Fosters – Shaheen will give voters higher taxes
Note: CNHT does not endorse candidates. We will however bring attention to those candidates who we feel are friends or foes of the taxpayer.
New Hampshire homeowners are being pummeled with taxes — property taxes.
What does Jeanne Shaheen want to talk about? Almost anything as long as it’s not her record on taxes. And while she spends almost every waking hour crowing about what she will do if she is elected to the U.S. Senate, it’s her record on taxes — the statewide property tax in particular – where she knows she is vulnerable.
Shaheen will say anything to get elected. The one thing you can be sure of if she is elected will be willingness to shift gears from forward to reverse.
Shaheen was elected governor in 1996 and again in 1998 on a platform that promised no broad-based income or sales tax and no statewide property tax. Once sworn in for a second time, she did a backflip that might have won her an Olympic medal. She hardly had time to lower her hand from taking the oath when she put the statewide property tax into play – the same statewide property tax that is an ingredient in why homeowners throughout the state are shouting for property tax relief.
Shaheen’s apologists will complain, “You can’t blame Jeanne for it. It’s the local elected officials who are responsible for municipal and school budgets.” Sure they are – after the state pockets a big chunk of their revenue assets.
What is the statewide property tax if not a broad-based tax initiated by Jeanne Shaheen after separating herself from a promise to the voters of New Hampshire?
The Associated Press wrote on March 12, 1998, “Shaheen’s proposal would, using a statewide property tax, video gambling, and a cigarette tax increase … pay for education.
When Shaheen succeeded in getting a Republican-dominated Legislature to impose a statewide property tax, was she at all contrite? Far from it. She did all but dance in the halls of the Statehouse.
“There are a lot of issues we still need to resolve, but today we’re going to celebrate, said a jubilant Shaheen (The Associated Press, April 30, 1999).
Imagine, Jeanne Shaheen was jubilant that day – jubilant that she had been able to impose one more plateau of taxation on New Hampshire’s homeowners and businesses.
Shaheen fooled a lot of people in 1996 and 1998, and in 1998 we were among them. She had a successful first term and we supported her bid for a second term. A few months later, it became evident we and the people of New Hampshire had been duped.
Contributing to Shaheen’s re-election in 1998 and 2000 was a Republican Party still dumbfounded by its 1996 loss of the Statehouse and weak GOP candidates for governor in those two elections.
Jeanne Shaheen’s embrace of taxes was not limited to the statewide property tax. Remember her pledge to veto a broad-based sales tax? Another promise that went by the boards. She proposed a sales tax in 2001, but fortunately, the Legislature had caught on to her taxing ways by then.
What about the Bush tax cuts?
When Jeanne Shaheen made an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate six years ago, the Hartford (Conn.) Courant wrote, “In New Hampshire, Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, locked in a tight race with Rep. John E. Sununu, praised the Bush tax cuts.”
Now she is for ending the tax cuts, effectively increasing taxes.
Who is Jeanne Shaheen courting, the voters of New Hampshire or Harry Reid, D-Nev., and other Democratic leaders?
Yes, Jeanne Shaheen’s record is a proven one – one that guarantees a deeper tax bite if she and people like her are elected to the U.S. Senate.
Jeanne Shaheen’s record is one of the reasons Foster’s Daily Democrat unhesitatingly endorses the re-election of Sen. John E. Sununu.
Sununu can be trusted to keep his word and work on behalf of the people of New Hampshire and the United States.