Why Turn Down Federal Money ?

Thought this editorial in the Keene Sentinel might be of interest.

By Martha Fuller Clark | Posted: Tuesday, March 24, 2015 9:46 am

 New Hampshire has historically seen a significantly smaller amount of your federal tax dollars returned to us in the form of services than we send to Washington, D.C. The right-wing taxfoundation.org has conducted the most comprehensive and rigorous research in this field and found decades of this state consistently funding projects in the South and in the Mountain West region.

So it was with shock that, after a week away, I returned home to work on the ever-growing pile of papers related to my work as a New Hampshire senator and found that my Republican colleagues evidently believe that D.C. does a better job of deciding how to spend our tax dollars than we do.

One of the first documents I turned to was a packet of requests to the House-Senate Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee to accept federal monies coming back to New Hampshire in the form of funding for a number of programs. This is typically a routine matter — the money is ours after all — but for reasons best known to them, members of the committee refused to accept at this time about $9 million for significant state programs. It appears that they are willing to risk losing that money to South Carolina or Alaska or New Mexico in an attempt to short-circuit the budget process and undermine a governor they couldn’t beat at the polls.

The items include, for example, 20 suits of protective gear or the new pumper truck that our tax federal tax dollars were going to pay for the Department of Safety. Implausibly, Senate President Chuck Morse has said we need to consider declining these funds lest the state have to pay for insurance for the truck, or to pay to fill its gas tank. I wonder what rationale drives rejecting funds to hire a full-time drug crimes investigator at a time when heroin abuse is at an all time high.

This is not the only manifestation of the N.H. GOP’s desire to let D.C. keep more of our money. Rep. Neal Kurk, chairman of the Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee, has expressed an unwillingness to fund the state contribution to the Medicaid expansion plan a bipartisan coalition of senators crafted last year. The state’s contribution, approximately 5 percent of the total cost of keeping coverage in place for 35,000 households that are now insured, is required under federal statute to continue this coverage and amounts to about $65 million. We have already reached fully half of those making less than $16,000 a year who are eligible. This demonstrates a willingness to consider putting the lives and health of our citizens at risk and turning their back on our most needy citizens. Perhaps Rep. Kurk can identify which states he’d like those funds to go so these families can consider relocating.

I find it hard to believe that New Hampshire’s Republicans, so vocal in their defense of states rights and local control, are now willing to let Washington, D.C., send millions of our tax dollars south and west to build schools and roads and fund first responders. Hopefully, moving forward, more reasonable voices will prevail in Concord.