When is a tax cut bill that passes the House not really a tax cut bill that passed the House?
New Hampshire saw the question asked and answered Wednesday when two tax cut proposals were approved by the full House. In a rare parliamentary move, House Republican leaders then stopped, or “tabled” the bills, preventing them from moving to and being considered by the Senate.
A new standard for local control — letting towns and cities establish their own revenue options such as an income or sales tax to replace the property tax — will have a public hearing this morning in the House Ways and Means Committee. The committee will also consider two bills which would turn back the clock on scores of taxes and fee increases enacted since 2006 (House Bill 646) and 2007 (House Bill 645) and would impact every generating office in state government.
The battle over the 2012-2013 New Hampshire state budget has officially commenced, and Gov. John Lynch will make the case for his $4.7 billion budget proposal to lawmakers at a public hearing tomorrow.
When Democratic Gov. John Lynch delivers his state budget address tomorrow, it will be a dramatic change from his last budget speech in February 2009.
Democratic majorities in both the N.H. House and Senate have been replaced by Republican super-majorities, and the state’s budget crisis has deepened. The next two-year budget hasn’t even been crafted yet, and deficit estimates range from $400 million to the $1 billion figure claimed by Republican leaders.
In what is shaping up to be the busiest period yet for lawmakers in 2011 session, the House will be in session twice next week to vote on dozens of bills — on Tuesday after Gov. John Lynch’s budget address to the Legislature and on Wednesday for its regularly scheduled session.
Two bills that we have reported on this session in Front Door Politics — one to cut state funding for public television and the other to cut the state’s rooms and meals tax rate — will have full House votes next week.
Republican leadership at the State House has made tax cutting and budget balancing top priorities and today, the House Ways and Means Committee will hold public hearings and may have executive session votes on nine tax-related bills.
They include three measures we are watching that could lead to tens of millions in tax cuts on tobacco sales, rooms and meals and gambling winnings — but possibly make budget balancing even more difficult.
A year after a similar measure failed, a House committee will likely vote Tuesday on a proposal to postpone scheduled changes to education funding for New Hampshire cities and towns. The funding formula was settled on by the Legislature in 2008. It is due to change beginning July 1.
Sponsored by Rep. Kenneth Gould (R-Derry), House Bill 34 would maintain current levels of education grant funding to municipalities for fiscal years 2012 and 2013. The House Education Committee is scheduled to meet Tuesday in executive session and could make a recommendation to the full House about the bill at that time.
After a week of headlines about guns in the State House and the controversial attempt to remove a Democratic legislator, Republican leaders in Concord say it’s time to focus on the basics of jobs and economy.
They released a policy agenda roadmap Thursday that they say sets fiscal issues and not social issues — such as repealing the state’s equal marriage law — as the top priorities for 2011.
The less ceremonial work of building a budget will follow today’s pomp and circumstance of Gov. John Lynch’s an unprecedented fourth inauguration. Lawmakers are scheduled to begin the first of three days of economic briefings this afternoon.
The first briefing will be on the global economy from Jeff Applegate, the chief investment officer with Morgan Stanley Smith Barney …
We begin our breakdown of the more than 900 bills being proposed for the 2011 legislative session with a continuation of yesterday’s dispatch: taxes.
Some 14 bills (so far) with a focus on taxes have been submitted by Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate (no Democratic lawmakers have yet signed on to any of these bills). Following is our snapshot of a few bills worthy of discussion at this early stage: