News – Politics – Opinion – Podcasts
Andrew Cline 
If U.S. states were companies that traded on the stock market, the only New England state with a “buy” rating would probably be New Hampshire. Massachusetts could be called “Big Blue,” the tradition-bound leader cruising on its prior reputation, but falling behind smaller upstarts that have embraced innovation and rapid growth. New Hampshire would be … Read more
New Hampshire ranks as the freest state in North America, as measured in this year’s Economic Freedom of North America report, released today by the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy in conjunction with Canada’s Fraser Institute. For the 24th time, New Hampshire is the freest state among all U.S. states, having scored 8.34 out of 10 … Read more
4th Highest Per-Pupil Spending Growth As New Hampshire’s K-12 public schools experienced the largest enrollment decline of any state this century, they enjoyed the fourth-highest increase in per-pupil spending, according to a new analysis from the Reason Foundation’s K-12 Education Spending Spotlight. Per-pupil public education spending in New Hampshire grew by 60.5% from 2002-2023, the fourth-highest … Read more
According to national media reports, Pennsylvania’s 2025 budget deal caused the state to “exit” RGGI. Media coverage also used the words “leave,” “quit” and “pull out” to describe Pennsylvania’s abandonment of RGGI. Pennsylvania, though, wasn’t actually a member of RGGI. In 2019, then-Gov. Tom Wolf issued an executive order for his administration to adopt regulations consistent with … Read more
Pennsylvania shocked Northeast energy policy nerds this week by withdrawing from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). To get a state budget passed, Gov. Josh Shapiro agreed to remove Pennsylvania from the 11-state carbon cap-and-trade program, making it the first state to exit since RGGI was created in 2005. RGGI is supposed to reduce regional … Read more
Surging child care prices have grabbed the media’s attention here in New Hampshire, and rightly so. The price of full-time care in a licensed center “jumped 48 percent between 2013 and 2023,” landing at nearly $32,000 a year, according to an analysis last year by the Carsey School of Public Policy at UNH. Child care prices … Read more
On Thursday, the state Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) announced a plan to deliver food to New Hampshire food stamp recipients should the federal government shutdown continue into November. The partnership with the New Hampshire Food Bank was announced just 13 days after the U.S. Department of Agriculture warned states that funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance … Read more
With a single heated remark to a developer, a Portsmouth Planning Board member last week showed exactly how the municipal development process is broken. Developer Mark McNabb has proposed converting a property he owns on Congress Street to a 125-unit co-living apartment building. Co-living units, once common, were zoned nearly out of existence in U.S. … Read more
On September 9, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) released its 2026 campus free speech rankings, concluding that “America’s colleges get an ‘F’ for poor free speech climate.” “More students than ever think violence and chaos are acceptable alternatives to peaceful protest,” FIRE Chief Research Advisor Sean Stevens said on the report’s release. “This … Read more
The New Hampshire Supreme Court for the first time ordered the state to spend a minimum amount of money—$7,356.01 per pupil—to educate public school students. The state therefore lost this landmark school funding case, Contoocook Valley School District v. State, as it had tried to avoid such a decree. But a closer read suggests that ConVal … Read more
“I find more and more that dependency from [upon] the will of others is always some diminution of human happiness, principally to a man accustom’d to follow his own will uncontrolled.” – Jan Ingenhousz to Ben Franklin, 1777 During the two weeks since Americans celebrated the 249th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, political discourse in … Read more
…district public schools spend $1.25 billion more on 54,000 fewer students Average per-pupil spending in New Hampshire district public schools has nearly doubled this century, as student enrollment declined sharply and reading and math assessment scores fell, a new Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy study finds. Total public school district spending in New Hampshire … Read more
Though expanding Education Freedom Accounts to all New Hampshire students is a top Republican Party priority for this legislative session, differences between three competing plans produced an impasse. For weeks, doubts grew about Republicans’ ability to expand the program even though they controlled the governor’s office and both legislative chambers. On Wednesday, the House Finance … Read more
After years of making little progress on housing affordability, the Legislature finally is moving forward in large strides. As significant reforms near the finish line, a surge of advocacy has emerged for an old, failed method of addressing the state’s housing shortage: government subsidies. New Hampshire’s primary method of addressing housing affordability has long been … Read more
Every time legislators propose ending New Hampshire’s annual auto inspection mandate, opponents allege that inspections are common in Northern states because cold weather hazards (road salt, frost heaves) make them necessary. In fact, most cold-weather states, like most states overall, don’t require annual auto inspections. Mapping the states that require annual inspections reveals that culture … Read more
It’s Teacher Appreciation Week and Granite Staters are again being subjected to the claim that teachers here earn less than they should because legislators are stingy. Given current market conditions, average teacher pay in New Hampshire is lower than it should be to recruit the best candidates. But the state’s contribution isn’t the reason. The … Read more
The movement to shift public school funding from local governments to the state is driven by a core belief that the shift will bring more funding. But that assumption is almost certainly wrong. The National Education Association’s latest annual report on public school data drew media coverage this week for its finding that New Hampshire’s … Read more
New Hampshire legislators have devised various schemes over the years to protect the logging industry from market forces. The latest scheme comes in House Bill 123, as amended. Promoted as “closing a loophole” in the state’s Timber Tax, HB 123 in fact creates a new tax on revenues generated from sales of carbon credits. The new … Read more
The House, Senate, and governor are divided over the very foundation of the state budget. (No, not liquor outlet ghost drops.) Revenue estimates. Including adjustments for the remainder of Fiscal Year 2025, the gap between the governor’s and House’s revenue estimates exceeds $800 million (with all revenue adjustments, including the House’s removal of lottery revenue … Read more
K-12 public school spending rises every year, whether enrollment increases or decreases. In this century, K-12 district public school enrollment in New Hampshire has fallen by more than 50,000 students, but spending is up by more than $1 billion, adjusted for inflation. How does this happen? The short answer is that local voters prefer to … Read more