Tax-watchdog group pushing pledge to control state spending
By TOM FAHEY
State House Bureau Chief - the Union Leader
21 May, 2008
CONCORD – A tax-fighting group will ask candidates for state office this fall to pledge that they’ll keep state spending hikes within the rate of inflation.
Michael Biundo, chairman of the New Hampshire Advantage Coalition, said the group will solicit signatures this campaign season and will make sure voters know who has signed up. He and others blamed Democrats in the Legislature for raising state spending and making the pledge necessary.
Democrats painted the move as “a cheap political gimmick” by a Republican group that has no solutions to budget problems.
So far, more than 40 candidates have signed the pledge. It is a promise not to vote for any budget that raises government spending more than the rate of inflation, as measured by the consumer price index, plus population growth. It also states “government can only be fair to its taxpayers when it is actively looking for ways to run more efficiently” and that “low taxes are the result of low spending.”
State Sen. Joseph Kenney, R-Wakefield, the lone announced Republican candidate for governor, said the Democratic Legislature created a budget mess to increase pressure for a sales or income tax.
“They want an income tax, no doubt about it,” Kenney said. “This pledge is an idea whose time has come.”
He said a Democratic state convention vote last weekend to study tax revenue options is the next step toward an income tax.
State Democratic Party Executive Director David Scannell said NHAC is wrong on that issue.
“They are reading into the resolution something that isn’t there,” he said. “What is specifically talked about is relief to people who are burdened by the property tax and the desire to explore ways to relieve that burden.”
Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta, whose city has cut the police budget and has bigger school budget cuts in the offing, signed the pledge. He said Democratic control of state government has hurt taxpayers.
“What we’ve seen in the last year and half is nothing less than the fleecing of New Hampshire taxpayers,” Guinta said. He said the state’s retirement system is one example of bloated spending that favors special interests—public workers—over the interests of the average person.
“The special-interest group that I represent is the taxpayers,” Guinta said.
A retirement reform bill in the Legislature would reduce an estimated 50 percent increase in retirement costs for all public employers to about 15 percent. Kenney was part of a unanimous Senate vote to pass the reform package.
Biundo also used the state retirement plan as an example of an expensive entitlement program.
Jim Forsythe, finance chairman of the NHAC, said the state’s budget increased spending by 17.5 percent, far beyond the regional 3.9 percent inflation rate.
Democrats and Gov. John Lynch’s office have defended the budget, saying about 14 percent of the increase was for non-discretionary spending, such as employee benefits, wages and other expenses.
Lynch spokesman Colin Manning said, “Gov. Lynch is committed to ensuring we are being fiscally responsible, and he’ll continue to work to ensure we have a balanced budget.”
Democratic Chairman Raymond Buckley criticized Guinta’s appearance at the Concord event.
“The people of Manchester continue to be fleeced by Frank Guinta, who has spent more time traveling the state to make cheap political points rather than work to address the budgetary challenges at City Hall,” Buckley said.
Three years ago, a Republican-led Legislature overwhelmingly rejected, 298-53, a proposal to require a two-thirds vote of approval to raise taxes higher than inflation.
“Either this group has forgotten that members of their own party rejected this cheap political gimmick, or they have no real solutions to offer,” Buckley said.
The spending cap pledge is a parallel effort to NHAC’s drive to put local tax caps in place in cities and towns across the state.
“We plan to be very active,” Biundo said.