Senate and House Republicans Approve House Bills 1 & 2 Committee of Conference Reports, Adopt Budget
Contact Name: Marina Altschiller
Phone: (603) 271-3207
CONCORD – Today, Senate and House Republicans reached an agreement on House Bills 1 & 2, which together constitute the state budget for the next two years.
After the vote, Senate Democratic Leader Donna Soucy (D-Manchester) issued the following statement:
“Senate Democrats have been raising our voices long and hard about the travesty this state budget is. Democrats and our constituents have been dismayed for months at the anti-American, unconstitutional gag order on free speech it contains. We have talked about how it dismantles our already struggling public education system and funnels public taxpayer dollars into for-profit private schools. We have pointed out the handouts this budget gives to the wealthiest 2% of our citizens and highlighted the unsustainable tax cuts for large corporations it includes. But it all bears repeating, especially now that House and Senate Republicans have turned their backs on their constituents and passed a budget that represents everything that is wrong with politics in this country today. This is extremism at its worst. This budget tramples on our state and national constitutions by infringing on Granite Staters’ right to free speech, it ends New Hampshire’s unbroken tradition of protecting women’s bodily autonomy, and it turns my home state into a place I no longer recognize.
At the Senate budget hearing, we heard from hundreds and hundreds of Granite Staters voicing overwhelming opposition to the reckless policies contained in this agenda—almost none of which ever got a public hearing. Those of us who chose to listen to the public heard loud and clear: Our constituents do not want their tax dollars going to private and religious schools. They do not want legislators inserting their social agendas into private medical decisions, substituting their ideology for actual medical expertise. They do not want their constitutional rights abridged in a concerted effort to deny the very existence of systemic racism, sexism, and oppression. They want a state budget that is just that—a budget. This document has historically been, and should only be, a spending plan for our state for the next two years, no more and no less. Despite that, throughout this process, extremist Republicans have turned their backs on the will of the people they swore to represent and highjacked the state budget to pass some of the most radical social policy this state has ever seen.
As Democrats, we will continue to raise our voices against this ongoing extremist agenda. We leave today with only deeper resolve to fight for our constituents and for the real New Hampshire, which our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have clearly lost sight of.”
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