A question arises
The National Rifle Association certainly must be pleased that the Legislature and governor this week removed the power of police departments to prevent people they deem potentially erratic or dangerous to carry concealed guns. Do most New Hampshire residents feel safer, or queasy now that a reasonable restriction has been lifted?
The national advocates of right-to-work legislation, which damages unions rather than promotes any rights, must be disappointed that their pet legislation lost in the New Hampshire House, but satisfied that leaders forced the issue to a vote even though they didn’t think they could win. The state chairman of Americans for Prosperity, which is Koch brothers-funded and a Tea Party financier, said it was significant that the governor had made the legislation his top priority. The state Republican Party put pressure on House members, signaling it might not support future campaigns of those who didn’t fall in line. And for what? Even those who oppose unions must admit that they have been in decline, and are no drag on the state economy.
The nomination and confirmation of Frank Edelblut as state commissioner of education remains hard to make sense of, given his breathtaking lack of experience or qualifications — a businessman who home-schooled his seven children and never even served on a local school board. But given the dubious credentials of the nation’s new education chief, billionaire Betsy DeVos, it’s not hard to see the makings of a campaign against public schools. They insist that’s not true, but there’s no case that either was the best person for the job. Would Edulblut have picked an English teacher who had some interest in business — a regular Wall Street Journal reader, say — to run the consulting company that made him wealthy?
Sununu’s recent budget address, thankfully, did address some of the actual business at hand, and he deserves credit for saying he will take such steps as increasing spending on services for the developmentally disabled, and adding staff to the Division of Children, Youth and Families, which was already overburdened before the opioid crisis made things much worse. But he was vague about what he would do about the future of the state’s expanded Medicaid program, which Senate Minority Leader Jeff Woodburn said is providing health insurance for 50,000 residents, with some 10,000 getting services for substance abuse. It’s hard to imagine a more important priority. Then there is the state’s inadequate funding for roads and schools, which increases the tax burden on cities and towns.
New Hampshire voters should ask why their leaders put ideological issues first and crumbling roads second, for just one example. The former are darlings of right-wing interests, but the latter are what affect the lives of people. The late House Speaker Tip O’Neill famously declared that all politics are local. All potholes are local, too.