They presented the
budget, parts 1 and 2, aka HB1 and HB2, from the last committee of
conference. We didn’t get a chance to
amend anything. Vote it up or down,
that’s it. We had 3 hours of oratory,
praise from Democrats, objections to size and new taxes from Republicans. Seldom did anyone mention a number, such as
the number of dollars to be spent.
Democrats tacked a raise the smoking age bill onto the budget. That is an old parliamentary trick; take
something that would never be voted thru by the legislature. Attach it to something that has to pass like
the budget. It will go thru because the
pain of killing the budget far exceeds the pain of letting the rider go
thru. We did so, and the smoking age is
now 21 in New Hampshire.
Everyone expects
the governor will veto this budget on account of too much taxing and too much
spending. To guard against this we
passed a continuing resolution that allows state operations to continue for
three months or until we do pass a budget for real.
Then we went thru a
bunch of last minute bills. We knocked
off a bunch with the fast track (consent) calendar. And we did roll call votes, all 14-10, to
pass the rest of them. Hopefully the governor will veto the worst of
‘em.
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