Opinion: Houston, we have a billion-dollar problem
The State House dome as seen on Nov. 18, 2016. ELIZABETH FRANTZ
| Published: 03-02-2025 7:00 AM |
Alexis Simpson is New Hampshire House minority leader. Rebecca Perkins Kwoka is New Hampshire Senate minority leader.
Gov. Kelly Ayotte addressed the legislature last Thursday, presenting a budget she claimed was balanced thanks to a “strong state economy.”
However, after closely reviewing her proposal, it’s clear that Republicans are once again relying on risky accounting tricks and unrealistic assumptions to make the numbers work. Let’s be clear — this is a smoke-and-mirrors approach that will ultimately result in sudden cuts to essential services and higher costs shifted onto property taxpayers.
The billion-dollar problem starts with Ayotte’s plan to balance the current budget, which has slipped into a deficit due to overreliance on lagging business tax revenues. Her solution? Pulling $81 millionfrom the state’s savings account, known as the “rainy day fund,” to fill the gap.
Tapping the rainy day fund during supposedly strong economic times is poor short-term management with long-term implications. Dipping into New Hampshire’s rainy day fund threatens our strong bond rating, which has allowed us to save taxpayers money by borrowing money at lower interest rates to reduce the cost of capital projects.
The warning signs on Ayotte’s budget extend even further. The governor’s revenue forecasts are significantly more optimistic than those of both the House Ways and Means Committee and her own agencies. In the context of a fragile national economy and Republican-backed corporate tax cuts that have already minimized the state’s revenue stream, she predicts over half a billion dollars more than the House estimates — an extra $113 million to wrap up 2025 and an astonishing $527 million more in revenue over the next biennium. With past revenue collections consistently falling to 80% of projections, on what basis is Ayotte confident that these shortfalls won’t ultimately be shifted onto local taxpayers?
Her budget also conveniently ignores $150 millionin settlements for survivors of abuse at the state’s Youth Detention Center — expenses that will come due over the next two years. While Ayotte criticized off-budget spending in her address to the legislature, she is doing exactly that by failing to account for this major obligation for restitution to people tragically abused as children while in the custody of the state.
Article continues after...
Yesterday's Most Read Articles
When is your car inspection due? Maybe never
Inside the government efficiency campaign that cut $2 million from the Merrimack Valley schools’ budget
‘What the hell is going on?”: Chichester votes to defund entire town administrative office, but may reconsider
USDA eliminates two local food programs that help the NH Food Bank and local schools
Sunshine Week: Searchable database of what Concord city employees were paid in 2024
Loudon Road bridge in Concord up for repair as federal funding gets shaky
Perhaps the most glaring contradiction is Ayotte’s newfound reliance on video gambling revenue. As attorney general, she argued that video gambling would diminish New Hampshire’s quality of life and fuel crime, including murder. Now, her budget assumes an eye-popping $117 million from video gambling in 2027 alone (29% of revenue goes to the state). To put that in perspective, this projection would require every man, woman and child in New Hampshire to generate $285 each in gambling revenue — a wildly unrealistic assumption.
Add all of these factors together — tapping the rainy day fund, reliance on unreasonable revenue projections, failing to account for major obligations and taking a big gamble on video gambling — we’re looking at a billion dollars in a $16 billion budget that Ayotte doesn’t account for.
The numbers just don’t add up.
Short-sighted budgeting eventually plunges the state into a deficit, forcing abrupt mid-cycle cuts to essential services and shifting additional costs onto property taxpayers. While Republicans claim they can balance the budget without raising taxes, their long-standing approach reveals they simply avoid increases that could be directly linked to them at the state level. In reality, your tax burden continues to rise.
Republicans rely so heavily on property taxes to fund state and local government because it gives them plausible deniability. Property taxes allow Republicans to cut the resources provided to municipalities, blame local governments when they make up the difference, rinse and repeat. Local taxes have risen sharply in recent years and even been acknowledged by Republicans as between 20 and 30% increases in towns across their districts.
Downshifting costs to local taxpayers is the most-used play in the New Hampshire GOP’s playbook. It is simply irresponsible to fail to recognize or plan for the state’s obligations, and then land them squarely on your back.
We have a constitutional responsibility to deliver a balanced budget for the residents of New Hampshire and will be unable to hide behind Ayotte’s assumptions and accounting gimmicks. If our state is to continue to thrive and remain financially strong, Republicans in the legislature must find a new strategy.
Continuing to cut taxes for multinational corporations and the top 1% while passing the buck to property taxpayers isn’t just unfair, it’s simply unsustainable.
Opinion: What Trump really means by government efficiency
Opinion: To salvage democracy, rebuild the Democratic Party
