NH State Representative Steven Smith

You may have heard of the brutal killing of yet another American non-combatant by ISIS. That is two now recently. I’m not going to rail against the President. I am going to beg our federal delegation, and the White House, to formulate some plan to fight this tactic. Surely something can be done. We all should take this personally. One of our nation’s greatest strengths used to be a sense in the world that if we were hurt, they had to fight all of us. Our military alone is not a deterrent. The will and resolve of the American people is. Before we castigate the administration, let’s look at ourselves. Have we written to our Representative in Congress, our Senators, the White House? Have there been rallies that can be shown on the news? As a constituency, have we let our leaders know that we care? To the rest of the world, America seems silent. It seems they can get away with it. That has to change, and we have to help that change occur. Call a radio station, WCAX, WMUR, WYCN, write to your paper. Write or call all of your elected officials. Tell those who can make your word public that you’re mad as hell and you’re not going to take it any more. Begin to make some noise and let the world know that we do not allow this.

James Foley attended Kingswood Regional High School in Wolfeboro. He was only 40 when these animals killed him.
Steven Sotloff graduated from Kimball Union Academy. He was only 31 when these animals killed him.

These are our guys who were killed. This is local, and it is personal. They were not soldiers. Tell somebody, anybody, that this is unacceptable. Begin the noise so that our government has the tool it needs to fight effectively… your will.

Steve

I haven’t been putting signs out yet (except where someone asked for one) in Charlestown, because I thought you could all use a break, and the rest of the district because I did not want to accidentally help Jim Grenier’s opponent (who is also named Steve Smith).  With one week to go, it is probably time to get to it.  If you have one of my signs from last time, please put them out in Charlestown.  In the other five towns, please put them out September 10.  If you need a sign, let me know, and we’ll get one out to you.

Steve

603-826-5996

nhfirst@gmail.com

https://www.facebook.com/steve4nh

In 2012 the New Hampshire Legislature passed the Opportunity Scholarship Act over Governor Lynch’s objections, and veto. This law gave the children of poor and middle class families the opportunity to get the same educational choices that the children of better off folks have.  This law allows businesses to give a small amount of their pretax dollars to private charities which are set up to administer a scholarship program for children from families earning no more than 300% of the federal poverty line.  Controls were put in place to ensure that these organizations did not benefit, no director gets rich, and the benefit flowed to the children.

This law, and subsequent court case, highlighted an issue that doesn’t get a lot of attention, but is nonetheless critical to a fundamental concept that requires definition.  When does your money belong to the government?  I have contended in every election that the voters should remind those that they vote for that there is no state money, no public money, no government money… it is YOUR money.  The constitutional objection to this low income/middle class scholarship contended that potentially allowing some to go to parochial schools was tantamount to breaking down the church and state separation by sending “public money” to religious schools.  If this were true, I would have agreed with the claimants.  The problem is, this can only be true if the government is allowed to consider the money in your pocket “public money” before they even collect it.  This is a dangerous attitude and I am grateful that the NH Supreme Court has not allowed it to go forward.  It isn’t any of my business what you spend your money on.

Thank you to the NH Supreme Court, and the Legislators who had the courage to pass it.  I am proud to have been one of the votes for this landmark bill.  There were a lot of well funded special interests against it.  A lot of money was spent in trying to stop it.  In the end, the money and politics didn’t matter.  Today, the kids have won.

Steve