Republicans Host Spending Summit

Last week, the House Ways and Means Committee met with economists and business leaders to talk about whether the state’s tax system is working.

Many fiscal conservatives howled you can’t talk about raising money without first knowing how much money you need.

As far as many at the Spending Summit were concerned, the Ways and Means Committee session was just a precursor to new taxes.

Many, like House Minority Leader Sherm Packard believe the solution to the state’s budget problems can be found in simple fiscal discipline.

TAPE: Regardless of what the tax and spenders in the statehouse would have us all believe, we do not have a revenue problem in Concord, we have a spending problem.

Several of the events’ invited speakers added nuance to that familiar refrain and tried to steer away from the event’s underlying political feel.

Charlie Arlinghaus of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy says financial problems are nothing new in the state.

TAPE: we always have an issue in New Hampshire. Anyone who has been in the legislature for more than a year or two realizes every two years someone says the words, ‘budget crisis.’...and it turns out we had a budget crisis in 1983, 1985, 1987...etc, etc. So it turns out we got one this year.

But, Arlinghaus added, this one is different.

It’s bigger, way bigger than deficits in the past.

Thanks to the Recession, one time money and sagging revenues Arlinghaus estimates the state could be facing a $625 million dollar deficit in the next budget cycle.

TAPE: I don’t know how many of you have decided to run for reelection or not, but god help you.

If policy makers and budget writers are serious about changing how the state spends money there are four real options.

That’s the message from Steve Norton at the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy.

He says those four options are the same ones that have been available to lawmakers for 20 years.

TAPE: one is education. One is corrections. One is Medicaid. And one is the Retirement System. And in each there is a series of policy decisions you could implement to save money. But those are tough difficult choices.

Both Norton and Arlinghaus stressed the state’s money matters aren’t a partisan issue as much as a political one.

Neither Republicans nor Democrats have had the nerve to drastically shrink government services in recent times.

But with the state facing perhaps a record setting budget shortfall, Republican Representative Neal Kurk says lawmakers have to work together.

TAPE: How do we really get the major changes? How do we get the reduction in costs from Medicaid, or the prisons, or education?...the consensus building that’s required for that has to start now for the next budget.

Kurk is a firm believer in not wasting a crisis.

He believes only when the state’s financial picture is dire enough will lawmakers support dramatic changes.

But despite Kurk’s plea, it’s hard to detect much of a bipartisan spirit in the air right now.

In fact, only a small handful of Democrats even bothered to show up to the meeting barely a mile from the statehouse.

And certainly before anyone spends much political capital, cutting pension benefits, money for schools or healthcare for the poor, lawmakers will certainly wait to see if the economic picture brightens.

For NHPR News, I’m DG.