Our new democratic state rep, Rebecca Brown, held a town meeting last night at Wendles, a local sandwich joint. Attending were about 20 democrats and yours truly. Discussion ranged around the state. Legalizing gambling drew a lot of attention. The attraction is money. Maggie the Hassan promised gambling would bring in $80 million. Even the democratic controlled state house of representatives didn't believe this and the wacked Maggie's $80 million out of the budget revenue estimates.
Sue Forth, another state rep from I-don't-know-where mentioned that the teacher's union opposed the budget deal because it didn't have gambling revenue in it. Sue said she didn't understand why the teachers felt that way. A number of people in the audience piped up and said the teachers want gambling revenue to pay for their retirements.
A lot of democrats present feel that NH needs more revenue. That sounds better than "tax hike". They pretty much understand about "the pledge" (No broad based taxes). So they like gambling. Someone proposed putting a $1 a bottle tax on wine. He claimed that would be enough balance the budget.
Rebecca floated the idea of tying Northern Pass to gambling, something like this. "If you, the governor, will insist on Northern Pass burying the wires, we North country reps will support your gambling bill." Response to this idea was no better than mixed. Everybody present thinks burying a million volt transmission line is doable.
In real life it is so costly that they will find a right of way thru Vermont before they bury the wires in NH. Nobody wanted to talk about all the property taxes the Northern Pass transmission line would pay to towns. We oughta know up here. Moore Dam taxes pay for a lot of stuff in Littleton.
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