CONCORD – Jackie Cilley was more interested in national instead of state politics until she served in the New Hampshire House and saw the impact lawmakers had on citizens’ lives.

That impact was not lost on Cilley, who was born in Berlin the daughter of a logger and a textile worker and saw first-hand the affects of poverty and the low expectations that can result.

“We affect every man, woman and child so much more in an immediate basis than anything that goes on at the national level,” Cilley said of her time in the legislature.

Cilley, 61, of Barrington, was the first person in her family to go to college and used her education to teach college and start and run several small businesses.

Encouraged by fellow workers on Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign, she ran successfully for the House and then two years later for the state Senate. She served two terms in the Senate until she was swept out of office in the 2010 Republican landslide.

A lifelong resident of New Hampshire, Cilley says she is concerned the state she loves is heading in the wrong direction.

The state is in decline, she said, with an aging population, young people leaving to find work, and fewer people moving to the state. New Hampshire dropped jobs and dropped in national rankings as a good place to start, expand or relocate a business.

“We need a vibrant economy so we have jobs so our young people can stay here, build homes here and raise their families,” Cilley said. “Pledge politics and pandering has to stop.”

Cilley refuses to take the traditional pledge to veto any broad-based tax that makes its way to her desk as governor, but does not advocate either a sales or an income tax. Instead she says “everything should be on the table.”

Cilley said the state needs realistic solutions. “Where I come from, you did not have pie-in-the-sky because that was day-dreaming and those folks were left behind,” she said. “I am the only one here with a handle on what it takes to have a vibrant economy.”

People such as former U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg are talking about having everything on the table to solve budget problems — not just spending cuts — and she said current U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte recently said no more pledges, as have other Republicans like Jeb Bush and Lindsey Graham.

“(Pledges are) not independent thinking and it is not governing,” Cilley said.Former Gov. Walter Peterson brought together the business community and worked out an agreement resulting in the business profits tax which replaced 18 separate business-related property taxes, Cilley noted. “We’re bright enough in New Hampshire to find a workable solution.”

There is money available to help pay for programs, she noted, by repealing the tobacco tax cut, reinstating auditors at the Department of Revenue Administration and expanded gambling.

“We could coble all those together if that is what this state wants, to do a patchwork quilt,” Cilley said, “but the biggest burden on business and property taxpayers comes just before Christmas,” referring to December property tax bills.

CIlley’s campaign for governor is not as well funded as Hassan’s, but she recently released a television ad “Warning: Pledge Zombies” that attracted attention and raised her name recognition.

Cilley draws support from many progressive Democratic activists including Marty Gross, Phil McLaughlin, Gary Hirshberg, Clifton Below, Harry Judd, David Moore and Andru Volinsky, who are part of her “kitchen cabinet.”

She has also garnered union support from the State Employees Association, the Professional Fire Fighters Association of New Hampshire, the Police Benevolent Association of New Hampshire, and the local chapters of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

During her campaign, Cilley says the state needs to increase its investments in education, transportation and communications infrastructures to create jobs, heal the state’s economy and bring businesses to the state.

Other gubernatorial candidates are promising to save state departments, jobs and services, she said, or to cut taxes and spending and turn New Hampshire into a right-to-work state.

“We need some common sense,” Cilley said. “That’s not the way to build a sustainable state with a bright future for our grandchildren. We need to have an honest conversation to find solutions to problems we have never faced.”

The state is facing $500 million in litigation and the loss of from $170 million to $200 million in tax revenues from business tax cuts enacted by the legislature this year, she noted.

To address those reductions will require anywhere from 2.9 percent to 10 percent growth in state revenues, Cilley said. During the best year of the state’s booming economy, growth was 4.7 percent, she said, which shows the extent of the problem the state faces.

As any business owner knows, she said, you have to set priorities and that is what the state has to do and work within the framework of available revenue. “The biggest challenge will be that gapping hole,” Cilley said, and “providing a credible budget that meets the established goals.”

Then she said, you need to look for additional revenue along with the legislature. “We need to see if we can do what Walter Peterson did and come up with another approach that addresses the property tax issue and the (business profits tax),” Cilley said.

One of Cilley’s top priorities will be education. With seven out of 10 jobs requiring postsecondary education, she said, the legislature’s cuts to higher education in the current budget were “the most pound-foolish, penny-wise thing they did.”

She said state government needs to work with the university system to ensure every taxpayer dollar is used wisely, but Cilley does not believe lawmakers should dictate that the system freeze tuition.

“Investing in education for our young so they are prepared for jobs in the 21st Century is essential,” Cilley said, “particularly when state support is the lowest in the country and even lower than that now.”

Cilley believes the state should expand its Medicaid program under the Affordable Care Act. She said whether or not the state expands Medicaid, the $200 million to $300 million hospitals receive for uncompensated care will go away as more and more people have health insurance under the ACA.

With the federal government paying 100 percent of the Medicaid expansion costs for the first three years and 90 percent thereafter, she said, that is a way to ensure many more people are receiving preventative care.

“Just because you decide not to fund something does not mean the need goes away,” Cilley said. “Generally the costs comes back to roost at the local level where property taxpayers have to pay for it.”