CONCORD — The Senate Finance Committee on Friday approved a $13.5 billion budget proposal that includes tax cuts praised by Republicans as well as abortion and education provisions opposed by Democrats.
“When you’re weighing so many competing interests, it’s never going to be easy. We all listened to the public, and I think we all came up with our own conclusions,” said Senate President Chuck Morse, R-Salem. “But I think from the beginning, I made it clear that our priorities were going to be tax reductions.”
Morse said the proposal approved, 5-2, along party lines would fund the state’s essential needs, boost small businesses and expand education opportunities and treatment options for mental health and substance abuse. It includes reductions in the business enterprise tax and meals and rooms tax, and a phase out of the interest and dividends tax.
“Building a budget is never an easy thing, but the reality is, I think this is a good one,” he said.
The two-year proposal is about $150 million less than the plan that passed the House last month.
Senate budget writers removed a provision requiring state-funded health clinics to maintain a physical and financial separation between abortion and other services, but they added one banning abortion after 24 weeks’ gestation.
That drew complaints from Democrats, as did the decision to maintain provisions to create voucher-like “education freedom accounts” that could be used toward private or home school expenses. Opponents argued such a system would siphon money from public schools while providing no oversight of the education provided by private institutions that are free to discriminate against applicants.
Sen. Cindy Rosenwald, D-Nashua, said the committee’s proposal was better than the House version on numerous fronts, including its support for community mental health programs and transitional housing. But she said it underfunds education, adding that the voucher program will “exacerbate the burden on property tax payers as the public is asked to pay for tuition at private and religious schools.”
The committee also changed a House-passed provision that would prohibit schools and public entities from teaching that one race or gender is superior to another, and would ban the teaching of the idea that a person is “inherently racist, sexist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.”
The so-called “divisive concepts” provision echoes an executive order issued by former President Donald Trump in November that was rescinded by President Joe Biden on Jan. 20.
Sen. Jeb Bradley, R-Wolfeboro, said the Senate version focuses on updating discrimination statutes.
“There is nothing, absolutely nothing in this amendment that will limit in any way the discussion that our state or nation should be having about historical events or current events that involve racism, sexism, homophobia, that type of thing,” he said. “What it does say is: If you have certain characteristics that you are born with, it will be discrimination if you are held in training or in education by public employers that you’re innately inferior or superior. That will be seen as discrimination.”
The full Senate is set to vote on the budget June 3.