UNDAY & “Theres noth Vol. 64, No.49- 10Sections, 110 Pages - $2.00, October 10,2010 Unionteadercom, An Editorial Andrew Cine, Ecitorial Page Editor Stephen for Governor It’s time for leadership ‘ew Hampshire faces Nesecise inthe next two years ‘They are challenges that would be less severe if we'd had better leadership in state government for the past six ‘years. The state budget deficits expected to be somewhere ‘between $600 million an $900 mil- * lion. Gov. John Lynch confidently proclaims “we're not going tohavea : deficit.” but —srEpy he doesn't el say how he's going to come tip with the kind of savings needed to fil the gap. Will he Continue ralsing taxes and fees? Wil he allow expanded gambling? As usual, he ison thefence. "That's exactly where he was when he let the Legis- lature get us into this mess The past two budgets Lynch oversaw brought us 175 percent general fund spend- Ing increase followed by 65 petcent increase. instead of using the power othis veto pen to keep spending to more reason- > See Editorial, Page A10 Editorial able levels, he signed those budgets. Some of the spend- Under this kind of “leader- ship,” itwon’t take long for New Hampshire to lose its status as the economic envy of New England. What the state needs now isa strong leader who has the vision and the will to prevent that from happening, twill have that if voters elect John Ste- phen as governor on Nov. 2. Stephen is not some guy ‘mouthing empty prom- ises. When he was com- missioner of Health and Human Services, the state's largest department, he saved taxpayers more than $100 million by freezing hiring and finding innovative ways to provide services while cutting costs. Many of his reforms were 50 good that after attacking them for purely partisan reasons, Lynch and Democrats in the Legislature adopted them as their own. John Stephen found those savings by being creative, refusing to take “no” for an answer, and pressing ahead {ng and tax hikes he even proposed himself. Continued From Page AT ‘when others told him it couldn’tbe done. That's the kind of leader New Hamp- shire needs in the corner office. Itis impossible to imagine John Stephen trying to save money by granting violent offenders early parole with- ‘out adequate supervision or trying to raid a private medical malpractice fund. He isa firm believer in the Mel Thomson theory of government: “low taxes are the result of low spending.” He intends to fix our budget deficit with old-fashioned New Hampshire frugality, not the pursuit of easy fixes. This election could well determine whether we main- tain the New Hampshire ‘Advantage or go the way of the rest of New England. Ifwe are to keep New Hampshire New Hamp- shire, we will need a strong governor dedicated to that purpose. We will have that ifwe elect John Stephen on Nov. 2