ACTION ALERT

Wednesday, February 8, Senate Votes on CACR 6 and CACR 12.

CALL your Senator by Tuesday night and urge him/her to vote NO on CACR 6, and NO on Senator Bragdon's floor amendment, if there is one.  

Useful information for these conversations:  Supermajority Requirement Bad Fiscal Policy; Tax and Spending Caps Talking Points

CALL your Senator by Tuesday night and urge him/her to vote NO on CACR 12.

CACR 6, by requiring a 3/5 supermajority vote on taxes, fees, or borrowing, would effectively freeze our existing revenue structure in place.  Scroll down to January 31 below for details and more information.  CACR 12, by removing the role of the Courts in education funding decisions, would essentially make state funding of public education optional in New Hampshire.  Scroll down to January 31 below for more information.

If these bills pass the Senate, they will appear on the November 2012 ballot.

 

 

Legislation Update

Next Week

Monday, February 6, 10:00 a.m., LOB 202,  the Commission to Study Business Taxes will hold a public hearing on the draft of its final report, expected to recommend reducing business taxes with no recommendation for paying for this.

Tuesday, February 7, 1:30 p.m., LOB 210-211, the House Finance Committee will vote on HB 1638, establishing a commission to study and recommend standards for downshifting and cost shifting from the state to counties, cities, towns, and individuals (GSP supports), and HB 1669-FN-A-L, requiring the deposit of dedicated fund revenues into the general fund for the 2014 and 2015 fiscal years and requiring non-constitutionally established dedicated funds to be eliminated on June 30, 2015 unless reinstated by the legislature.

Wednesday, February 8, the Senate will vote on two constitutional amendments that Granite State Priorities opposes, CACR 6 and CACR 12 (see January 31 for committee details).  CACR 6, requiring a 3/5 supermajority vote on taxes, fees and borrowing, would freeze our outdated revenue structure in place, forever.  Senator Prescott believes that supermajority requirements like this take power away from the people and diminish the power of their vote. CACR 12, by removing the role of the Court, would make state funding for public education optional. 

The House will vote on HB 593, to grant a duopoly to expand gambling in our state.  Granite State Priorities opposes this bill.  Also coming up for a vote in the house is HB 1144, establishing a commission to study the taxation of alternative fuel and electric-powered motor vehicles for the purpose of funding improvements to the state's highways and bridges. The House Ways and Means Committee voted unanimously to recommend this bill for passage, under this rationale: With the advent of alternative fuel and electric-powered motor vehicles the state is beginning to see a decline in the gasoline tax which is one of the major revenue sources for the maintenance of our roads and bridges.  As these and other technologies begin to accelerate the reduction, these revenues will only continue to decline.  This bill calls for the formation of a commission to study and make recommendations on the forms of taxation that would be best to deal with these technological advances that are leading to a reduction in gasoline sales and thus a reduction in this revenue stream.  CACR 6 would make it very difficult to make common-sense adjustments to the revenue structure such as those needed to account for declining reliance on gas and increasing reliance on new fuels.

This Week  

January 31 the Senate Internal Affairs committee voted 3-2 to pass CACR 6 (constitutional amendment to require 3/5 supermajority vote on taxes, fees and borrowing); Senator Bragdon had withdrawn his floor amendment, but said he might bring something up on the floor.  The committee also voted to pass CACR 12 (constitutional amendment to make state funding of public education optional) as amended by Senator Bragdon.  Senator Bragdon's amendment essentially adds the Senate's preferred term "responsibility" to the bill.  These bills could come to a Senate floor vote as early as Wednesday, February 8.  For more information on CACR 6: our testimony; NH Fiscal Policy Institute Report.  For more information on CACR 12:  our testimony.

February 1, the House passed HB 1652-FN-A, requiring the transfer of insurance premium tax revenue to the revenue stabilization reserve account, which stashes $26 million in the Rainy Day Fund when the money is more urgently needed to cover current shortfalls in the budget, including those resulting from the House's decision last year to cut the cigarette tax.  See this Concord Monitor article for details.

Last Week

Monday, January 23, 2:00 pm, LOB 202, the House Ways and Means Committee heard HB 1607, which spends tax dollars to undermine public education. GSP opposes this bill. Read the text of the bill.  Read our testimony.

Tuesday, January 24, 1:00 pm, LOB 103, the Senate Education Committee heard SB 372, the Senate's version of HB 1607 (see above).  Read the bill.  Read our testimony.

​Tuesday, January 24, the Senate Internal Affairs Committee heard and briefly discussed Senator Bragdon's amendment to CACR 6, the constitutional amendment to require a 3/5 supermajority to create or increase taxes or fees, or to borrow money.  Read page 1 and page 2 of Senator Bragdon's amendment.

Wednesday, January 25, 2:30 pm, LOB 210-211, House Finance held a full committee work session on HB 1638 (establishing a commission to study and recommend standards for downshifting and cost shifting from the state to counties, cities, towns, and individuals), where they decided that the bill's sponsor, Rep. Foose, will work with a few committee members (Reps. Smith, Elliott, Cebrowski and Rosenwald) to present a revised version of the bill to the committee within three weeks.  Read our testimony.