Concord Needs A New Look In November

   Here’s three easily-digestible "bullet-items" that illustrate some of the sweeping changes in the Granite State over the past 15 months due to the ongoing Tea Party-fueled chaos in Concord.

   1. Seniors, and all those about to hit Medicare age, had better face front and pay attention if they aren’t already. Along with all the many well-known cuts last year’s GOP-driven budget forced on us, including the loss of over 2,000 school and hospital jobs, House Speaker Bill O’Brien’s latest salvo is the proposed state takeover of both Medicare and Medicaid (HB 1560). This bill, which is being pushed furiously even as you read this over Gov. John Lynch and Democrat objections, would give O’Brien’s tight-fisted cabal the power to slash or end all services depended upon by our elderly, raise the eligibility age for new applicants, as well as create House control of all Medicaid funding. As a "side benefit" for the social Darwinist crowd, this mandate also authorizes the legislative takeover of SCHIP (State Children’s Health Insurance Program), which has been a national bipartisan boon since president Bill Clinton introduced it back in 1997.  

     2. How does someone purchase a gun, from the concealed variety to a hunting rifle, in New Hampshire now? Easy...go to a gun store or a firearm show and hand over the money. That’s it. And you don’t have to register your potentially-lethal purchase either, unlike your car or boat. The National Rifle Association spent a lot of money in 2010 funding the campaigns of their "Wild, Wild West" conservative candidates, and they certainly got a lot of "bang" for their buck. And the House’s January 180-144 "yea" vote to allow handguns on our college campuses was only prevented from becoming law by Lynch’s threatened veto. And the ludicrous coup de grace was O’Brien’s new rule allowing firearms in our State House chamber and gallery, creating a tragedy-in-the-making scenario for the benefit of New Hampshire citizens.

   3. Tea Party targeting of our union workers, gays and women has been well documented. But due to a new rule enacted by O’Brien this election year fewer of our young voters will be able to attempt to change the trend on November 6. College students here can no longer vote in the city they reside in unless they establish legal residence there first. And a student driver’s license (if it’s from out-of-state) will no longer be acceptable; nor will your college ID. Similar legislation was recently blocked by the Justice Department from being enacted in South Carolina, but it’s currently alive and well in the Granite State.

   The new Concord Republican majority has led an incessant, budget-fueled assault on New Hampshire’s hospital and school systems, public safety laws, social programs and health plans. This is despite all their continually-spouted rhetoric about "smaller government" and their having a "pro-business" agenda. Nothing they have done so far has the slightest bit of relevance to job creation and state infrastructure. Instead a plethora of ideology-driven legislation, some of it actually in violation of our state Constitution, has become a business and employment destroyer. And the irony is that we’ll all pay far more monetarily for these reforms, not to mention losing many of our citizen benefits formerly known as the "New Hampshire Advantage" until the GOP House/Senate takeover last year. To these people smaller and cheaper government is fine as long as they aren’t affected by the mess they’ve inflicted upon us. But how about the many thousands of our citizens who ARE impacted?

   We’ve been extremely lucky to have John Lynch as our governor for the past four terms. As a centrist, reach-across-the-aisle leader he spearheaded New Hampshire’s rise to become one of the most respected of all our 50 states in nearly all measurable areas. With his retirement looming in January 2013 the Democrat party has a pair of admirable candidates, Jackie Cilley and Maggie Hassan, that we’ll all be hearing, reading and writing a lot about in the next 7 months. While the GOP side has Ovide Lamontagne, whose legislative priorities include eliminating Medicare by cutting all federal money granted to New Hampshire, restarting the fight that was just settled last week by banning gay marriage, instituting a Constitutional amendment overturning Roe vs. Wade in its entirety, abolishing the Department of Education and making English the official language of the United States. Sound familiar?