By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD – New Hampshire House Republicans said they spent a lot of time this summer knocking on doors across the state and hearing what the voters want from their government, which helped them develop the seven-point Granite Guarantee, a series of promises they unveiled Monday.
With all 400 seats in the House of Representatives up for grabs, leading Republicans said their hope is that they can maintain a majority over Democrats whom they say are out of touch and want to implement an income tax, among other measures.
The seven point plan is as follows:
1. Ban an Income Tax – Forever
2. Cap Your Property Tax
3. Cut even more red tape
4. Lower energy bills
5. Lower health care costs
6. Parents decide
7. Support Public Safety.
Some political pundits believe that the Democrats have the momentum to take the majority of the House this November during the general election and could also make gains in the state Senate where there is currently a 16-8 Republican majority.
But Republican leaders said they feel they have the winning message going forward and outlined their promises if elected.
House Majority Leader Jason Osborne, R-Auburn, who is running for Speaker if the Republicans maintain control of the lower chamber, noted that they had the wildly successful “contract for New Hampshire” two years ago and made good on many of those priorities.
“This election this year is a choice between two worlds. A choice between common sense and communism. We’ve seen it all across this country, socialism has taken over the Democratic party. It is no different here in New Hampshire. We saw that last Tuesday in the Primary where we saw one out of three Democrats vote for an outright Socialist for U.S. Senate who is now refusing to support their nominee unless he agrees to their demand. We see all across the state with candidates running for the State House, every single one of them aligned with the (Democratic Socialists of America) agenda.”
Meanwhile, Osborne said, Republicans are running on these seven points.
Republicans want to put on the ballot a constitutional amendment to ban income tax forever but Osborne said Democrats refused to allow that to be put on the ballot.
Democrats, he said, “will say out of one side of their mouth that they will lower property taxes. But even they don’t believe it. And when you press them on it, when you ask them, ‘hey when you increase all of these other taxes will you lower our property taxes?’ they hem, they haw, they obfuscate, they equivocate, they won’t stand behind it.”
State Rep. Joe Sweeney, R-Salem, noted that Democrats filed an LSR on Monday for an income tax if they get control of the House and the Senate this year.
Rep. Ellen Read, D-Newmarket, did file LSR 2027-0240, “establishing an income tax and establishing a sales tax on certain luxury goods,” but House Democratic leadership was quick to oppose it.
House Democratic Leader Alexis Simpson, D-Exeter, released the following statement regarding LSR 2027-0240:
“As I have said repeatedly, an income tax is not part of the House Democrats’ agenda. Granite Staters do not want an income tax, period. People want affordability, not a new broad-based tax,” Simpson said.
Sweeney said the Republicans, instead, will work to cut red tape and the cost of doing business with the government and find areas to make it easier for people to work on projects.
“Whether you are permitting housing, whether you are permitting energy projects, permitting any sort of driveway whatever you have. So we are going to continue the work we have done these last two years at cutting red tape in state government to make it easier to do business in the Granite State, to open the Granite State up for business so that we can build in the state again,” he said.
The same is true for cutting energy bills, said State Rep. JD Bernardy, R-South Hampton, who said electric costs are so high in New Hampshire because of Democrats.
He cited Democrats in Massachusetts and New York who have the political power there, who have prevented Pennsylvania shale (gas) to come to New Hampshire through their pipelines.
“That requires us to buy international gas, liquified natural gas, at five times the cost it would be if it came through a pipeline from Pennsylvania. And the Jones Act prevents us from getting domestic gas and would that save, that would only be double the costs.
“On top of that, ISO-New England, which is the federal energy regulatory authority, regulating the power and transmission lines for the six New England states, is under the sway of Massachusetts and the southern New England states because they have the larger population,” Bernardy said.
“Those states have net zero carbon programs. That results in day-ahead contract costs which IS0-New England has to do every day ahead…to make sure the lights will come on in case the clouds come over and block off the solar. And that went from $140 million to $974 million this past year,” he said.
Also going up, Bernardy said, are transmission costs.
“Because they (southern New England) are going net zero, and building out everything electric, they are the states that are demanding transmission line upgrades and new transmission lines. That is costing right now $6 billion a year. It’s going to cost $26 billion a year by 2050. There’s no real benefit to New Hampshire. We don’t have those policies. We are not building out any of those grids,” he said.
Then, Bernardy said there is offshore wind “that is their answer” but it, he said, is one and a half times the cost of international gas. If the state got gas from Pennsylvania it would be substantially lower, he noted.
Because offshore wind would be on only a portion of the time – 43 percent of the time – Bernardy said they will have to build a “bunch of batteries” adding to the cost rather than building a natural gas plant here. He said the Republican plan is to have reliable power when it is snowing outside.
“We keep your lights on and your costs down,” he said of Republicans.
Lowering health care costs is also something Republicans said they had heard a lot about from knocking on doors.
State Rep. Erica Layon, R-Derry asked, “how much more are we paying for health care, how much less are the doctors getting and how come we can’t get patients and doctors together in a way where you get good quality care you can afford.”
She said Republicans are going to find ways for more options “where people can find a quality doctor at prices they are willing to pay and where they are happy to work together to improve the health of Granite Staters.”
She said Democrats just want to bring in more government “and that leads to prices going up.”
NH State Rep. Lisa Freeman, R-Tilton, said Republicans lead on parental rights and “will always stand up for parental rights. We believe in the parents. We believe in the family.”
Republicans also said that they are the party to support public safety.
Osborne was asked what he thought about the turnout in the primary where 40,000 more Democrats came out than Republicans.
He said they had a lot more hotly contested primaries and he fully expected that they would have a higher turnout.