By now, debates over the big-ticket items in the New Hampshire state budget are well established.
There’s Gov. Chris Sununu’s push for a continued decrease in business taxes: a plan to bring the business profits tax from its present 7.7% to 7.5%, completing its arc from 8.5% in 2015.
There’s Sununu’s proposal to create a Department of Energy to centralize energy policy priorities that are currently spread among multiple agencies, and his preference for one-off school infrastructure funding as a way to reduce inequality.
And there are other, more controversial pieces added by the House last month. One would prevent Planned Parenthood from taking state money without first physically separating its abortion services. Another would ban “divisive concepts” relating to white supremacy and the concept of structural racism from being taught in New Hampshire schools and state-run workplaces.
A bill modeled on one of former President Donald Trump's executive orders has found its way into the state budget debate. The bill, known as House Bill 544