Bill is probably a great guy, and I’m sure he never meant to violate Department of Defense regulations by posting images of himself in uniform on a campaign web site. But that’s not the only thing that caught my eye while I was there. Bill is also guilty of lying by omission.
You see, while claiming to be something of a centrist, he still suffers from the same illness as the majority of Democrats in New Hampshire when it comes to talking about taxes and tax burden. On the same page in which he violated DoD regulation 1344.10, he also engaged in partisan hackery when he says…
“NH is ranked 2nd or 4th worst (depending on whose statistics you use) for property tax burden.”
By using the word tax BURDEN, we are meant to presume a horrible thing but every tax is part of that burden. If we are going to have an honest discussion about tax burden, shouldn’t we talk about total tax burden? And why, despite Bill’s sound bite-which is accurate by the way– New Hampshire still has one of the lowest overall tax burdens in the nation?
There are no examples in American history where the argument for reducing property taxes with a different tax collected by the state capitol, resulted in long term property tax relief. The reason for that is that state government inevitably finds ways to spend that money and more, and the towns are left to themselves, perhaps with even larger budgets than before, and only property taxes to fund them.
So this property tax burden argument is already a big lie of the left. But Bill’s misleading quote comes more from leaving out facts pertinent to any case about tax BURDEN. Think past Bill’s obvious intent, that relying on property taxes to this degree should be bad, and ask…what if it is not. What if our system of taxation is actually responsible for New Hampshire having one of the lowest overall tax burdens in the nation? What if it is a key component to all the other great aspects of the Granite State that no other state has?
Did you know that while people in New Hampshire pay 60% more in property taxes than the national US average, we also pay 65% less than the national average for sales and excise taxes, and 92% less than the national average for income taxes. (Figures provided by the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy–a group started by a rich liberal with some connections to the left-wing American Progress and the same source tax and spend Democrats use to pass off the same kind of arguments Bill is trying to make.
Overall New Hampshire is consistently at the bottom of the list for overall tax burden. Hmmmm.
Is it fair to suggest that most lower income people do not or will not own business or personal property, or at least a majority of it. That means more well-off folks will own more property, with the rich owning the most, which dollar for dollar means will shouldering most of that property tax burden themsleves.
Other points we have to discuss. Overall tax burden and how it is distributed have other impacts on the state than just some politically convenient, incomplete sound bite with the word ‘burden’ in it. Despite the property tax burden, New Hampshire consistently has the highest average income, highest standard of living, and the lowest rate of poverty. We are the only state in the nation with a poverty rate under 10%. Our Unemployment is well below the national average. We also rank consistently as one of the best places to live in the nation, year after year, and one of the top three healthiest states as well, year after year. These are not statistics in a vacuum. And they are not the kinds of things you find in a state that is placing an undue tax burden of any kind, on any sector of the populace.
It would be much more honest of Bill to have argued that being…ranked 2nd or 4th worst (depending on whose statistics you use) for property tax burden, has consistently allowed New Hampshire to have one of the lowest overall tax burdens, the healthiest citizens, one of the highest standards of living, and lowest rates of poverty in the entire country. There is nothign dishonest about that statement at all.
In fact it is far mote factually accurate of how tax burden relates to the state of New Hampshire and its people, than what democrats say. So I am curious to see some evidence from any other place in the nation, where Bill’s idea of a more “fair system of taxation” will consistently produce these kinds of results on an equally consistent basis?
I don;t think it can be done. And until we can get a Democrat to explain how their ideas will guarantee us better overall results, or before we enter into any discussion that includes the words “fair” or “Burden, we might want to remember that the first thing the Democrats did when given the opportunity to run the state was to add billions in new state spending, over 100 new taxes, and they still left us with an 800 million Dollar deficit in their wake.
So if you truly have legitimate concerns about tax burden, keeping Democrats out of elected office is probably the single biggest thing you can do to lower it. And it wont cost you a dime. There are no documents to fill out, no fees to pay, no hearings to attend, no agencies to visit, no refunds, credits, or rebates for bureaucrats to process, and no hoops to jump through; all you have to do is show up at the polls and not vote for Democrats. Problem solved.
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