I support

Sustainability: we know how to meet present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs, the definition of sustainability. I will propose and support legislation that promotes local economic development on our scale and provides opportunities for new businesses for entrepreneurs in our towns.
These new enterprises should include agriculture to provide some measure of food security, preserve our water supplies and wildlife habitat and give us the flexibility to respond to climate change, population growth and technological advances.  We have one of the most beautiful and accessible landscapes anywhere, but it will be lost without our efforts.


Campaign finance reform: this is both a desperate and a worthy goal that will allow us to vote as equals, and make all our voices heard as we decide together how to pool our resources and do the things we cannot do effectively and efficiently alone.
We have gone a too far toward making corporations more powerful “people” than the real human beings who live here.  We need to give power back to the people, the voters, and we need to bring more people into the process.

Reform of NH’s tax structure: it worked well for an agrarian society where land was wealth, but it is too rigid and cumbersome for a more complex society. We need a tax structure that will give us the flexibility to support a healthy, well-educated population, one that spans all age groups sharing their resources to grow communities that provide for all their citizens. Our tax structure hits low income people the hardest, young families and the elderly.  There are also, despite our "business-friendly" reputation, an awful lot of taxes and fees on our business activity.  The first step is to agree to have an honest conversation about how we pay for our joint efforts as a state.


Jobs: the new healthcare legislation, when fully implemented,  will make it possible for new businesses to be formed without their owners having to worry that an illness or accident would leave them bankrupt. It will also make it possible for existing businesses to have options available for both owners and employees to stay healthy and take care of medical challenges.
Opportunities to make use of emerging technologies and practices in energy generation, both local and regional, communications, transportation, agriculture and other areas we haven’t even thought of, will widen our horizons and make our towns and our region vibrant and thriving, if we don’t turn our backs on the future.  In the  past we were known for our “can do” attitude, don’t tell us we can’t!  Future job growth springs up from our small businesses.  It doesn’t trickle down from a few of the wealthiest among us.

Local Control

Many of us believe that depending on the property tax to fund our schools helps us maintain local control.  But any hard look at the full budget documents of our schools, something that I had to do as a member of our municipal budget committee, really raises a lot of questions about how much control we do have.

The Claremont decision effectively moved some of the funding for regular education to the state.  Special education has long been separate from local control, with Federal mandates, state mandates, Medicaid mandates, etc., and the famous refusal of the federal government to fund the 40% that was their promised share for their mandates when the IDEA law passed.  That’s the one Judd Gregg kept promising to fix but we never got over 20%.

As long as we accept funding from outside of our towns and cities for educational costs, or for that matter, any other local costs, we lose that complete local control that we apparently value so much.  Also, NH law does not allow home rule, towns must abide by state law, and cannot do anything that is not explicitly allowed by state law.

There is a constant lament from the staff at school district meetings that whenever the voters decide to cut the school budget, so much of it is mandated by outside forces and contracts, that the only place they really can cut, after they go for the arts, in our town the fabled “science camp” (an opportunity for 6th graders to all go away for a several day stay at a camp to learn some hands-on science in the great outdoors), music, and seldom after school sports, all that is left to cut is regular education, reducing staff, reducing supplies (anyone who knows a teacher knows how much they spend out of their own pockets to provide enough classroom supplies to do an adequate job), and reducing support staff.  Next step, larger classes, less instructional time, no programs for the gifted, on and on.

My grandchildren happen to have been educated in public schools in Maryland, where all the government services are provided at a county level.  While there is not as much local control, there are definitely economies of scale, and the schools there provide a much wider range of learning experiences for their students.  It might be argued that Maryland is a richer state than New Hampshire, but in 2008 there really wasn’t much difference in median per capita income. (There are some other interesting state rankings at this link.)  As we move forward we might want to just take a look at this side of the education funding puzzle.

NH Republicans would do well to read this

Anne Applebaum is no liberal, but even she can see that there is a limit to how much misinformation we can digest.

Parties, of course, can change; politicians can see the light; lessons can be learned; and perhaps some Republicans have learned them. But you cannot start from scratch. You cannot forget history. You cannot pretend that the Republican Party has not supported big and wasteful spending programs -- energy subsidies, farm subsidies, unnecessary homeland security projects, profligate defense contracts, you name it -- for the past decade. Before the GOP can have credibility on any spending issues whatsoever, Republican leaders need to speak frankly about the mistakes of the past.

They also must be extremely specific about which policies and programs they are planning to cut. What will it be? Social Security or the military budget? Medicare or the Transportation Security Administration? Vague "anti-government" rhetoric doesn't cut it anymore: If you want a smaller government, you have to tell us how you will create one.

And to add insult to injury

In the interim, teachers will lose their jobs, and get a lesson in how Republican officials are slowly chipping away at the ability of our institutions to function.