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[jgmaynard]

There is something very odd about the NH page. It shows the 5th largest contributor to political campaigns is the State of New Hampshire!    Any of the NH-philes around here want to explain that? Is that taxpayer-funded elections? (ugh)"

The open secrets site says "Except for soft money, the contributions came not from the organization itself, but from its PAC, its individual members, owners, or employees, and those individuals' immediate families. "

That $65k may have been state employees private donations over $200.

Happy with the quote, zxcv?

JM

[Robert H.]

I'm not saying that New Hampshire would ever enact such a socialistic piece of redistributionist garbage as Act 60

Don't be so easy to pooh-pooh this stuff, Robert. It's something that sells well. Oregon adopted a version of it.

Yes, that's true; you never know what people will go for under the right circumstances.  I suppose I should said that it was just highly unlikely given the state's current political climate.

[BobW]

Hi ZXcv,

Actually, I wasn't thinking of money, but kep it at the top of the list anyway.  I was thinking of the "environmental" laws and how the companies must protect themselves from Washington, DC.

The big spike in the charts showed up with the first Clinton regime.  There was encouragement for the US extractive ore industry to relocate overseas - along with the job displacement less a few senior people.

Besides the "environmental" laws and regs new royalty fees were pushed on the companies.

Here's a quote :" A US mining company has to go international or it runs a very high risk of going out of business." Kenneth Werneburg, President Battle Mountain Gold Co, Houston.

Here's another favorite quote of mine:" our biggest political risk is in the U.S." Jim Hill, spokesman, Newmont Mining, speaking from Peru, where he had a headache with the Shining Path.

Of course it's always going to be the money.  I was pushing the thought above how the lobbyists are buried 5-10 layers away from the surface. It is this subterranian political force that must also be understood and confronted.

We've had so many industries leave the US, we're like Egypt, educating a growing population without business and employment opportunities.

That Code of the West site is clear, down to earth and well worth looking into.

BobW  

[Zxcv]

They just need a better web site designer.  

Bob, were not just shipping mineral extraction firms out, but whole clean industries. Oregon is busily providing lots of incentives (such as the high taxes here) to ship all our software jobs to India.

Yes, James, I'm happy with the quote. Good to see you've gotten with the program. The key is to submerge your desires below the needs of the collective.  

BTW, I can't see why, if it really was just state employees, that they didn't say "state employees" rather than the State of New Hampshire. I think there must be more to it.

[George Reich]

Any person is allowed to address the NH state house on any thing they are considering just by filling out a form the day they wish to speak. If you don't want to speak, there is another form there where you can just write your opinions.

GREAT citizen involvement....

I wonder how our other candidate states compare in this regard.  I get the sense that New Hampshire's government is more open than an average state.

[Zxcv]

Somehow, holding the show up on the floor of the house does not sound like an effective way to swing the vote on issues. I suppose we all like to imagine we are fiery orators like Patrick Henry.  

Come on, George, aren't you going to tell us why the State of New Hampshire is making contributions to political campaigns? Hell, even in Oregon, it is against the law for government to come down on one side or another in an election. You've got some 'splainin' to do...  

[Zxcv]

Another interesting item from that open secrets site (see the "money summary") is that the WY congressional delegation got $206k from in-state contributions and $26k (next largest amount) from Virginians, $25k from Coloradans.

The NH congressional delegation got $2801k from in-state contributions, $1000k from New Yorkers,    $860k from Massachusettsians,   and $745k from Californians  :'(

No wonder Wyoming has a better Congressional delegation...

[George Reich]

Come on, George, aren't you going to tell us why the State of New Hampshire is making contributions to political campaigns?

The State of New Hampshire is not making contributions to any political campaigns.

[jgmaynard]

The key is to submerge your desires below the needs of the collective.  

BTW, I can't see why, if it really was just state employees, that they didn't say "state employees" rather than the State of New Hampshire. I think there must be more to it.

"We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society." - Hillary Clinton 1993

Only telling you what the OpenSecrets site said... It's listed right on that page that the contributions are not from the organization itself.

'splainin' dun, Lucy....

JM

[Zxcv]

Yeah, I sent an email to them. I had read that explanation but wanted to be sure. Sure enough, it is employees of the state (and not even their union, which is listed separately). And when a company is listed, it may be employees of the company, not just officers. So, the information provided there is a little less useful than it first appears.

However, that still raises the issue, what the heck are state government employees doing, spending that much money on federal races? What do they hope to gain from that? I looked back at the previous years, and each year they raise higher in the list. What is going on there?

A state that has such politically motivated state employees, sounds like a state with a problem. I could be wrong, though.  

[jgmaynard]

that still raises the issue, what the heck are state government employees doing, spending that much money on federal races? What do they hope to gain from that?

It costs New Hampshire $1.33 for each dollar we receive from the Feds (as Governor Benson is talking a lot about now)... Maybe they want Federal Reps who WON'T "bring home the pork". It costs us too much... lol...

JM

[George Reich]

Anyone who thinks the State of New Hampshire would contribute to political campaigns does not know much about New Hampshire.  

[LeRuineur6]

I did a search and have only seen the Venture Capital question raised once before, so I'm posting it on a new thread instead of in the "Argument for WY" thread.

I've been reading a lot about WY and NH, and now I think I understand at least some reasons why so many people believe that WY will be more successful than NH, but here are my rebuttals to the "Argument For WY" and a discussion about Venture Capital activities in NH and WY.

The argument arose than WY has a Citizen Ideology (66.1) that is closer to us than NH's (63.7), but this is only a slight difference.  Remember, NH has far more elected libertarians than WY (27 in NH, 1 in WY), although I must admit I do not know how quickly the libertarian movement is growing in NH versus WY.

NH is much more urbanized (UrbA=44.6) than WY (UrbA=25.5) as well.  However, compare the relevance of this to VT (UrbA=17.3).  But then again, Vermont is the first gay-marriage-rights state, so that could account for the non-compliance with the "urbanized = socialist" theory.

I personally think the dealbreaker will be high-tech jobs and the ability for us ultra-capitalist Porcupines to move, start, and grow our businesses in the Free State.  I think we need to look much further into this problem, but for a good overview of the historical high-tech venture capital (VC) activity in NH and WY, go here, select a state, and click "view data":
http://www.pwcmoneytree.com/moneytree/nav.jsp?page=historical

As you can see, WY had one VC deal of an undisclosed amount in Q1 1998 and one deal worth $4M in Q2 2001.

In comparison, NH had 243 VC deals since 1995 worth at least $1.754 BILLION total!  There were even 11 VC deals worth at least $73M in Q1 of this year!  According to the LP of NH:
http://www.lpnh.org/why-nh.htm
NH is "#1 [of all FSP states] for the highest amount of venture capital invested in the state (#4 in the NATION)."  That's pretty impressive.  And important as well.

I will refrain from any "West-bashing" generalizations.  The data speaks for itself.  But I will say one thing.  In my opinion, it will be a more difficult battle for freedom in NH, but at least we'll have jobs, be able to start and grow our businesses, and there are already 27 libertarians holding office in NH.

Besides, haven't I been hearing something about a large correlation between libertarians and high-tech professionals?

[Greg B.]

With all due respect, I covered the jobs issue in the last part of my post "The Argument for Wyoming."  Here it is:

The population and political demographic arguments clearly favor Wyoming.  But then the Wyoming detractors raise the issue of jobs.  I used to think that was a deal-breaker, but not anymore.  This leads us to Cheyenne.

Although Wyoming itself would not be able to employ thousands of Porcupines, there are several locations in other states right outside of Wyoming that could pick up the slack.  I have no data to back this up, but I’ve read a few times that many Porcupines are young (in their twenties and thirties) and high tech.  So, finding jobs for these types of people is going to be very important.

Cheyenne seems to be a really good place for these types of Porcupines to settle.  It is only 46 miles from Fort Collins, Colorado which has a population of 260,000+, one of the ten fastest growing MSAs (metropolitan statistical area) in the country (the Ft. Collins MSA expects 215,000 new jobs between 1997 and 2010), employers such as Colorado State University, ConAgra Beef, Hewlett-Packard, Agilent Technologies, Poudre Valley Health Systems, Eastman Kodak, Wal-Mart, State Farm Insurance, StarTek, Inc., Woodward, Advanced Energy, Teledyne WaterPik, McKee Medical Center, Anheuser-Busch, and Celestica), and a median income of $58,200.

Cheyenne is also just 63 miles away from Greeley, Colorado which has 200,000+ people, 71 miles away from the Longmont/Boulder area which has 300,000+ people, and 94 miles from the Denver area which has 2,200,000+ people.

A daily commute from Cheyenne to Fort Collins is definitely possible.  And maybe a commute to Greeley can be done, too.  After all, many big city commuters spend up to an hour or even an hour and a half in travel time from door to door.

It’s also possible that we could get some companies in Denver to hire Porcupines to telecommute, say, four days a week, and travel to the office one day a week.  They would benefit because they could pay a lot less money due to the cost of living difference.  And once enough skilled workers are in Cheyenne, some companies would certainly open an office there since Wyoming is very pro-business and the real estate leasing costs would be much cheaper.

[LeRuineur6]

With all due respect, I covered the jobs issue in the last part of my post "The Argument for Wyoming."

I apologize for the confusion.  I thought I made it clear that my post was a reply to that thread, and that my post refutes the belief that the jobs problem will have any solution in WY.  The only reason I posted a new thread is because I believe the last part of my post was far too off-topic for that thread.

In addition to the facts stated in my post, please remember that WY ranks dead last for projected job growth.  And it ties for last place in historical Venture Capital investments.