NH- money taken from motorcycle education fund

[karen]

From New Hampshire Motorcycle Rights Organization:
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$100,000 Taken from the Motorcycle Education Fund to Help Balance State Budget

June 10, 2010: It has come to our attention that $100,000 has been taken from the Motorcycle Education fund in order for the State to balance the budget. Keep in mind that $5 of your motorcycle license fee goes towards this fund and $1 of your registration fee for the purpose of funding the Motorcycle Rider Training program. The training program is currently offered at a price that allows for attracting as many people as possible. NHMRO has been a strong advocate of this training program as a means to increase motorcycle safety for our motorcyclists.

Given the amount of motorcycle accidents and fatalities that have occurred already in 2010, we must not allow this to happen. The money raised through our license and registration fees must go directly to purpose it was intended for and no other. We can not stand idle and watch the most effective tool used for our safety be threaten by lack of funding - funding that we already have and will continue to pay through the fees already mentioned.

It is crucial for all of the motorcyclists in New Hampshire to pay close attention to the list of candidates that will be running for office this next term. Contact them to see where they stand on protecting your rights as motorcyclists. We are a very politically savvy group of "bikers" here in New Hampshire - let's not let these things happen again.

[karen]

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Letter from Senator
Bob LeTourneau
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The NH Legislature raids dedicated funds

June 10, 2010 First the legislature tried to raid the Highway fund to build a train station, The truckers sued and it went all the way to the NH supreme court and the truckers won.

Then the Legislature tried to take the Joint underwriters fund to balance the
budget and the doctors sued, and it also went all the way to the supreme court
and the doctors won.

Now the legislature has decided to raid the highway fund and the statewide public boat access funds and other special dedicated funds to balance the
budget.

While many of the dedicated funds are not constitutionally protected the Highway fund is. We will come back to this, but first let's look at the Boats
access fund. Last legislative session the boat registration was increased. The boaters objected. They were told that the funds were needed to complete access ramps across the state. This would provide more access for sport fishing and other activities for summer fun.

This year the legislature raided the fund for $500,000. We (legislators) were told the director of Fish and Game understood the problem the state was facing and they could do without the money. No one asked those who paid the money into the fund if they cared. They do!

They also raided the highway fund for an additional $350,000 , $ 250,000 from the reflectorized plates inventory fund. This the second raid on this fund in so many years. We may never get a new plate issuance at this rate. But remember, this is supposed to be protected by the constitution.

Now our issue is one that has me fired up. We as motorcyclist's have entrusted
the state with our dollars for the purpose of providing motorcycle rider training. We trusted the state because we believed that lawmakers would abide by their
oath of office to uphold the constitution, so help them God! Well they took
$100,000 from this account, about 1/3 of the total fund available.

Remember this is spring and we are just beginning our classes. The fund up over
the winter and spent during the summer training months. I am not sure if we will
have enough money to sustain the program for the whole summer. Will They come back and tell us they need to raise the cost of motorcycle registration because there is not enough money in the fund? We will see.

Now, the state has a 295 million dollar deficit . This is a tough hole to fill but, all
three of these funds come to less than 3/4 of a million dollars and the money they took from the rider safety training fund was $100,000. That is about 3/10ths of one percent of the total needed to balance the budget, small potatoes by those numbers. But in the case of the Rider Safety Training fund, the lives effected could be huge, how many riders will not have the opportunity to get proper training because of this short slightness?

I offered a 3 separate floor amendments to strike the taking of the dollars from the training, boating and plate funds, each was defeated by a vote of 14 - 10 straight down party lines. All of the republicans voted to save the funds and all of the democrats voted to take it, even after I stressed that it was unlawful
and unconstitutional... Remember this when you vote this coming November...
Worse part of this, we did not know about this until the day before the vote certainly not enough time to alert the riding community.

Now, let's go to the Highway fund. This fund is supposed to be protected by the
constitution so that greedy lawmakers cannot raid the fund to pay for their pet projects whatever they may be. BTW, this law has been on the books since 1938.


[Art.] 6-a. [Use of Certain Revenues
Restricted to Highways.] All revenue in excess of the necessary cost of collection and administration accruing to the state from registration fees, operators' licenses, gasoline road tolls or any other special charges or taxes with respect to the operation of motor vehicles or the sale or consumption of motor vehicle fuels shall be appropriated and used exclusively for the construction, reconstruction and maintenance of public highways within this state, including the supervision of traffic thereon and payment of the interest and principal of obligations incurred for said purposes; and no part of such revenues shall, by transfer of funds or
otherwise, be diverted to any other purpose whatsoever.
November 29, 1938

What part of may not be diverted to any other purpose whatsoever, do they not understand!

Senator Bob Letourneau
District 19

[bigdoc]

Welcome to the Michigan Syndrome. We have taken money from everyone we could to balance the budget. Jackass State gov't can't figure out how to increase revenue here so they just take money not ment or intended for them.A lot of hard working people are losing benifits and retirement money they earned so these yahoos don't have to do any real work.