Jeb: Thank You for hosting this live blog. Our top priority can be summed up in three words, jobs, jobs, jobs. Tomorrow the Senate is poised to pass bipartisan legislation sponsored by Senator Bob Odell (R-Lempster) expanding the research and development tax credit. This has been a priority for the Senate last year, along with other tax efforts to make business development more competitive in New Hampshire. In the past session, we expanded net operating loss and carry forward provisions. We expanded the ability of small businesses to expense capital expenditures and we insured that the internet is tax free. These measures will help grow our economy.

Read the whole transcript: http://concord-nh.going.com/articles/join-now-live-chat-with-sen-jeb-bradley

By JOHN DiSTASO
Senior Political Reporter

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick’s call for a hike in his state’s already-high income tax is being welcomed on this side of the border with bipartisan open arms.

“Welcome to New Hampshire!” was the reaction of Wolfeboro Republican and state Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley.

“We should be putting up billboards,” he said. “We have long marketed New Hampshire’s attractiveness as a place to do business for precisely this reason.

“I think there are going to be a lot of people there who say that enough is enough and find New Hampshire much more attractive as a result of this.”

Gov. Maggie Hassan’s reaction to a fellow Democrat and New England governor was more tempered, but carried the same message.

“I appreciate that Massachusetts has its own unique challenges and Governor Patrick has to choose his own approach in meeting those,” she told the Sunday News. “But if that approach leads to an economic boost for us, then I welcome it.”

Hassan reiterated her campaign promise to veto income or sales tax legislation should it reach her desk.

“That’s because I understand that our economy is based around not having a broadbased tax, and I think the tax would hurt middle class families and our businesses,” she said.

Patrick’s proposal would hike the Massachusetts personal income tax from 5.25 to 6.25 as part of a $1.9 billion plan for new transportation and education spending. It will soon go to a legislature dominated by Democrats.

It prompted Boston Magazine editor Patrick Doyle to write that after some tax reductions in recent years, his state is about to re-earn its nickname: “Taxachusetts.”

Patrick has called for doubling the personal exemption from $4,400 to $8,800 for all taxpayers. But he also wants to eliminate many itemized deductions, apparently to have the burden of the hike fall on wealthier Bay State workers.

He also called for a cut in his state’s sales tax, a more regressive tax that hits the poor harder than the rich, from 6.25 to 4.5 percent.
New Hampshire’s Bradley was unimpressed.

“Until their sales tax rate goes down to zero, I don’t think it’s going to do much for them,” he said.

Patrick also wants to tie gas tax hikes to the rate of inflation to raise more than $100 million through the end of the decade.

Michael Bergeron, business development manager at the New Hampshire Department of Resources and Economic Development, said the Patrick income tax proposal will “absolutely” be used in his pitch to out-of-state businesses looking to move or expand.

“At least 60 percent of our leads come from Massachusetts,” he said. “And we love it when Massachusetts does what they’re good at.”

According to information released by the Massachusetts Office of Administration and Finance, an individual earning $50,000-a-year will see his income tax slightly drop due to the higher exemption, but someone making $80,000 annually should expect a tax hike of about $600, to $4,450. An individual earning $120,000 will see his income tax bill go up by about $1,000 to $6,950.

A family of four earning $80,000 would see its tax go up by about $600 to $3,775. The tax on a family of four at $160,000 jumps by about $1,600 to $8,775 and a family of four at $180,000 will have an income tax hike of about $1,200 to $10,150.

Along for the tax hike ride are about 88,000 Granite State residents who work in Massachusetts, according to that state’s Department of Revenue.

They paid $256.4 million in Massachusetts personal income taxes in 2009, the latest year available on the department’s web site.

The number of New Hampshire residents who work in Massachusetts fluctuates. According to data compiled by the American Community Survey of the U.S. Census Bureau and cited for this report by a New Hampshire Department of Employment Security economist, the average number of Granite Staters who worked in Mass from 2010 through 2012 was 81,295.

The thousands of Massachusetts residents who work in New Hampshire must also pay the Massachusetts income tax, according to Dennis Delay, economist at the Center for Public Policy Studies.

At least one Bay State businessman says he is not worried about the Patrick tax hikes.

“We believe businesses actually have a lower cost of doing business in Massachusetts than moving to New Hampshire,” said Joseph Bevilacqua, president of the Massachusetts Economic Development Council and the Merrimack Valley Chamber of Commerce in Lawrence.

“We hear to a great degree the most critical component is an available work force,” Bevilacqua said, “and we’re told that businesses find the quality employees they need on the Massachusetts side of the border.”

“We’re not taking a position on the governor’s recommendations,” he said. “We’re simply saying that in concept, business does business better in Massachusetts and uses Massachusetts better as a home base for the sales of its products.

“Obviously, no one likes increased taxes,” Bevilacqua said. But he said Patrick’s plans to spend more money on education and infrastructure signals that “Massachusetts is looking to the future.”

Besides, he said, “You (New Hampshire) have that business profits tax and some of the highest property taxes in the nation. And New Hampshire knows there is a hammer coming with respect to the funding of education.”

Indeed, not all is rosy in New Hampshire, or at least not as rosy as in the past.

Economist Delay wrote in a report last September the long-heralded “New Hampshire Advantage” is not what it once was.

The population increase has stopped; the state is actually losing some residents and the population is aging, he said.

“They are also creating jobs at a faster pace in Massachusetts than we are right now,” Delay said. “That has to do with the mix of industry down there. It is centered in high-tech and manufacturing and, proportionally, they have more of that than we do right now.

“We still have a lower tax burden, but our relative advantage has lessened,” Delay said.

Hassan, however, maintained: “We’ve continued to out-perform our neighbors during this recession. Our low-tax policy works.

“In addition to maintaining our low-tax environment, which is critical to our economy and to the New Hampshire advantage, we also have to focus on our other advantages, too, which are a highly educated work force, a remarkably accessible and open government, our natural resources and our high quality of life,” the governor said.

She noted that she has told agency heads to submit budgets that are 3 percent lower than in the current fiscal year.

“We are very focused on having as lean a budget as possible,” she said. “I also have been supporting one high-end, highly-regulated casino. I think that’s a really practical and positive way of raising revenues.”

She said the 10 cents-a-pack cut in the cigarette tax cut made in the current budget should be eliminated to produce about $20 million.

Business and Industry Association of New Hampshire President Jim Roche and PolEcon Research economist Brian Gottlob agreed that the Patrick plan, if passed into law, would help New Hampshire’s competitive advantage, but to what degree, Gottlob said, is unclear.

Lowering the Massachusetts sales tax “probably will have benefit to households here,” he said, “but I don’t think it’s going to have much of an impact in terms of retail sales here in New Hampshire. There is a certain connotation to being able to say, ‘We’re tax free,’ rather than just being able to say, ‘We’re marginally lower than Maine.’”

It has been an honor and privilege to have served in the N.H. Senate for the past four years and I am looking forward to serving you again over the next two years. My priorities for the next legislative session will be issues that benefit working families and small businesses while protecting taxpayers.

I would hope that those of us who have the privilege to serve in Concord, or for that matter in Washington, will work in a bipartisan manner to solve the significant challenges we face. That may mean a spirited discussion and friendly disagreement, but there should always be a willingness to find compromise and common ground.

I try to remind myself that principled positions and compromise are not mutually exclusive and that common sense is usually the best barometer for making good policy judgments.

I thank voters again for the opportunity to serve and will do my best to exercise that common sense.

Jeb Bradley

Wolfboro, NH—The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) has endorsed Jeb Bradley in his re-election bid for State Senate. Citing his pro-business voting record, the NFIB put its support behind Bradley as the state government continues its work to overturn damaging anti-business legislation of previous legislatures.

“Your voting record indicates that you are committed to the needs of thousands of small businesses and their employees in New Hampshire and the NFIB is confident in your continued support for the small business person when you are serving in Concord.”—NFIB Letter of Endorsement

“I am honored to receive the endorsement of the NFIB. For nearly 70 years, the NFIB has been representing the needs of small businesses in legislatures across the United States,” said Bradley. “New Hampshire is a state that is supported by small businesses and small business owners. We need to continue working to get this economy back on track and fight for the small businesses that are the foundation of that economy. Job-killing taxes like the LLC Tax and costly regulations will not help these businesses prosper and grow. I look forward to working with my colleagues in Concord to make sure we are doing everything we can to grow the economy, get people back to work and foster a positive business climate.”

The NFIB is New Hampshire’s and the nation’s leading small business association, with offices in Washington D.C. and all 50 state capitals. Foudned in 1943 as a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, NFIB gives small and independent business owners a voice in shaping the public policy issues that affect their businesses. For more information on NFIB please visit www.NFIB.com

For more information on Jeb Bradley and his reelection campaign please visit www.jebforstatesenate.com.

Jeb Bradley is seeking re-election in state Senate District 3, which serves the lower portion of the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. (See below for complete list of communities.)

It is rare that voters get the chance to keep someone of Bradley’s background working for them at the state level. The Wolfeboro Republican served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2003 to 2007. This gave him an inside look at the machinations of the federal government, with all its demands on state and local governments.

In 2009, a few weeks into the legislative session, the District 3 state senator, Bill Denley, resigned after being charged with drunken driving for the third time. Bradley went on to claim the seat in a special election.

In Congress and since, Bradley has served as a voice for common sense Granite Staters who value frugal yet productive government.
Working with the Republican majority in the state Senate, Bradley helped temper some excesses of the overly aggressive House, led by Speaker Bill O’Brien. This allowed middle ground to be found on some issues such as pension reform for state employees. In other cases, to include the House effort to deregulate guns, the Senate was able to stop myriad bills dead in their tracks.

Bradley is someone who chose not to take the veto-proof majority in the Senate and abuse it. He is someone who understands the need to work across the aisle.

In endorsing Bradley in the 2009 special election for the state Senate, the editorial board at Foster’s Daily Democrat wrote:
“Jeb Bradley has the background and knowledge to face and cope with the fiscal challenges being forced on the Legislature and the people of New Hampshire. Jeb Bradley knows the people of District 3 from one end to the other. He knows them as hardworking men and women who have created opportunities for themselves and their neighbors. He sees them as people who understand success is built on sound principles and a rock-solid economy that offers promise to the region and the entire state.”

All that and more stands today in testament to Bradley’s candidacy. The only thing that has changed since that endorsement is Bradley’s wealth of knowledge which has grown that much more.

That said the editorial board urges District 3 voters to re-elect Bradley — for the good of the district and the state as a whole.

Read the full article: http://fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20121017/GJOPINION_01/121019226/0/SEARCH

Bradley can afford to be gracious. He is still the president of the Senate and has name recognition from his time in Washington D.C. There are no polls covering the race for the District 3 Senate seat, but it’s safe to say the seat is Bradley’s to lose.

To ensure that doesn’t happen, Bradley is stressing his record of bipartisanship, rejecting the polarizing language of most electoral campaigns.
“I work with whomever,” Bradley said. Once elected “you have to put personalities aside.” Last year Bradley spearheaded successful efforts to reform the state pension program and create a statewide prescription drug monitoring program. These were tough issues that took bipartisan support to address, he said. “That’s what I try to do, bring people to together. There’s always room to compromise without compromising your principles.”

Bradley’s principles fall near the center of the political spectrum. He is pro-choice, but he supported requiring parental notification. He believes marriage should be between one man and one woman, but since gay marriage has been law for four years “it would be a very tough place for me to be in to take that right away,” he said. He supported the new voter identification law as a sort of “insurance policy” against voter fraud.
But this session, he said, the questions before the legislature are not and should not be social issues. “The focus is on jobs, the economy and the budget,” he said. “My focus is going to be those big ticket items.”

Bradley would like to see a reduction in business taxes, and he intends to focus on reforming educational funding, an initiative he took up this past year. The effort ultimately died in the New Hampshire House, but “I’m sure it’ll be reintroduced again,” he said, calling it “a piece of unfinished business.”
For Bradley the chance to weigh in on these issues is in many ways an unanticipated opportunity. “I really did not expect to be in the New Hampshire Senate a few years ago,” he said. Bradley served four years in the U.S. House from 2002 to 2006 until he lost his seat to Carol Shea-Porter. Bradley tried to regain the seat in 2008 but lost again to Shea-Porter. That experience changed Bradley.

“It’s an interesting thing, what you learn from losing,” he said last week. He found himself reexamining everything, and what he came away feeling is that he had to be bold. He had to be willing to take charge and lead when faced with difficult issues. “I told myself if I had a chance again I’d go for it.”
He got that chance in April 2009 when he won a special election for the District 3 Senate seat following the resignation of Bill Denley. Since then he’s led the fight on a number of policy changes, including how the labor department levies fines and what protections landowners who open their property to recreational uses have from liability.

Over the next two years he’d like to continue in those types of efforts, he said, and from there he doesn’t know what’s next. ”A two-year term is a two-year term,” he said. “I’ll think about the future when the time comes.”

Read the full article: http://www.conwaydailysun.com/index.php/newsx/local-news/93259-jeb-101712

The Home Builders and Remodelers Association of New Hampshire (HBRANH) today announced its endorsement of Jeb Bradley for Senate District 3.

In announcing the association’s endorsement, Kendall Buck, HBRANH Executive Vice President, stated “Senator Bradley has been a strong supporter of legislation and regulations that assist the home building and remodeling industry here in the Granite State.”

“The association looks forward to continuing its excellent working relationship with the Senator on making New Hampshire a more business friendly environment for our members.”

ABOUT HBRANH: The HBRANH is one of New Hampshire’s largest trade associations with a combined membership of over seven hundred companies, employing over 30,000 citizens, involved in all aspects of the building industry.

The HBRANH is dedicated to the evolution and continued growth of the building industry, to provide affordable housing for all income levels, and to build a positive image for the building industry.

“I believe that Senator Bradley has gone above and beyond his colleagues in making New
Hampshire a better place to practice medicine. We are honored to award Senator Bradley with
this certificate of appreciation,” said Dr. Cynthia Cooper, NHMS President.
“I am honored to receive this recognition from the New Hampshire Medical Society,” Bradley
said. “I believe we were able to successfully pass some significant legislation this year that
affects individuals and those within the medical and health care communities so we may
provide the best, safest and most affordable health care possible. I was proud to be the prime
sponsor of the Prescription Monitoring Program to make it more difficult for drug abusers to
inappropriately access drugs, and of tort reform legislation. I also am glad we successfully
blocked the raiding of the medical malpractice fund (JUA). These funds are intended for the
use of and paid for by members of the medical community and never should have been viewed
as an ATM for the General Fund.”

As I thought about my remarks this evening, it seemed that a mountain climbing analogy was an appropriate one for Senator Bradley’s efforts in support of SB 286.  As has been noted, passing Prescription Monitoring Program (PMP) legislation in New Hampshire has proven to be a steep climb – PMP bills have been deferred or defeated in 5 of the last 7 legislative sessions.  To be successful in the challenging political climate of the 2012 legislative session required strong, committed, and knowledgeable leadership and the ability to work collaboratively with diverse individuals and groups.  Senator Bradley provided this leadership and collaborative support and guidance.  He took the time to fully understand the public policy issues; worked closely with New Futures and the NH Medical Society on the drafting of the legislation and the development of the communications and advocacy strategy; he attended and fully participated in all public hearings on SB 286; and reached out to House members in support of the bill.  Without his leadership and support, SB 286 would not have become law.

At the risk of pushing the mountain climbing analogy too far, I note that before the 2012 legislative session began in earnest, Senator Bradley took a long planned trip to trek in Nepal.  I believe that the heavy lifting in the high altitude/low oxygen atmosphere environment of Nepal prepared him well to shepherd SB 286 through the peaks and valleys of the New Hampshire legislative process.  It is with great pleasure that New Futures presents its 2012 Legislator of the Year Award to Senator Jeb Bradley.  In the spirit of collaboration that is the hallmark of SB 286, Senator Bradley has requested the opportunity to thank others who worked with him on this bill.

The New Futures’ Legislator of the Year Award recognizes a member of the New Hampshire General Court who demonstrated extraordinary leadership in promoting progressive alcohol and other drug policy during the legislative session.

Senator Jeb Bradley did just that through his sponsorship and unwavering support of SB 286, which created a prescription monitoring program in New Hampshire. Before the passage of this bill that creates an important tool to help curb the epidemic of prescription drug abuse, New Hampshire was one of only two states that did not have an electric prescription monitoring program. Through his sponsorship and advocacy, Bradley helped garner bipartisan support and momentum that resulted in the passage of a bill that had been introduced and killed in the past.

Sen. Bradley represents District 3, which includes the communities of Brookfield, Chatham, Conway, Eaton, Effingham, Farmington, Freedom, Madison, Middleton, Milton, Moultonborough, Ossipee, Sandwich, Tamworth, Tuftonboro, Wakefield and Wolfeboro.