Let's End the N.H. Tea Party

   Are New Hampshire voters still enjoying that "Tea Party" they decided to host 15 months ago at the midterm elections? Or are we finally ready to call it a day and tell the guests to go home?

   Nobody who was paying attention throughout the 2010 election cycle here in the Granite State should be the slightest bit surprised at the chaos that Concord has been embroiled in since the extreme right-wing takeover of the state House and Senate a year ago.

   During that short time they have legalized open and concealed handguns THAT DON’T REQUIRE A PERMIT, joining Alaska, Wyoming and Arizona in infamy. They have drastically cut needed programs like our college/university system (45 percent), ended or weakened community health programs including hospital and Medicaid reimbursements (forcing more than 1,000 layoffs statewide), eviscerated domestic laws that now among other aspects make it harder to arrest physical abusers unless the arriving police officers actually see the violence and are making scurrilous attacks on social programs like gay rights and freedom of choice instead of concentrating on job creation, their supposed number one priority. 

    Their latest assault is House Bill 1560, which would end Medicare in the state, subjecting its payment options to a legislature that can and will slash funds every two years. This bill would also end SCHIP (State Children’s Health Insurance Program), which has been a bipartisan success since the 1990s. In short, our newly elected devastators have pretty much done everything they promised to do back in 2010, with much more pain on the docket for New Hampshire unless we stop them. 

   All Republicans are not created equal, as the state’s voters have learned to their regret. Moderate GOP House members currently number around 40 out of the 293 majority, and have been neutered in power by the elected Tea Party wing. Led by House Speaker William O’Brien this reckless cabal has undermined our state’s entire agenda, and he and his followers are doing their level best to make New Hampshire a poorer and more violent place, widen the gulf between the haves and have-nots by a myriad of budgetary cuts that target our most vulnerable citizens, and in general turn the clock back to the Wild West of the mid-1800s.

   Instead of the job creation bills they promised, the new conservative legislature has caused record layoffs across every spectrum that they can affect, from the aforementioned health and education areas to community services and industries. So much for the "New Hampshire Advantage" that was so endemic here that it was taken for granted by many during Gov. John Lynch’s four terms until the carnage of the last election. O’Brien’s $10.3 billion budget of last June that is cartoonish in its deficiencies has put the coup de grace to that.

   All voters had to do was examine the similar candidates campaigning across America two years ago to predict what was in the cards if our Tea Party versions were elected here. Did we really want dangerous ideologues like Joe Wilson, Christine O’Donnell, Sharon Engle, Rand Paul, et al drastically upending a state that for the past decade has been an open model for the other 49 with its centrist leadership, balanced budgets, fair laws, model graduation rates and lowest tax bite?

   Apparently all those benefits weren’t enough in 2010, although at least we smartly re-elected Lynch to the governorship so that he could spend his last two years here vetoing as much harmful legislation as he could, while letting bills he couldn’t stop pass without his signature. Sometimes we don’t know how good we have it until we’ve lost it (see William Clinton Years, 1993-2001 for clarification).

   Unfortunately, with the GOP majorities in the House (293-104) and Senate (19-5), it’s going to take a concerted effort in November by both voters and, just as importantly, more rational citizens with the time, intellect and desire to run for office to effect the mass eviction of these Tea Party imposters. There is a groundswell happening across southern New Hampshire towns like Salem, Windham, Atkinson, among others that are actively working to field as many moderate Republicans and Democrats to run in November to try to dilute the ugly plurality that we let into our henhouse. 

   It is imperative that citizens pay attention to local issues as well as the national ones as 2012 plays out. There is no way that a state that for years has engendered so many positives, and that polled annually as America’s finest state for families to live in to come to a crashing end soon, due to legislators with an agenda that never should’ve gotten started here in the first place. Tell them to take their Tea Party elsewhere.