Archive for July 2011
Odd as it may sound, in the next big budget battle the state government could learn a lesson from Washington in how to balance our books. In transportation spending, the state government regularly plans on spending much more than it has available. The state should reverse this practice and turn the highway plan from a wish list back into a plan.
The federal government may make significant cutbacks to the gas taxes it sends back to New Hampshire but who can blame them? Last year, like most years, the Highway Trust Fund took in $35 billion of revenue but authorized spending of $50 billion. That tells you just about all you need to know about how Washington works.
The Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, New Hampshire’s free-market think tank, today announced the election of Richard Ashooh as Chairman of its Board of Directors. Ashooh has served on the Center’s Board since 2010, and succeeds Manchester attorney Eugene Van Loan, who remains on the Board himself. Ashooh takes over an organization known for [...]
In 2008, New Hampshire joined a ten-state regional compact designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through a cap-and-trade program on electric generation facilities. This report examines how that program has been implemented in New Hampshire over the past two years, how much revenue has been generated from the sale of carbon allowances, and how New Hampshire officials have spent that money.
These slides are from Charlie Arlinghaus’s seminar for policymakers on the basics of the state budget, how its organized, where to find information and how to become your own state budget expert.
Politicians are incapable of doing the right thing on their own. Without some sort of artificially imposed rules, they will continue along in their hapless way on the road to destroying the country. The federal budget is a problem that can only be solved by going back to the 1980s.
