The New Media Militia

One of the major themes of the New Hampshire Democrats is that the current New Hampshire Republican majority is not focusing enough on the budget and the economy, and spending too much time on other issues.   But this is an understandable position for leftists.

When the Democrats ran the entire state for four years, every session (almost every week) was about the budget, and how they had to raise more revenue.   The reason for that is that their estimates were always so distant from reality, and their over spending so profligate, that they could not help but be obsessed, at every opportunity, with trying to fix a mess of their own making .  The budget, (and the economy)–how to milk more taxes and fees out of the taxpayers or regulate and tax local businesses–was always on the agenda, often into the small hours of the morning of the day after the day they were supposed to have this all worked out by law.  Democrat stewardship of the budget and the economy was one long, constant, cluster-***k.   (With time spent while ducking the budget problems by trying to stomp on free speech, socializing medicine, scaring off business, and a long laundry list of nonsense too long to regurgitate here.)

The Republican majority, on the other hand, doing what you do at the grown-up table, already took care of  all that business in the first session.   Budget, estimates, cuts, revenues, done.   No last minute nonsense, no late night sessions.  No passing bills without hearings or making up taxes or fees they would later have to rescind–whose revenue they would then also have to replace again and again…  And no Rube Goldbergian accounting tricks, or counting money from this year for that year or adding in the potential sale of things like land that you will never actually sell.  None of that.

The Democrats hate Republicans for that.

We’ve had to endure the left wings wailing about the Republican revenue estimates being too low on purpose.   Their endless whining about underestimating just so we could cut programs.   The left handed chest pounding about what was cut, all for no good reason–because revenues are pretty close to estimates.  When we lose a bit one month we seem to make it up someplace else or in the next month–without any additional fiddling by the legislature.   The revenue estimates are accurate and sound; the cuts well thought out and well distributed.  So the Democrats were wrong again, and they hate that.

As for the economy, well, Republicans think the economy can take care of itself when the government does two things.  It must budget responsibly, and get the hell out of the way.   If they happen to have any time left over, the best thing the Legislature could do for the New Hampshire economy, is to get state government “more” the hell out of the way.

Democrats hate that as well.  The government IS the economy as viewed from the left side of the aisle.  It can’t possibly function properly without the central planners looking over its shoulder.  To just sit idly by and let the free market do its thing?  The ADHD, OCD, and  NHDP’s kick in to high gear.   These Democrats are like a sugar addled three year old forced to stand quietly in line for the next available teller.  They have to touch everything, play with it, complain about it, or break it.  And if you don’t pay attention to them they yank on your skirt, or pull on your pant leg, they whine, and scream, and make a scene, attracting all the attention for as long as they can until someone acquiesces just to shut-them-the-hell-up!

(This aptly describes the current state of New Hampshire Democrats and their entire 2012 election strategy.)

Unable to tinker endlessly with ways to increase central planning, or to add spending we can’t afford, the progressives naturally assume the Republicans–having neither the need nor the inclination to behave as they do–are not doing enough.   Why aren’t they focused on the budget and the economy they holler,  as if stuck in the back seat, yelling “you’re doing it wrong, let me drive!”

But what Republicans did with the budget and spending (and the economy)–this is how grown ups properly run your government.  It’s done.  They’ve moved on to other things.  And it is the Democrat parties greatest fear that the voters will figure that out, or decide that they like it this way.  If they do, Democrats will never be allowed into the majority in New Hampshire, ever again.  They’ll be stuck in the back seat of state, left to whine and complain about what everyone else is doing wrong.   What you have to remember is that there is a reason they are back there in the booster seat.   They haven’t the slightest  idea how to drive.