Red River Theatres will be holding a community screening of "Communities & Consequences," a one hour documentary about "human ecology in New Hampshire." It will be shown on Thursday, May 15. There will be a reception at 5:30 p.m. with the showing at 6 p.m. There will be a panel discussion at 8 p.m. moderated by Jon Greenberg from NHPR. Some details are here: ["Communities & Consequences"].
I'm probably not going to attend but I will get around to watching this film at some point. I, frankly, don't trust advocates who only look at one side of an issue without really analyzing the other side. It's similar to the folks advocating for broad-based taxes in New Hampshire. They haven't even looked at what it will do to renters or the working poor. Nope, they want more money and this is how they are going to get it.
As everyone knows, in order to truly prove a theory, you have to take all the information you can and analyze it before you can say, OK, this is fact. So many folks come at it from the other end: I believe this and therefore, it is fact. Frankly, I come at it from the other end: Question absolutely everything.
Case in point about this very subject: I attended the recent Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce fundraising breakfast for the Leadership Greater Concord program, of which I am an alum.
The speaker was Chancellor Stephen Reno from UNH who spent his entire speech talking about the 55% Initiative: ["55% Initiative"].
The main thrust of his talk was that the "brain drain" in New Hampshire is costing the state jobs and economic development. We can reap $42 million in more economic development for the state by encouraging young people to stay here, he stated. Some people move away and come back but we need to change "the New Hampshire culture" and embrace this initiative, he said.
After his talk, there weren't any questions. I wanted to wait and not be the first person to ask one, since I'm almost always the first person to throw one out there at these events. So, I sat on my hands.
Thankfully, one young woman raised her hand in the front and said, I just moved to New Hampshire a year ago and I'm shocked that we pay for education with lottery tickets. It's a disgrace, blah, blah, blah.
Reno thanked her for her comments, made some of his own, and moved on.
I then asked about municipal expenses that come with thousands of college graduates staying in New Hampshire and having 2.3 kids each and all the added expenses that come with said kids and families. Concord is $4 million in the hole on the city side, never mind the schools. Taxes are going up $1,200 next year for most homes while incomes are stagnating, I said. While some of us did move away and came back, and I'm an example of that, I'm worried about how we'll make ends meet. Now, some people want an income tax or sales tax added instead of living within our means and not encouraging more families to move to the area.
He said, Well, please note, I'm not endorsing the implementation of a broad-based tax [Everyone laughed. Right answer]. Then he said, I wish Peter Francese were here so he could explain how new families and children won't burden the state because of all these formulas which show it won't burden the state. He pointed everyone to another Web site, www.communitiesandconsequences.org, which he said provided information about this issue [There is, however, little information at the site about this issue. It is mostly a promotional site for the film and book].
Tim Sink, the president of the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce, stood up and said small town zoning was the problem and that the state needed more affordable housing. He also said that studies showed no burden to the tax base.
I asked for 30 more seconds to respond, agreeing that zoning stinks and that there was not enough accessible housing for people already in the state. I said that my friends attending could attest that I'm probably one of the biggest defenders of the poor and lower middle class in the community [a few people nodded], but that Reno and others needed to do more research.
"You guys need to learn how to add AND subtract," I said. "If you were going to tell me that the brain drain would bring in $4.2 billion, I would be all for it. But $42 million is going to be eaten up in education expenses for the new children alone, never mind other municipal expenses."
Reno then moved on to the next guy who said, I've been here a few years and I moved here because of the low tax burden. I don't want broad-based taxes and I agree that thousands of new children in the coming years would go right through that increased revenue via economic development.
It was, thankfully, nice to not be alone in the room.
Personally, I don't want to regulate children in this manner. I could write an entire book on what I have called, "the War on Families" ... specifically, how local governments are creaming ordinary working folks, with very high education costs and limiting the development of accessible housing, in both New Hampshire and to a greater extent, Massachusetts.
But inviting a ton of more folks in to stay without relieving the pressure valves that are currently choking families here? That's a mistake. There seems to be little information about the issue on any of the Web sites about the negative effects this program would have on New Hampshire. This leads me to believe that they have not done any real research about any negative components. The fact that Reno couldn't - or didn't - really answer the question, is enough to make one wonder, especially since UNH is the front org. for the 55% Initiative.
This type of coordinated planning of populations is such an elitist thing to take on. In some ways, all these folks are saying is that they want "the right" kinds of people staying in or moving into the state. What will they say next? We want you to have "the right" kinds of children, not necessarily those who want to be here or are already here, but those who are smarter and supposedly less of a burden. Well, you know, the kids of the rich can be just as big a burden as the kids of the poor. Ask around and you'll find that out. And please ... please ... learn to subtract before you go monkeying around with "human ecology."
I'm probably not going to attend but I will get around to watching this film at some point. I, frankly, don't trust advocates who only look at one side of an issue without really analyzing the other side. It's similar to the folks advocating for broad-based taxes in New Hampshire. They haven't even looked at what it will do to renters or the working poor. Nope, they want more money and this is how they are going to get it.
As everyone knows, in order to truly prove a theory, you have to take all the information you can and analyze it before you can say, OK, this is fact. So many folks come at it from the other end: I believe this and therefore, it is fact. Frankly, I come at it from the other end: Question absolutely everything.
Case in point about this very subject: I attended the recent Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce fundraising breakfast for the Leadership Greater Concord program, of which I am an alum.
The speaker was Chancellor Stephen Reno from UNH who spent his entire speech talking about the 55% Initiative: ["55% Initiative"].
The main thrust of his talk was that the "brain drain" in New Hampshire is costing the state jobs and economic development. We can reap $42 million in more economic development for the state by encouraging young people to stay here, he stated. Some people move away and come back but we need to change "the New Hampshire culture" and embrace this initiative, he said.
After his talk, there weren't any questions. I wanted to wait and not be the first person to ask one, since I'm almost always the first person to throw one out there at these events. So, I sat on my hands.
Thankfully, one young woman raised her hand in the front and said, I just moved to New Hampshire a year ago and I'm shocked that we pay for education with lottery tickets. It's a disgrace, blah, blah, blah.
Reno thanked her for her comments, made some of his own, and moved on.
I then asked about municipal expenses that come with thousands of college graduates staying in New Hampshire and having 2.3 kids each and all the added expenses that come with said kids and families. Concord is $4 million in the hole on the city side, never mind the schools. Taxes are going up $1,200 next year for most homes while incomes are stagnating, I said. While some of us did move away and came back, and I'm an example of that, I'm worried about how we'll make ends meet. Now, some people want an income tax or sales tax added instead of living within our means and not encouraging more families to move to the area.
He said, Well, please note, I'm not endorsing the implementation of a broad-based tax [Everyone laughed. Right answer]. Then he said, I wish Peter Francese were here so he could explain how new families and children won't burden the state because of all these formulas which show it won't burden the state. He pointed everyone to another Web site, www.communitiesandconsequences.org, which he said provided information about this issue [There is, however, little information at the site about this issue. It is mostly a promotional site for the film and book].
Tim Sink, the president of the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce, stood up and said small town zoning was the problem and that the state needed more affordable housing. He also said that studies showed no burden to the tax base.
I asked for 30 more seconds to respond, agreeing that zoning stinks and that there was not enough accessible housing for people already in the state. I said that my friends attending could attest that I'm probably one of the biggest defenders of the poor and lower middle class in the community [a few people nodded], but that Reno and others needed to do more research.
"You guys need to learn how to add AND subtract," I said. "If you were going to tell me that the brain drain would bring in $4.2 billion, I would be all for it. But $42 million is going to be eaten up in education expenses for the new children alone, never mind other municipal expenses."
Reno then moved on to the next guy who said, I've been here a few years and I moved here because of the low tax burden. I don't want broad-based taxes and I agree that thousands of new children in the coming years would go right through that increased revenue via economic development.
It was, thankfully, nice to not be alone in the room.
Personally, I don't want to regulate children in this manner. I could write an entire book on what I have called, "the War on Families" ... specifically, how local governments are creaming ordinary working folks, with very high education costs and limiting the development of accessible housing, in both New Hampshire and to a greater extent, Massachusetts.
But inviting a ton of more folks in to stay without relieving the pressure valves that are currently choking families here? That's a mistake. There seems to be little information about the issue on any of the Web sites about the negative effects this program would have on New Hampshire. This leads me to believe that they have not done any real research about any negative components. The fact that Reno couldn't - or didn't - really answer the question, is enough to make one wonder, especially since UNH is the front org. for the 55% Initiative.
This type of coordinated planning of populations is such an elitist thing to take on. In some ways, all these folks are saying is that they want "the right" kinds of people staying in or moving into the state. What will they say next? We want you to have "the right" kinds of children, not necessarily those who want to be here or are already here, but those who are smarter and supposedly less of a burden. Well, you know, the kids of the rich can be just as big a burden as the kids of the poor. Ask around and you'll find that out. And please ... please ... learn to subtract before you go monkeying around with "human ecology."
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