Reply #30: we have [View All]

400 members in the NH House. The job pays $100 a year. The average age of a state rep is 70. Only wealthy people can afford to be reps. The NH House has been under Republican control since the Civil War.

We have no sales tax, no state income tax. Our budget is smoke and mirrors, cobbled together by medicaid money. Doctors and dentists won't take medicaid patients any more because of the low reimbursement. The reimbursement is so low, because the money that should go toward reimbursement is used for the state budget. We have a high rate of alcholism. We rank 47th in the nation for spending on treatment and education. Fourteen treatment centers have closed in the last 10 years. Our enormous property taxes fund public education. Poorly. The system sucks. We have towns refusing to build workforce housing because they don't want people with kids moving to town, because then they have to educate them.

My county superior court has a 2 year backlog in cases, thanks to cuts in the budget. We are paying to house inmates and pay for their prescription drugs - which is about $20,000 a month. We cut mental health programs and addiction treatment - so now we pay for those people to be in jail.

Our governor is a multimillionare, who spent over 7 million to be elected. He drives a Humvee. He appointed one of his business cronies to be the highest paid state employee in NH history - and one of the highest paid CIO's in the nation. This guy is paid more than the CIO in NY or California.

Yeah, we have a great state government.