State Treasurer Catherine Provencher has a column in the print edition of this morning’s Union Leader on New Hampshire debt. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the finances behind New Hampshire government.

Josiah Bartlett President Charlie Arlinghaus joins “Bulldog” Brian Tilton on Bulldog Live at 1:20 to discuss New Hampshire’s growing debt and the accounting gimmicks used to “balance” the budget. Listen live at WTPLfm.com.

Union Leader Publisher Joe McQuaid takes to the front page to argue that New Hampshire is losing its economic advantage.

By CHARLES M. ARLINGHAUS
From the print edition of the Union Leader

It’s hard to pick the biggest problem in state government because the most immediate crisis obscures all others. We spend a lot of time focused on the $600-$700 million budget problem we face in January – as well we should – but it keeps us from noticing the slower growing problems that pose a long term threat. One such problem is the state’s debt that creeps slowly along like an invasive species of plant that will eventually choke out everything else if we don’t notice it soon.

Like most states, New Hampshire divides its budget into an operating budget to pay for regular expenses and a separate Capital Budget used to borrow money theoretically for long term expenses like new buildings or other items that aren’t paid off in just one year.

The governor and legislature pay a great deal of attention to the regular budget, at least the general fund portion of it. However, the capital budget is not often the subject of debate and rancor. Generally, people assume we have to borrow money for some capital expenses and there really isn’t much to debate.

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

I’ve been telling you for months that we have a budget crisis because we spent money we don’t have yet the governor is running around the state claiming he cut spending. Surely one of us is lying, right? Actually, no. The use of a number of clever accounting gimmicks makes calculating spending more confusing than it needs to be.

Governor Lynch will tell people over the next few months that he cut general fund spending by six tenths of a percent. Yet, I’ve been telling people we have a problem because basic state spending increased by $600 million over four years when revenues declined by $100 million. The difference between those two statements defines our fiscal problem.

By CHARLES M. ARLINGHAUS
From the Union Leader

For more than a decade, education funding has been a constant source of turmoil in the Legislature, finally taking a break only this last session. The silence doesn’t mean the problem is fixed but merely that it’s being ignored until it explodes again next year.

For the last decade, each legislature has played a game of mother-may-I with the state Supreme Court. The court decided that the system we had used for the past 200 years or so was now “unconstitutional.” Every two years, the Legislature would pass another plan, it would be challenged, and the court would say “try again.”

From the print edition of the Union Leader

Most state governments continue to hope for a new federal bailout from Washington to save their finances. New Hampshire should hope Uncle Sam puts the credit card away and does no further damage to the state. Federal bailouts have wrecked the state’s finances and represent a hidden problem no one is paying any attention to.

In recent years, New Hampshire staved off fiscal collapse not by making tough decisions but by loans and handouts. One set of bailout money is the source of next year’s budget crisis. The state used $702 million of one-time revenue to prop up its $5 billion operating budget, about 14% of the total spent. That $702 million includes some borrowing and other sources but $359 million of it is stimulus money from the federal government.

Josiah Bartlett Center President Charlie Arlinghaus and NH Charitable Foundation President Lew Feldstein are the guest speakers at this morning’s Forum on the Future Breakfast Series, “The Future of NH: What are the Priorities?”

The event runs from 8am to 9am at the Bedford Village Inn.

Charlie Sherman has the day off, so WGIR has turned the wheel of The Charlie Sherman Show over to Grant Bosse.

That means Charlie Arlinghaus will be taking Grant’s spot on this week’s edition of NH Watchdog on WGIR. Listen live to The Charlie Sherman Show from 6am to 9am, and to NH Watchdog on WGIR starting at 7:40am at WGIRam.com.

To help the 20% of our students we are failing, we should turn to a dead man born 98 years ago and an idea he had fifty-five years ago.

Even in New Hampshire, with one of the best education systems in the country, 20% of our students fail to graduate from high school. In today’s society, that is an economic death sentence. Without at least a high school degree, students will have few economic opportunities, poor job prospects, and little hope for a bright financial future.