Carroll County State Reps.: Striving for compassionate fiscal restraint

To The Daily Sun,

The New Hampshire House on April 7 passed the Republican-controlled House Finance Committee’s proposed budget. This budget helps deliver a number of promises that we all campaigned on. Remember: This is not the final budget and the NH Senate has just started making many changes to the budget. After they go through their budget process, there will be a Committee of Conference between House and Senate leaders. They will then formalize our final budget and we will all vote on it (probably around late-May to early-June). We will be closely following the changes made by the NH Senate.

However, here are the details of the currently proposed budget that has gone to the Senate for more changes. The budget reduces the statewide property tax by $100,000,000, providing much needed property tax relief. There is a phasing-out of the Interest and Dividends Tax, which disproportionately hurts those who are retired and on a fixed income. While the currently proposed budget decreases the Meals and Rooms Tax, it also increases the revenue sharing to towns, which will help increase local investments and decrease property taxes (this will double the amount of money all of our communities will receive from the Meals and Rooms Tax). As expected, there are proposed reductions to the Business Enterprise Tax and Business Profits Tax, which will help many small businesses struggling through the pandemic. This current budget eliminates 226 vacant state jobs, saving taxpayers a total of $22,700,000. These were all jobs that could not be filled over the past 2 to 3 years. There will be a major increase to the Rainy Day Fund of $146,000,000, which we hope will be used for further property tax relief, infrastructure investment, or education funding. What happens with this revenue will be for the Senate to decide. There were also no cuts to education as a result of this budget.

Additionally, our revenues are currently growing at a historic pace. Even despite the proposed tax rate reductions, it seems we may have a historic high for revenue (which we had in 2017, 2018, and 2019). This is all great news for taxpayers across the socio-economic spectrum. We hope to end up with a budget that preserves essential services like healthcare, infrastructure, and education, but also promotes fiscal restraint. We want to be responsible stewards of the taxpayers dollars, but in a compassionate way.

Rep. Brodie Deshaies, Wolfeboro

Rep. John MacDonald, Wolfeboro

Rep. William Marsh, Brookfield

Rep. Karel Crawford, Moultonborough