Emily Corwin reported on economics for the StateImpact New Hampshire blog until the project merged with the New Hampshire Public Radio site in July 2013. She is now NHPR’s Seacoast Reporter. You can follow her on Twitter at @emilycorwin, and find her stories on NHPR.org.
A bipartisan group of politicians and businessmen are reaching out to ordinary Americans, asking them to bring homemade signs and banners to the polls in November (they suggest paint; stencil, or tape). Their goal? Get concerned grassroots organizers to pressure elected officials into finding a bipartisan solution to the impending fiscal cliff.
Former New Hampshire Governor Judd Gregg is a co-chair of the national organization, called Fix The Debt.
The organization was founded by the Clinton Administration’s SBA director Erskine Bowles, and former Senator Alan Simpson — authors of the failed bipartisan debt-reduction plan that came out of President Obama’s 18-member National Commission On Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, which was formed in 2010. According to spokesman Jon Romano, Simpson and Bowles founded Fix The Debt as a response to the “unwillingness [of politicians] from both sides to come together.” “CEOs,” Romano says, “are saying this is hurting our business, our economy, and we need Congress to act.” Continue Reading →
Thumbtack is a kind of 21st century classifieds — like a beefed-up Craigslist. But they also occasionally publish infographics and interactive survey data. Their newest lets you compare the answers small business owners gave to questions about 2012 election issues, based on the following demographic filters:
Where they’re from (compare N.H. to national statistics)
Before you dash away from your desk for the weekend, here’s a bit of Friday afternoon refreshment: the top 5 posts from StateImpact this week. Continue Reading →
This week, University of New Hampshire President Mark Huddleston delivered his State of the University address. He used the speech to reiterate his call to restore the cuts to the State University funding. Continue Reading →
In what will likely be the most expensive gubernatorial campaign in New Hampshire history, independent political groups supporting candidates Maggie Hassan and Ovide Lamontagne have reserved nearly $7.5 million worth of television ads in the final month of the election. Continue Reading →
The following was contributed by Jacob Hale Russell.
Next month, Granite Staters will vote on a state constitutional amendment that would ban any new income tax. It’s well known that New Hampshire is a rare hold-out in having no broad-based income or sales tax (Alaska, rich in oil reserves, is the only other state with neither), but how did we get that way?
“Around the big-bellied stove of the country store in a New Hampshire town men sit and growl about taxes,” the Boston Globe wrote in 1930. They could have been talking about almost any of the past hundred years: it turns out the state has come close many times over the past century to adopting a sales or income tax. Politicians — and not just Democrats — predicted, proposed, praised and nearly passed broad-based tax bills in the 1930s, 1960s, 1970s, and even the 2000s. Continue Reading →
Kevin Landrigan of the Nashua Telegraph reported in the Concord Monitor today that “sagging receipts from taxes on business owners and on the sale of cigarettes caused state revenue to fall 3 percent short of expectations last month.”
While the state’s business taxes came in “6 percent less than forecast,” the July 2011 cut in cigarette taxes “continues to depress revenues,” despite proponents’ belief that cutting the cigarette tax would increase sales and tax revenues. “Through the first three months of the fiscal year, the sales of cigarette packs were off 8.7 percent compared to the same period in 2011,” Landrigan writes.
Republicans have been trying to pass legislation transitioning new employees to a defined contribution retirement plan, in order to reduce the cost of the state’s retirement system. However, a report commissioned by the House subcommittee on the subject suggests the Republicans’ plan needs revision.
“Total pension funding costs will rise as the State implements the DC plan for new hires,” writes The Segal Group, a benefits and human resources consulting firm contracted by the House subcommittee. Continue Reading →
We all know that Americans are living and working longer. According to AARP, only 13 percent of Americans expect not to return to work after they hit “traditional retirement age.” But just as Americans are able and wanting to work longer — the recession has left many aging adults out of work. And those older adults are having a harder time returning to work than their younger counterparts, says the Government Accountability Office.
Joyce Goodwin started the Granite Start Early Learning Center in Nashua when she was 54.
After being unable to find employment in early education management, Joyce Goodwin, 56, started the Granite Start Early Learning Center in Nashua, which now has 70 children and 10 staff members. “My age was prohibitive in some of the jobs that may have been available,” she says. She considered buying an early learning franchise, but didn’t like being pigeon-holed into educational principles she didn’t believe in. Starting her own business seemed like the only option. Continue Reading →
Republican Gubernatorial candidate Ovide Lamontagne says Medicaid expansion will siphon money away from seniors on Medicare.
At a debate over healthcare issues hosted by the New Hampshire Health Policy Council, the New Hampshire Hospital Association, and NHPR, Lamontagne argued that the Affordable Care Act will take $716 billion over 10 years from Medicare to fund Medicaid expansion. “My parents are on Medicare, I don’t want them to be in a worse position after the fact that we turn over the keys to Washington,” Lamontagne said.
“What Ovide just said was outrageous,” countered his opponent, Democratic candidate Maggie Hassan, who supports Medicaid expansion. Continue Reading →
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