No one can beat Usain Bolt but the tax man has stopped him. Not just the fastest man alive but Rafael Nadal too. Tax charges and competition among entitites can determine where businesses move but apparently also where great athletes run or compete. Bolt loves Great Britain but hadn’t raced there in 3 years. He has a huge Jamaican-British fan base, wants to come back, but not until the onerous taxes change. For the Olypics, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs had to promise all athletes tax amnesty. You see the Brits tax not just your winnings but your sponsorships and all. Rafael Nadal played in Germany instead of England this year for that reason:

Charlie Arlinghaus talks about an attempt by New Hampshire regulators to impose internet taxes without legislative approval in the first edition of The Josiah Bartlett Report on NH Today with Jack Heath.

In today’s print edition of the Union Leader, Charlie Arlinghaus writes that state regulators are trying to impose a tax that the Legislature never intended.

Charlie will discuss this back-door attempt to tax the Internet on today’s edition of The Josiah Bartlett Report at NH Today with Jack Heath. Tune in at 5pm to WTPL 107.7 The Pulse or listen online at WTPLfm.com.

In the relationship between the federal government and the states, it’s not clear who is the adult and who is the juvenile dependent. As a state, New Hampshire is trying to live within its means but part of the means is an allowance provided by a federal government which borrows the money it uses help us out. If our Uncle Sam ever learns responsibility, the effects will be felt down to the state level.

Without question New Hampshire is moving in the right direction. It is easy to look back at the last few years and shake our heads. In hindsight, it seems foolish to have borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars to pay for operating expenses we didn’t have the revenues to support. It’s easy to sneer at that sort of borrow-and-spend mentality as Washington-style profligacy.

In fact, far from being a risk to the rest of the country, many of these experiments accrue to New Hampshire’s favor. This year, we are surrounded by risky experiments that should drive jobs in our direction.

The poster child for job destruction is the once great state of Connecticut. The new Democratic governor inherited a huge budget problem. He vowed to balance the budget with “none of the gimmicks that helped get us into this mess.” So far, the story sounds very familiar.

The Nutmeg State had the same two choices New Hampshire has: raise taxes or cut spending. Their approach however has been very different from ours. In fact, it’s the approach advocated by some more liberal analysts on editorial pages across New Hampshire. Connecticut is going to raise taxes and not just one or two but lots of them.

From the Print Edition of the Union Leader

Each day that passes there’s more bad news about the budget. New Hampshire used to be the fiscal envy of its neighbors but it has been reduced to a budgetary basket case. We got here by doing the wrong thing every year despite predictable dire consequences. The choices we are forced to make today are the direct result of choices we didn’t make over the last few years.

The budget that recently passed the House and is being considered by the state Senate reduced state spending by 11.3%. This wasn’t a Washingtonian-style “reduction of proposed increases.” No, in this case the state will actually spend 11% less than it spent last budget.

In the course of resolving the worst budget crisis of modern times, lawmakers are sorting through many disagreements. They would do well to heed Margaret Thatcher’s advice on consensus: “To me consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects—the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead.”

As we mark Tax Day, we thought we’d ask you in Americans are overtaxes, undertaxed, or if taxes are just about right in the United States right now.
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Grant Bosse and Charlie Sherman discuss how New Hampshire is implementing the national health care law, and what’s coming up at today’s Tax Day Tea Party at the State House. Tune in to The Charlie Sherman Show on AM 610 and AM 930 WGIR. Listen live at 7:40am at WGIRam.com.

Host Grant Bosse interviews Rep. Gary Richardson (D-Hopkinton) about a constitutional amendment that would require super-majorities to increase taxes, talks with Sen. Jim Forsythe (R-Stafford) about his plan to make it easier for local school officials to get rid of under-performing teachers, and captures highlights of this week’s debate over whether to let utilities use eminent domain to build projects like Northern Pass. Plus, the results of this week’s NH Watchdog Poll on Northern Pass.