Don’t Rock the Boat, Governor

By DEAN DEXTER

Two years ago* at about this time a successful entrepreneur strode onto the New Hampshire political scene having won the governorship by a large margin, and announced that there was a “new sheriff in town.”

The message of course was, step aside boys and girls, the pro is here. It was a signature moment for Craig Benson which came during a speech at his 2002 inaugural ball. Benson was probably saying to himself something like: “Hey, I walked out of one of the most cutthroat businesses in the world with almost a billion dollars in my pocket. I started that business in a garage with my best friend. This governor thing’s gonna be a lay-up.”

If state government were an equatorial swamp – and there are some who have called it a lot worse – after that comment, you could just see the old crocodiles of entrenched interests in Concord and beyond circling the waters by the Corner Office getting ready to feast on fresh meat.

John Lynch, the new governor, a Democrat who in a very close race last fall drove “Sheriff” Benson out of Dodge, as it were, ran a campaign with no particular message or vision for the future. He basically asked people to vote for him because he was, well, not Craig Benson. Lynch also harped on so called scandals in the Benson administration. But there were no scandals. There were a lot of rookie goof-ups, bad moves, arrogance. Of course we knew there would be arrogance. After all, this was a maverick businessman who once had all the ATMs at his company removed – just yanked out of the walls – after the bank that owned them purchased computer products from one of his competitors.

But if you want to see scandals, look at the pay-offs, the double-dealings, the lies, the corruption that forced the governors of Pennsylvania and Connecticut out of office last year. Those were real scandals. No, Benson, the arrogant novice, played into the hands of the enemies of change too easily, and in the end it cost him in credibility, but he was not crooked.

Now, it’s up to Lynch to govern. There is a huge state budget deficit he and the legislature must deal with. Lynch took the pledge against sales or income taxes, but he couldn’t get either one passed anyway. So much for substance. The dreaded, scandalous Benson promised he would not raise existing taxes – a pledge that meant something, and one he made two years ago, and kept, to the anger of State House regulars, even of his own party. But Lynch made no such promise.

Where Benson tried to hold the line on spending and government growth, Lynch will veer back to the pre-Benson legacy of both parties: expect fees and taxes to rise in a Lynch Administration. Hapless smokers will be among the goats. Property owners will surely continue to suffer under a bizarre statewide system that sees money sent from the towns and cities to Concord, to be redistributed back to other cities and towns in a rube-Goldberg shell game, birthed of supreme court school funding decisions and weak kneed  legislators who let it continue.

At all costs the “mandates,” the “programs” the “services” of state government must and will be funded. The public education lobby, including the University system, the state employees union, every bleeding heart big spending liberal in the House and Senate, anybody or anything who depends on state tax revenue will see to it. And Gov. Lynch will agree. Don’t rock the boat Lynch. The crocodiles are hungry. They are always hungry.

*This piece first appeared in the January, 2005 issue of New Hampshire Magazine as a "Capitol Offenses column." Dean Dexter is a former contributing editor of New Hampshire Magazine and served three terms in the New Hampshire House of Representatives.