Category Archives: tax pledge

This War’s “Victory Gardens”

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In World War II the people of the USA rallied to their country’s call with a patriotic effort to relieve pressure on the food production processes needed to feed our troops by growing food in their own backyards.

This war, which involves energy, should be producing a new “Victory Garden”. We should be developing energy sources that are in our collective backyard. We should be drilling for all known and suspected oil resources (and why not paint the oil well pumps that dot the countryside in red, white and blue).

We should reverse Bill Clinton’s action of preventing the use of low sulfur coal from Utah. We should remove the ability of the NIMBYs to run to court to prevent development of existing and new energy sources.

We should reverse the restrictions on drilling in ANWR and off the coasts.

We should remove the impediments to building new nuclear power plants.

We should make the building of refineries easier.

To win this war of energy and economics we need to use the resources we have, we cannot continue to tie the hands of those who can help us win.

First we must defeat the NIMBYs and then we can defeat the external enemies!

NH Democrats trash Representative Government

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From Rep. Sorg:

Legislative “Special Session” Trashes Representative Government

Citizens of New Hampshire who fail to follow the activities of their state government do so at the peril of their freedom and property. A stark demonstration why took place this week.

On Wednesday, June 4th, Governor Lynch invoked an obscure, nearly obsolete provision of the New Hampshire Constitution to call a “special session” of the Legislature, to convene that very day, a day in which the Legislature was already scheduled to meet in regular session and was in fact actually assembled in Concord and conducting business when his proclamation was officially issued. Why did he do this?

He did it because House and Senate rules prevent the introduction of new bills this late in their regular annual sessions unless authorized by a two-thirds vote of each chamber. Governor Lynch wanted a new bill introduced that would allow the borrowing of over $100,000,000 in order to cover the record budget deficit he and his fellow Democrats in the Legislature have run up. He realized that House Republicans, who comprise over one-third of its membership, would never accede to such a bill; that we would instead demand dealing with the deficit by rolling back the Democrat spending spree of the past two years that has created it. But if he were to call a “special session” of the Legislature, not only could a new bill be introduced, but new rules of procedure, stifling inquiry of and opposition to it and guaranteeing its immediate passage, could be adopted by simple majority vote.

And so it came to pass that immediately after completing the business of Wednesday’s regular session, we were called into special session, and all the normal safeguards to open government and mature consideration of proposed legislation were summarily jettisoned. The Governor’s bill, which few of us had even seen before we were required by our newly-adopted rules to debate and vote on it that very day, was not referred to a committee; was not given a public hearing; and was not discussed, voted on and forwarded to the full House with a committee’s written recommendation. So outraged were House Republicans by the resulting caricature of representative government that we staged a walkout that brought matters to a standstill for two hours, before yielding to the inevitable and watching the Undemocrats have their wicked way with Lady Liberty.

I had never expected to witness such an egregious, cynical display of raw political power in the Legislature of this state, and I hope never to again. The Lynch administration and legislative Democrats would do well to heed Alexander Hamilton’s warning: “[N]o man can be sure that he may not be tomorrow the victim of a spirit of injustice by which he may be a gainer today. And every man must now feel that the inevitable tendency of such a spirit is to sap the foundations of public and private confidence, and to introduce in its stead universal distrust and distress.”

Gregory M. Sorg, R-Easton

Member of the NH House

Grafton District 3

A message to the infidels

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Received this in an e-mail – no attribution to any author and I think I’ve seen it before – but I’ll pass it along – there is truth in it:

God gave this country all the resources we need and we would be fine, if we weren’t too stupid to harvest them.

The OPEC minister will look you in the eyes and say the following:

‘We are at war with you infidels. Have been since the embargo in the 1970s. You are so arrogant you haven’t even recognized it. You have more missiles, bombs, and technology, so we are fighting with the best weapon we have and extracting on a net basis about $700 billion/year out of your economy. We will destroy you! Death to the infidels!

While I am here I would like to thank you for the following:

Not developing your 250-300 year supply of oil shale and tar sands. We know if you did this, it would create millions of jobs for US citizens, expand your engineering abilities, and keep the wealth in the US instead of sending it to us to finance our war against you b*******.

Thanks for limiting defense department purchases of oilsands from your neighbors to the north. We love it when you confuse your allies.

Thanks for over-regulating every segment of your economy and thus delaying by decades the development of alternate fuel technologies.

Thanks for limiting drilling off your coasts, in Alaska, and anywhere there is a bug, bird, fish, or plant that might be inconvenienced. Better that your people suffer! Glad to see our lobbying efforts have been so effective.

Corn based Ethanol. Praise Allah for this sham program! Perhaps you will destroy yourself from the inside with these types of policies. This is a gift from Allah, praise his name! We never would have thought of this one! This is better than when you pay your farmers NOT TO GROW FOOD. Have them use more energy to create less energy, and simultaneously drive food prices through the roof.

Thank you, US Congress!!!!

And finally, we appreciate you letting us fleece you without end. You will be glad to know we have been accumulating shares in your banks, real estate, and publicly held companies. We also finance a good portion of your debt and now manipulate your markets, currency, and economies to our benefit.

THANK YOU, AMERICA!’

Taxpayers for Common sense on Cost overruns

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The TCS Wastebasket

Congress Needs to Take On Cost Overruns — Too often, the lawmakers can’t agree on where there is waste in government. The problem is that everything in Washington, D.C. seems to have an army of lobbyists and powerful lawmakers playing defense at the slightest hint of trouble. But we think a recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) can break the impasse.

The report found that the 95 Department of Defense (DoD) weapons programs worth $1.6 trillion had had a total of $300 billion in cost overruns. The GAO has been doing this analysis of programs annually since 2000 and cost overruns and delays are actually worse than when they first started tracking.

Read the Rest of this Wastebasket…

Democrat Led Government Hiring Spree Result of Economic Troubles or a Cause?

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USA Today has a piece on how the only sector still growing the number of new hires is state and local government. It talks about how this is softening the blow of a private sector reduction in new hirin and that government hiring can be a result of economic downturns.
Problem is, it also points out the increase in state and local hiring (and spending) started last July – before there was a downturn in the oveall economy. In fact the dramatic increase in spending really resulted from the take over by Democrats after the 2006 elections. July 1st was the first day most of those new big spenders put in place their bloated new budgets, many based on pie in the sky economic forecasts.

The overall economy was still booming ahead, but not as much of a boom as the Democrats were counting on. Many state and local governments are in deficit situations even though they added new taxes and fees to their revenue streams.

To me it seems the boom in government hiring and spending is one of the causes of the economic distress that followed. Government spending is a drain on the economy, stifling real economic growth. Government jobs stifle productivity by private industry by siphoning off the cash needed for businesses to grow.  Businesses also see the increases in taxes and fees as just the tip of an iceberg – they can see the governments are spending beyond their means and will be increasing companies’ costs yet again.

$300 million now a Billion by July ’09????

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From the NH Advantage coalition:

How bad will it get?

New Department Head Revenue Projections Show NH Deficit is closing in on $300 Million

Manchester NH- Despite raking in revenues at a higher pace than last year, testimony by department heads before the House Ways and Means Committee on April 9, 2008, painted a very bleak picture of the state of our state. This new revenue outlook, showing shortfall closing in on $300 Million dollars, has many state officials asking: just how bad will it get?

Despite repeated warnings that last year’s inflated revenue projections would lead New Hampshire exactly to the place we are today. Governor John Lynch, Democrat leaders in both the house and senate, knowingly passed an unbalanced budget to fuel their insatiable need to spend. That astronomical jump in spending according to the National Governors Association and the National Association of State Budget Officers December 2007 survey, puts New Hampshire squarely in the top ten of overspending offenders nationwide.

“Only seven states experienced a higher percentage growth in state spending in FY08. New Hampshire taxpayers are increasingly frustrated by the overspending, posturing, and false rhetoric of our current state leadership. It has become trendy to say you’re for low taxes, even against a sales or income tax. The problem is, once elected, too many officials act like a teenager with a fist full of credit cards,” said Mike Biundo, NHAC Chairman.

“New Hampshire’s leaders need to start managing our tax dollars like they do their own households. When the cost of gas and milk go up, most taxpayers look for ways to cut spending. Perhaps they don’t eat out, or stop going to movies, but they definitely look for ways to cut out the discretionary spending, and that is something this legislature and our governor need to quickly learn how to do,”

For more information please contact: Roger Wilkins, the New Hampshire Advantage Coalition

Biofuel vs Food – Stop putting Corn in my Gas

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I’ve been ranting for a long while (since before I started blogging) that turning corn into a “fuel” was bad policy and stupid economically (except for “Big Corn”).

Turns out  other people have finally come to the same conclusion.

At a weekend conference in Washington, finance ministers and central bankers of seven leading industrial nations called for urgent action to deal with the price spikes, and several of them demanded a reconsideration of biofuel policies adopted recently in the West.

Food prices are skyrocketing,  world food experts are touting potatoes as the savior of the starving populations (Did that really work out well for my Irish relatives? Hmmm…)

How about this – drill in ANWR and off the coastlines, use that oil to reduce the dependence on foreign oil, cut the cost of refined fuel by allowing new and more efficient refineries in this country, use the reduced cost of fuel and reduced false demand for corn to reduce the costs of most ag products, stop paying farmers to not grow products and encourage them to grow produce that will actually be consumed.

Yeah, I know politically it will never happen – not with the current make up of Congress.

Lynch and Dems – nearly a Billion for Education plan

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The NH Supreme Court has decreed that as of July 1 if the legislature has not done an “adequate” job that the court will usurp the authority of the legislature and act to provide the opportunity for an “adequate” education to every child in the state. Last summer, the Dems in the legislature passed and Dem Gov. Lynch signed a definition of “adequate” education that had no price tag.

Now the Dems in the Senate have revealed the price – nearly 1 Billion more than the state is currently spending. With just over 1 million people in the state that is a $1000 per person state tax hike that they are going to be passing along.  There is no other way to put it – they are increasing the state’s obligation and the state is the people. S, get out your check book and write the state a check – family of 4 – Round it off to an even $4000. What, you don’t have an extra $4000 to pay right now?

Can you spell Income tax? If you can -  thank a teacher (or your parents if you were home schooled). If you pay a state income tax – thank the Dems and the uneducated voters that elected them.
Don’t cry to me – I never voted for a Democrat in my life, certainly not Lynch and his henchmen now controlling everything in Concord!

The Lynching of your wallets is ongoing!

Breazeale Signs Earmark Pledge

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Washington, DC – Declaring his intention when elected to Congress to forego “Earmarking,” – the practice by which members of Congress divert taxpayer funding to special projects outside of the normal competitive and merit-based review process – Congressional Candidate Will Breazeale (R NC-7) has signed the “Earmark Pledge”.

Striking a cord for fiscal responsibility, Breazeale said “If a project in my district needs and deserves Federal funding I will submit that as a bill or as a budget request – which will be held up to the daylight of public debate and a vote by Congress. I will not request or support these earmarks that go outside of the regular legislative process!”!”

THEREFORE, I, _Will Breazeale__, in my capacity as _Congressman_, do hereby pledge that I will personally support spending reform in Congress by refusing to seek, support, or enact earmarks during the appropriations process for fiscal year 2009.

“I have no doubt that Rep. Mike McIntyre will avoid signing this pledge, since he has repeatedly submitted earmarks of his own” Breazeale continued “and refused to vote against removing even ridiculous earmarks like Rep. Charley Rangel’s $2 million for a public policy center, conference center and library that will bear Rangel’s name. Senate Republicans called it Rangel’s ‘Monument to Me’.” (Roll call 678)

The pledge is the centerpiece of FreedomWorks’ overall campaign to stop out of control federal spending and end the earmarking process. Grassroots activists will be able to download the pledge and monitor progress at the FreedomWorks sponsored site, www.earmarkpledge.com.