(CONCORD) New Hampshire’s contentious debate over what to drink is one step closer to resolution. The New Hampshire House yesterday overwhelmingly approved apple cider as the official state beverage.

By Charles M. Arlinghaus
From the print edition of the Union Leader

Over the last few months, disparate interests have all begun work on spending reduction plans to fix the $250 million deficit. That surprising consensus is threatened by the emergence of new plans to attack the problems by raising taxes.

By now it is well known that the state faces a huge fiscal problem. The current two-year budget is not quite half over and faces a $250 million shortfall. It can’t be ignored because the next budget (after the election) will start discussions about $600 million in the hole.

Our colleague Michael Barnhart writes on the importance of government transparency in the pages of the Washington Examiner.

Jason Stverak is President of the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, a leading journalism non-profit organization. The Franklin Center is dedicated to providing reporters, citizens and non-profit organizations at the state and local level with training, expertise and technical support. For more information on the Franklin Center please visit www.FranklinCenterHQ.org.

Gerry Storch quotes some people who miss the point in his Feb. 26 column, The pros and cons of newspapers partnering with ‘citizen journalism’ networks. Four sources who cited “The Negative” about citizen journalism do not understand what it truly is and does. Even the five professionals quoted for “The Positive” disparage the credibility and integrity of citizens who choose – as did those at the founding of our nation — to make journalism their chosen field and passion.

The point all of them miss is traditional news media reporters and editors are being devastated by a financial crisis, not a journalism crisis. Somebody has to fill the void.

Read the entire column at Online Journalism Review.

(CONCORD) The Department of Resources and Economic Development will ask the Legislative Fiscal Committee tomorrow to increase fees for the New Hampshire Park System. The proposal, submitted by Parks Director Ted Austin and DRED Commissioner George Bald, would raise nearly $133,000 for the Park Fund. Nearly half of that revenue would come from increased parking meters on Hampton Beach.

By Charles M. Arlinghaus
From the print edition of the Union Leader

The governor and the legislature are sending mixed signals on the possible repeal of the controversial LLC tax. The governor has said he is working on a plan to repeal the tax but we haven’t heard about any details of the negotiations with legislative leadership. Complicating matters, the House leadership today is planning on rejecting a bill to do precisely what the governor says he and the leadership want to do.

(CONCORD) New Hampshire’s Unemployment Trust Fund is out of money. Employment Security Commissioner Tara Reardon says that the fund reached a zero balance yesterday. In an exclusive interview with New Hampshire Watchdog, Reardon says the state expects to receive a $50 million no-interest loan from the federal Department of Labor within a week, in order to pay benefits to the 35,000 Granite Staters currently receiving unemployment.

(CONCORD) The New Hampshire Senate has approved a bill that would require state officials to post online any payments made by state government. The bill, SB 359, cleared the full Senate on a voice vote yesterday, and now heads to the Senate Finance Committee for a review of its potential cost.

By Charles M. Arlinghaus
From the print edition of the Union Leader

The current legislature and governor are pushing us to establish a new government agency to control hospitals by setting prices and overseeing hospital management. Similar bureaucracies have been abandoned in more than thirty states that tried them. That model cannot be replicated here without spending more than $100 million that we don’t have.

Guest Post by State Representatives DJ Bettencourt and Carolyn Webber

In last Sunday’s Eagle-Tribune article: DOT commissioner committed to I-93 toll, New Hampshire Transportation Commissioner George Campbell reiterated his support for installing toll booths on Interstate 93 in Salem and his intention to continue the authorization application process with the federal government. While his sentiments are not new, they were his most explicit. In response to this story we have received hundreds of inquiries and concerns from the public. Many are rightly outraged and bewildered as to why their communities along the I-93 corridor, which represents a Golden Goose of revenue production for New Hampshire, would be subjected to this burden.