It’s only money

There’s nothing like pulling the rug out from under a lifelong argument that gets people talking without fully thinking things through.

Case in point: the knee-jerk backlash to the NH Fiscal Policy Institute’s brief on the illusory impact of the years-long rollback in the rates of NH’s business taxes.

Put simply, the brief suggests that the touted economic impact of the cuts in the BPT and BET rates — which, remember, was the reason for the whole deal — essentially never happened. That’s because the individual impact of the cuts on each taxpayer never amounted to more than chump change — an amount that couldn’t have any major impact on a business’s investment decisions.

But instead of spending time understanding what the brief was actually about, the knee-jerk crowd very quickly changed the subject. They said, essentially, that by the state forgoing hundreds of millions in revenue over the years, the money went back into the “pockets” of “New Hampshire taxpayers.”

But did it? Remember, nearly 40% (!) of the revenue from the Big Kahuna tax — the BPT — was paid by 78 (!) corporations. And 58% of those corps. are multinational businesses based out of, and often thousands of miles from, NH.

So, as they say, cui bono? Who benefits?

A Roger Mudd-Ted Kennedy moment

That was not what you would call a good start for Manch. Mayor Joyce Craig’s guv bid.

In the requisite interview with Adam Sexton on Channel 9’s “Close-Up” Sunday a.m. gabfest on 7/23, herroner came out of the box with what could charitably be described as an unforced error. Less charitably, she looked bewildered and not ready for Sunday a.m. TV, let alone prime time.

Let’s go to the transcript: AS: Good morning. I’m Adam Sexton.

For the first time in eight years, we have a wide open race for governor of New Hampshire. And the experts are rating this contest as a toss-up, now that Governor Chris Sununu has decided to move on at the end of his current term. This morning, we have as our guest one of the contenders to succeed Sununu, Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig. Mayor, thanks for joining us.

Craig and Sexton: Missed that slam dunk

JC: Thanks for being ... can I …? AS: We’re both here. It’s all good. So tell us why you’re running for governor.

JC: I’m running for governor, Adam, because we need to support our local community, because it’s critical that we ensure that our residents have opportunities to succeed. And that means supporting our local private … can I?

AS: I’m sorry. We actually don’t restart anything here.

You get the point. On the bright side, she seemed to get her bearings somewhat — meaning she finally got on script with her basic answers to boilerplate campaign questions. Answers that, you’d think, she would be reciting in her sleep by now.

Still, ya gotta wonder what the random viewer in Cheshire County — who’s just tuning in with little to no idea of what JC is about — was thinking.

“I think it is presumptuous for her to say ‘I want to keep New Hampshire from becoming Massachusetts.’ She lost a U.S. Senate seat she never should have lost.”

— Senate Prez Jeb Bradley, a supporter of GOP guv candidate Chuck Morse, gives us his 2 cents on Kelly Ayotte’s candidacy.

Past imperfect

It’s no secret that there’s a desperate need for affordable housing in Portsmouth, which increasingly is becoming a place where only wealthy people can afford to live. City officials know it, businesspeople sure know it, politicos know it, most (not all) regular folks know it.

But for some reason the members of the city’s Historic District Commission just can’t seem to wrap their heads around the idea. In fact, the HDC, as its name indicates, is living in the past of a Portsmouth that hasn’t existed in a coupla decades at this point.

“Chuck Morse came out like a 5-year-old kid on Christmas morning. I was halfway through my first sentence announcing I wasn’t running for office, and that guy goes ‘I’m gonna get in!’”

— Guv Sununu on the warp-speed entry of the former Senate prez into the guv race following the guv’s decision not to seek another term.

Food for thought

Fla. guv Ron DeSantis — once touted as a Trump slayer by a whole buncha GOPers — sure has a big hill to climb, judging by recent polls. And to explain what’s been going on, the punditry has reached for the low-hanging fruit of the fizzled 2016 prez campaign of another Fla. guv, Jeb Bush, for comparison.

Which is all well and good. But there could be another historical example for RD and his peeps. The shooting star that was the similarly hyped 2016 campaign of then-Wis. guv Scott Walker, among the overwhelmingly assumed front-runners in a gigantic field —– thanks to his very conservative, in-your-face attacks on public employees, Dems, etc. The campaign fizzled and crapped out on 9/15/2016. That was 148 days before the Iowa caucus and 156 days before NH voters had their chance to vote for someone else.

So does RD make it past 9/15? Probably, even though his campaign is burning through cash faster than a bureaucrat with a spending deadline.

DeSantis: Scott Walker vibes?

But remember the reason SW was forced to come to grips with reality: His two debate performances were stinkers, and GOP voters quickly looked for someone else to back.

Considering RD’s shall-we-say lackluster speaking style, what are the odds he makes up lost ground on a debate stage with the likes of Chris Christie, Vikram Ramaswamy, Tim Scott and Nickie Haley up there? Not to mention Trump himself, if he deigns to join in.

We’ll find out on 8/28 for the first GOP debate. Which, perhaps ironically, is being held in Milwaukee, Wis.

MAKING THE ROUNDS

It’s becoming even less clear what Chuck Morse’s path to the NHGOP’s guv nod is, with well-funded Kelly Ayotte still sucking up all the oxygen in the NHGOP guv race, and with ed commish Frank Edelblut expected to announce his bid in Sept.

With notable exceptions, there have essentially been two responses among the vast majority of GOP prez candidates and politicos to the conspiracy and fraud charges lodged against Trump: silence or anger at the prosecution. Which means you can officially stick a fork into the GOP’s longstanding self-description as the party of “law and order.”

Anyone who didn’t realize DJ Bettencourt was next in line to be insurance commish just hasn’t been paying attention.

Ron “Start Slitting Throats” DeSantis sure has a way with words.

It sure seems like not a single person in the Kennedy family has anything nice to say about his prez candidacy. Quite the contrary.