House Republicans Issue Progress Report on Legislative Agenda

Concord—Just two months into the 2011 legislative session, and the with the state facing a nearly $1 billion deficit, New Hampshire House Republicans today issued a progress report on their legislative agenda that they first presented in January.

House Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt (R-Salem) pointed to progress made in the five major areas of the agenda: government spending and regulations; business and enterprise; retirement reform; education excellence; and personal rights and social responsibility.

“We want to keep the people of New Hampshire up to date on our progress, where we stand in critical areas like the budget, education and pension reform; and the work that still must be done.  We believe that this should be done openly and candidly,” said Bettencourt.

The House as already passed innumerable bills aimed at scaling back over-burdening licensure requirements, opposing unfunded mandates, eliminating welfare fraud, repealing the “evergreen” law, giving cities and towns that ability to cap their spending, and reducing taxes and fees.

“We were left facing a nearly $1 Billion deficit by the Democrats and, while we cannot expect this problem to be solved overnight, we have worked extremely hard since November and we are confident that we are headed in the right direction,” said Bettencourt.

According to the majority leader, work on pension reform and a constitutional amendment for education funding is on-going with both the House and Senate are committed to arriving at a resolution for both issues in the coming weeks.

“The bottom line is that we have listened to the people of this state and we have remained focused on the issues that are important to them.  We know that we still have a lot of work to be done, but we wanted to share with everyone where we stand at this point in the legislative session. We will continue to govern as we campaigned,” concluded Bettencourt.