On Sat., March 28th, an estimated 8-9 million people gathered on streets, town squares, state houses, all over the country to express YET AGAIN their displeasure with the many ways the current regime is destroying our democracy. From Boston to Los Angeles; from St. Paul to New York City to Palm Beach, hundreds of thousands of American citizens turned out bearing signs and feeling the camaraderie of others.
Here in New Hampshire was no different. Thousands showed up at the State Capitol in Concord, nearly 2,000 in Keene, Wolfeboro and Walpole hosted about 850 and 300 people respectively. Hinsdale put on its first ever rally and drew a little over 30 people, while the numbers in Rindge rose to about 80. And that’s how it went on Sat., with town after town coming together in solidarity with their concerns about the future. Most expressed these concerns were for their families, what kind of country can they expect their loved ones to be living in?
In Keene, lots of talk turned to state issues. Mostly what the Republican Free Staters have done to exponentially repeal revenue while raising property taxes. Because where is the revenue going to come from if not from the property owner (and renters) to make up for the shortfall?
Did you know that since 2015 business tax rate reductions have cost the state between $795 million and $1.17 billion in revenue? In just ten years, NH’s state revenue has gone DOWN by nearly a BILLION dollars??!! Money that should have gone to public education, health care, or seeing to our infrastructure to give a few examples. How could this happen? And year after year . . .?
They have slowly but consistently voted to repeal one source of state revenue after another while simultaneously voting to divert property tax dollars in support of their school voucher program.
Spoiler alert: this is not sustainable.
So, while Saturday’s “No Kings” rallies were taking place in NH protesting the selfish wants of America’s wannabe mad king, we were also protesting the selfish and destructive Republican Free Staters. House Majority Leader and Free Stater Jason Osborne acknowledged the state’s protests, “Democrat activists can screech until their faces turn as blue as their hair. While they’re concerned with the mythical ‘No Kings’ movement, Republicans are focused on actual causes that matter: no income taxes, no inspection schemes, and no Democrat majorities.”
Here, I’ll fix it. “While they’re concerned with the mythical ‘No Kings’ movement, Republicans are focused on actual causes that matter only to us: no income taxes, no inspection schemes, the destruction of public schools while advocating for segregated ones, no school lunches for low-income children, no more easy access to voting, a fee for Medicaid, minimum wage will not be raised, continue to make it harder for teachers to teach, target immigrants and asylum seekers, work towards promoting fossil fuels while we repeal the solar energy tax exemption and continue to take away your local control.”
We need to turn out in Nov. so we can fix the majority in Concord.