appropriate almost one half a million dollars to buy a some conservation land for a non-profit environmental group.

I hope Hopkinton voters are as sensible at the next special meeting as they were at this one. Special meetings are supposed to be for emergencies. They have morphed into gifts for labor contract negotiators and "conservation" land grabbers.

Voters should always be suspicious of special meetings.

I'll See Your Summit And Raise You One Vigil

They say that income tax champion Democrat State Rep. Susan Almy’s two day “tax summit” is now over. That may be true.

I can say that the “tax summit vigil” held by taxpayer activists from all over this state is absolutely not over.

For me, standing vigil outside the Legislative Office Building for most of two days with activists from Salem, Exeter, Whitefield, Manchester, Nashua, Laconia, Deering, Hillsboro, Dover, and a host of other towns and cities was a hoot. Veteran activists had a great time meeting people who responded to emails sent by an array of center-right groups.

There was no format to our vigil just a plan to have anyone who wanted to stand and watch our legislators, think tanks and the special interest groups come and go from the “summit” in which we taxpayers we could have no public say. That is fine – taxpayer activist networking will have to do.

I am still stunned by how many people walk up to you and say they are recently retired or finally so upset with our state and federal government they have decided to get involved in any way possible. And the timing could never be better.

Yes, we had to deal with several moonbats who wanted to “debate” or berate those of us who they know deep down inside are hard-hearted, racist, greedy, capitalist monsters. But we are used to those liberal feeling points and dealt with them accordingly – laugh the moonbat off the street. One even came back for more humor abuse from our side. I love that about moonbats.

Here is the deal.

I have been a taxpayer activist for some twenty years and it is a well known fact that when you meet a first-time activist at a workshop, rally, public meeting, or on a campaign a percentage “get the bug.” They find out that by working with other conservative activists protecting our state from liberal tax and spenders and various other liberal moonbats you can be successful and have a good time. Almost everyone I met Wednesday and Thursday at the anti-income tax vigil wanted to know when the next event would be held.

There is the common feeling among us conservatives that November 2010 can not get here soon enough. From the rate new, energized people are still showing up at our functions maybe its good we have time to meet more of them.

So did the Almy income tax summit make a lasting mark in our continuing discussion of why NH should be like New Jersey or Massachusetts? I don’t particularly care. Our conservative groups are picking up solid new activists every day, people I will work with for the next twenty years.

Thank you moonbats!

Lynchonomics

Gov. Lynch Climbs Off His Fence  

Here is all you need to know about the state employee Kabuki dance:

Governor Lynch is not laying off hundreds of state employees - he is simply REFORMING the number of people who work for the State of NH.

Governor Lynch is REFORMING the number of state employees because we need CHANGE.

We can all agree that CHANGE is needed and we have to do SOMETHING. Doing nothing is not an option because we need CHANGE.  

Now there is a simplified description of the issue of REFORMING state employees any Democrat has to agree with.