Issue Position: Budget

Issue Position

N.H. Comes out on Top

This year was not supposed to be a budget year in the state legislature, but it quickly became one. New Hampshire was no more immune from the worst economic recession the United States has experienced since the Great Depression than any other state.

The decline in our revenues began during the summer of 2009. Governor Lynch responded immediately with a state spending freeze, a furlough program for state employees and targeted reductions in some state agencies. Despite these early actions, revenues from all sources continued to decline dramatically. In May 2010, the state faced a $295 million budget shortfall even as demand for social services was increasing. Reducing services to the mentally ill and our developmentally disabled, cutting childcare programs for needy families, closing down courts for several days each month and taking dollars from dedicated funds like the Land and Community Heritage program or our Energy Efficiency programs are just some of the difficult steps we had to take to bring in a balanced budget.

However, we maintained our current level of funding for public education, created new job incentives for small businesses and kept intact many critical services for the most vulnerable citizens in our state.
Some of my Senate Colleagues believed that opening the state to legalized gambling would be the answer to our financial problems, but I was not one of them.

We ended the fiscal year in June with a budget surplus, no new broad-based taxes and no gambling. We also repealed the limited liability corporation (LLC) tax and the campground tax. Few other states can claim a comparable record.

Next year is a true budget year, and I am committed to a thorough review of all of our revenues. New Hampshire must generate revenue based on an economy that rewards New Hampshire businesses for innovation, growth, and creating jobs, and one that does not rely on a sales or income tax.

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