[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 21 (Wednesday, March 2, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 2, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                    FAMOUS WORDS OF GOV. MEL THOMSON

                                 ______


                      HON. WILLIAM H. ZELIFF, JR.

                            of new hampshire

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, March 2, 1994

  Mr. ZELIFF. Mr. Speaker, Mel Thomson who celebrates his 82th birthday 
on March 8, is still one of New Hampshire's most popular Governors. 
During his three terms as Governor, Mel championed the belief that 
``low spending yields low taxes.'' Governor Thomson was recently 
honored at a salute to Governors held in Manchester, NH. I would like 
to share Mel's pragmatic words of experience from 1972, regarding his 
advice to future Governors of the Granite State:

       Taxation without representation was the firebrand that 
     touched off our American Revolution. This was the Stamp Tax 
     Act of 1765. Now, 200 years later, we have taxation without 
     responsible representation and often with misrepresentation.

  Chief Justice John Marshall, our fourth Chief Justice of the Supreme 
Court, said, ``The power to tax involves the power to destroy.'' The 
sources of our public financial problem is the escalation of our 
excessive spending, which produces burdensome taxation. We confront two 
simple alternatives. Either taxation or face certain destruction 
through bankruptcy.
  During 20 years of relentless pressure from taxers, the people of New 
Hampshire have withstood the broad base taxes--and it is now 42 years. 
New Hampshire is still the only State, other than Alaska, that has 
neither a general sales nor an income tax. I'm against a broad base tax 
in New Hampshire for two reasons. First, I'm for that philosophy which 
holds that man's greatest happiness and liberty flourish with a minimum 
of restraints and interference by government. And second, I'm for that 
degree of economy and efficiency in government that would make 
excessive taxation unnecessary.
  We need taxes to conduct an orderly society. But must be continue the 
wild and spendthrift ways of recent decades? Must we, by taxation, make 
the State our master? We in New Hampshire have resisted the tide of 
broad base taxes that has inundated all other States, and in many cases 
wrecked their financial structures.
  If the folks in Washington took Governor Thomson's advice, we would 
all be a lot better off.

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