CONCORD – House Republican Leader Gene Chandler (R-Bartlett) and Ranking Republican Member of the House Ways and Means committee, Norman Major (R-Plaistow) gave the following comments in reaction to Gov. Hassan’s executive order creating a Consensus Revenue Estimating Panel:
House Republican Leader Gene Chandler
“We appreciate the Governor’s initiative in creating this panel, but estimating revenue has traditionally been in the purview of the legislature. We will not cede our legislative responsibility to develop reasonable and sound revenue estimates. We are elected by and accountable to the taxpayers of New Hampshire, but appointed members of the Governor’s panel could be viewed as having other interests. We look forward to hearing what the panel has to say, but we intend on continuing to produce our own reasonable revenue estimates, drawing upon the years of experience House members have in this very important process.”
House Ways & Means Committee Ranking Republican Norman Major
“I welcome input from all sources throughout the revenue estimating process, but in the end, the law prescribes that this is a function of the Legislature. The prior Legislature chose to use reasonable, responsible revenue figures to bring integrity and accountability back to the budgeting process. As it turns out, the revenue estimates we adopted were accurate to within 1% for fiscal year 2012. This is a testament to our Ways and Means Committee’s hard work to get the right numbers, not politically expedient figures. I hope the Governor’s panel takes the same care and approach.”