LEGISLATION

In April, much of America listened to President Biden’s first national address with much chagrin. What America heard was a president who doesn’t trust states’ rights, a president who wants to dictate how average citizens in New Hampshire live their lives and punish the states like New Hampshire who are doing things right. He wants to make states like New Hampshire, who have only 3% unemployment and a low overall tax burden, look more like California or Massachusetts.

President Biden’s radical agenda at the national level is proposing huge tax increases, infringing on your Second Amendment rights, and dismantling states’ voting laws, but New Hampshire Republicans, led by House Speaker Sherman Packard, Senate President Chuck Morse and Gov. Chris Sununu are leading the way ensuring the exact opposite happens on the state level.

Nationally, the left wing threatens to increase taxes on businesses while the New Hampshire House passed a budget that lowers both the Business Profits Tax and the Business Enterprise tax. When taxes are increased on businesses, those costs are passed along to the end user of their products and service: you and I, the consumer.

However, when business taxes are reduced, the savings benefit the consumer by lowering prices.

President Biden also outlined his plan to increase the capital gains tax from 24% to almost 40%, which will hurt every citizen and retiree with a 401(k), IRA, any stock and bond investor, as well as many real estate transactions. New Hampshire Republicans are taking the opposite approach. We are phasing out our interest and dividends tax over the next five years, an impact that will be felt on most New Hampshire retirees and much of our current population.

Nationally, Democrats proposed to increase the personal federal income tax to as high as 39.5%. One of our main objectives in the New Hampshire House is to keep New Hampshire free of a personal income and sales tax. We proposed two constitutional amendments that would prevent the possibility of an income tax and sales tax in perpetuity. Unfortunately, 99% of House Democrats voted against these proposals, causing them to fail.

President Biden and national Democrats are also making it a priority to pass radical, far-sweeping gun control legislation and executive orders. Make no mistake, New Hampshire is one of the safest states in the nation. The laws we already have on the books ensure the safety of our citizens. The Democrats’ gun control measures are excessive government overreach, and we cannot stand for it. This is why we support legislation currently before the House to prohibit the enacting of any executive orders or laws that restrict or regulate the right of our people to keep and bear arms.

Lastly, Democrats at the national and state level are doing everything in their power to pass full rewrites of our election laws.

HR 1, currently in the U.S. Senate, would force states into no-excuse absentee ballots, mandatory early voting, automatic voter registration, public funding of elections and would put a polling location on every college campus.

Americans’ confidence in the overall election process is at an all-time low. The passage of HR 1 will only increase voter uneasiness and keep people from going to the polls.

For years, New Hampshire Republicans have been leading efforts to ensure clean and fair elections. The mantra from Democrats is that they want clean and fair elections, but their legislation and voting records suggest they only want to remove reasonable provisions of our laws that provide for cleaner and fairer elections, like removing the domicile loophole and ensuring we do not have two classifications of voters. House Democrats have opposed the simplest measures to make sure every ballot is cast by an eligible voter.

It is clear that national and state Democrats want to put us into a massive structural deficit from which we would never be able to climb out. New Hampshire House Republicans want to do the opposite. We passed a balanced budget that covered our states’ needs, reduced spending by 1.4% over the last biennium, and cut taxes for every citizen in the state. We are protecting your gun rights from those who wish to make criminals out of law-abiding citizens. And we are protecting voter integrity, ensuring that every vote cast is counted and matters.

Rest assured the voters of New Hampshire can count on Speaker Packard, Senate President Morse and Governor Sununu in Concord to safeguard their wallets and personal freedoms.

Rep. Jason Osborne, R-Auburn, is majority leader of the New Hampshire House.