As reported in the Nashua Telegraph, a Legislative audit of the Division of Economic Development, within the Department of Resources and Economic Development found that in 2011 and 2012, $875,750 was improperly given out as tax credits, while an additional $121,000 worth of tax credits were not given to business that were eligible to receive them.

“Each state has its own reduction goal, reached through a complex calculation based on current energy production sources and possible policy choices. For New Hampshire to comply with these rules, the state would need to reduce emissions from fossil fuel fired plants by more than 46% by 2030.”

The brokered deal on the Medicaid Enhancement Tax and lawsuit is a partial solution to an imperfect situation that will require difficult choices but it may still be the right choice to make. The complexity of the tax and the schemes surrounding it make evaluating and understanding the tax, the choices, and the possibilities difficult but let’s give it a try.

Arthur Warren Mudge, age 84, died Friday, May 23, at Kendal in Hanover.

The real problem with the Obamacare network in New Hampshire is not that it is too narrow but that there is any network at all. Healthcare costs are lowered not when the one government sanctioned picks winners and losers but instead when providers compete for the customer pool. The oddly constructed health exchange in New Hampshire is not the beginning of the future but the last gasp of the past.

The current FY14-15 budget spends $30.5 million more on Health and Human Services than the House Budget proposed, when Uncompensated Care is removed. Revenue projections for the Medicaid Enhancement Tax (MET), which funds Uncompensated Care, were revised downwards in the Enacted Budget on the advice of HHS. Taking into account all back of the budget reductions, the Enacted Budget spends nearly $23.5 million more over the biennium than the House Budget in General Funds.

The most annoying and disheartening time of the legislative year is upon us – the time when transparency and honest debate are sacrificed on the altar of hidden agendas in pursuit of that elusive legislative pot of gold, “a deal.” Committees of conference are legislative mini-summits where the romanticized version of a smoke filled room creates comparisons to sausage making that do a distinct dishonor the noble smoked meats.

I believe that the unique joys of another special legislative session loom on the horizon for the New Hampshire legislature. The purpose of the session will be the byzantine creature known as the Medicaid Enhancement Tax but we might just as easily call it the current budget crisis. Some legislators deny the existence of a crisis. They’re wrong.

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“Today’s actions are the first small step to respond to the problem but she should also make real spending cuts by executive order as recent governors have done. In the last two decades, itemized spending reductions have accompanied freezes nine times. Nonetheless, I want to thank her for listening.”