HCR24: urging the New Hampshire congressional delegation to sponsor legislation implementing policy recommendations of the Congressional Budget Office.

HCR 24 – AS INTRODUCED

2011 SESSION

11-0838

05/09

HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 24

A RESOLUTION urging the New Hampshire congressional delegation to sponsor legislation implementing policy recommendations of the Congressional Budget Office.

SPONSORS: Rep. Pierce, Graf 9

COMMITTEE: State-Federal Relations and Veterans Affairs

ANALYSIS

This bill urges the New Hampshire congressional delegation to sponsor legislation implementing certain policy recommendations of the Congressional Budget Office relative to economic recovery and employment gains.

11-0838

05/09

STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Eleven

A RESOLUTION urging the New Hampshire congressional delegation to sponsor legislation implementing policy recommendations of the Congressional Budget Office.

Whereas, New Hampshire’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose from 3.4 percent in December 2007, when the national recession began, and peaked at 7.1 percent in February 2010; and

Whereas, New Hampshire’s annual rate of gross domestic product (GDP) growth between 2002 and 2007 ranged between 3.4 percent and 5.4 percent, but fell to only a 0.5 percent increase between 2008 and 2009; and

Whereas, market forces may well bring the economy back to health in several years but in the meantime many workers would remain or become unemployed and much of the economy’s capacity for producing output would go untapped; and

Whereas, additional fiscal policy actions could hasten the economy’s recovery and reduce the loss of output and raise employment during the next few years; and

Whereas, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has examined the potential role and efficacy of various fiscal policy options for increasing economic growth and employment gains; and

Whereas, the CBO projected that the following policy options would contribute most to economic recovery and employment gains: increasing aid to the unemployed; reducing employers’ payroll taxes for firms that increase their payroll; reducing employees’ payroll taxes; providing an additional one-time social security payment; allowing full or partial expensing of investment costs; investing in infrastructure; providing aid to states for purposes other than infrastructure; and providing additional refundable tax credits for lower and middle income households; and

Whereas, the failure to enact these policy options could drain billions of dollars of purchasing power from the economy and cost millions more jobs; now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the House of Representatives, the Senate concurring:

That the New Hampshire general court urges the New Hampshire congressional delegation to sponsor legislation implementing the CBO recommendations that contribute most to economic recovery and employment gains and make all best efforts to have such legislation adopted; and

That copies of this resolution, signed by the speaker of the house of representatives and the senate president, be forwarded by the house clerk to the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, the President of the United States Senate, and to each member of the New Hampshire congressional delegation.