Saturday, February 11, 2012
Granite State Priorities overview
We live in a state where (a) poor people pay an effective tax rate as a percentage of income four times as high as rich people; and where (b) the public sector is losing ground every day--our public schools are being devalued and underfunded; our higher education system is being underfunded; our public safety employees as well as our teachers are being criticized as though they were selfish people on the take from those who work hard; our environmental resources--Great Bay, our rivers, our ocean--are being gradually degraded; our neediest citizens, of whom there are many, are seeing diminished support systems that were not lavish in the first place. Meanwhile we continue not to tax estates, no matter how large, not to tax income, no matter how large. Instead the entire public sector is demonized, services are reduced, and people's property taxes continue to rise irrespective of their ability to pay them. Last year in my town (Exeter) dozens of people were threatened with eviction from their homes, many of them mobile homes, for non-payment of property taxes. This state of affairs is called The NH Advantage. Horsefeathers. NH's advantages are its people and its natural resources. These real advantages are under attack, typically under disguised attack.
NH needs revenue reform, and that is how GSP aims to address the issues we are thinking about today. We aim to change the conversation, so that it is less dominated by mythology and manipulation, and instead is characterized more often by transparency and information. If we are successful, the state will reconnect its tax bills more closely with the ability to pay them; we will sustain a public sector that performs many critical functions; and we will recover a sense of freedom that includes more than the right to self-defense and the right to stiff the community at tax time. Living free can mean and should mean not just the strength and capacity to defend ourselves and not just healthy self-reliance but compassion, fairness, and the ability to look beyond the present moment. If you want to live in a state with strong public schools, a state where communities are prepared to manage their own wastes, so that Great Bay can recover instead of becoming a clone of the Chesapeake, a state where people with disabilities can find help and all people can access a functional court system, a state where employees are not vilified for defending their own as well as the community's interests--in short, a state where freedom means more than resistance to tyranny and the right to shoot intruders in your home--take a look at gspriorities.org, and think about how you can join us in rebuilding the real NH advantage. We need letters to newspapers, emails and phone calls to legislators, some money, some help with the effective use of electronic media. "We" at the moment means the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ, the northern NE District of the Unitarian Universalist Association, the American Friends Service Committee, the League of Women Voters, the National Education Association, the State Employees Association, Every Child Matters--and an increasing number of citizens at large. Join us.
NH needs revenue reform, and that is how GSP aims to address the issues we are thinking about today. We aim to change the conversation, so that it is less dominated by mythology and manipulation, and instead is characterized more often by transparency and information. If we are successful, the state will reconnect its tax bills more closely with the ability to pay them; we will sustain a public sector that performs many critical functions; and we will recover a sense of freedom that includes more than the right to self-defense and the right to stiff the community at tax time. Living free can mean and should mean not just the strength and capacity to defend ourselves and not just healthy self-reliance but compassion, fairness, and the ability to look beyond the present moment. If you want to live in a state with strong public schools, a state where communities are prepared to manage their own wastes, so that Great Bay can recover instead of becoming a clone of the Chesapeake, a state where people with disabilities can find help and all people can access a functional court system, a state where employees are not vilified for defending their own as well as the community's interests--in short, a state where freedom means more than resistance to tyranny and the right to shoot intruders in your home--take a look at gspriorities.org, and think about how you can join us in rebuilding the real NH advantage. We need letters to newspapers, emails and phone calls to legislators, some money, some help with the effective use of electronic media. "We" at the moment means the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ, the northern NE District of the Unitarian Universalist Association, the American Friends Service Committee, the League of Women Voters, the National Education Association, the State Employees Association, Every Child Matters--and an increasing number of citizens at large. Join us.
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