New Hampshire is having an excellent week. It announced its First in the Nation Primary, while CATO and the Fraser Institute declared the Granite State the most Free. CATO ranked NH #1 among US States. Fraser chose NH as the freest place economically in North America.
Kudos to all involved, including our authors and readers who have worked at the grassroots level to keep us here. This is a circumstance that New Hampshire Democrats would rapidly undo if allowed, and we know that to be true. Since the Dems took it over, it has taken the inevitable slide associated with Democrat rule.
Crime is up, as are regulations, taxes, and the centralization of authority. And when it comes to freedom, they have descended and appear mired at the bottom of the pack.
In the United States, the most economically free state on the subnational index was New Hampshire at 7.96, followed by Florida at 7.80, Tennessee at 7.73, Texas at 7.64, and South Dakota at 7.59. (Note that since the indices were calculated separately for each country, the numeric scores on the subnational indices are not directly comparable across countries.) The least-free state was again New York at 4.09, following California and Vermont at 4.27, Oregon at 4.56, and Hawaii at 4.58.
Vermont has been emulating New York and California for years, and look how well that worked.
CATO has very little good to say about Vermont. It is ranked 42nd (not its worst score, but it has languished in the bottom ten for years).
Vermont is the second-highest-tax state in the country. It also looks extremely fiscally centralized, with state government taking a whopping 10.8 percent of adjusted personal income and local government taking just 2.0 percent. However, this statistic is overstated, because Vermont counts the property tax as a state tax, even though towns have some discretion over the rate at which it is set locally. Vermonters would benefit from decentralization of tax and spending authority, as they have 3.5 effective competing jurisdictions per 100 square miles, well above the national average. Government debt is below average, but so are cash and security assets. Government share of GDP is slightly below average, but public employment is slightly above the 2022 average.
CATO is not precisely a Conservative think tank, and it offers praise for Vermont’s Social Policies without mentioning defunding the police, open borders, sanctuary cities (Vermont is a sanctuary state), and illegals voting in municipal elections, all of which are social policies speeding the State’s economic decline.
I would, therefore, disagree with CATO on that. Social policy in a progressive state has economic consequences. You can’t, nor should you separate them.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Connecticut River (also from CATO).
New Hampshire’s overall tax burden is well below the national average at 7.4 percent. The state government taxes less than any other state but Alaska. We show a decline in state taxes as a share of adjusted personal income from a high of 3.8 percent in FY 2002 to 3.1 percent in FY 2022. Meanwhile, local taxes have risen from 3.7 percent of income in FY 2001 to 4.3 percent in FY 2021. However, this measure has been trending down from a high of 5.6 percent in FY 2012. New Hampshire is, therefore, a highly fiscally decentralized state. Granite Staters have quite a wide choice in local government, with 2.8 competing jurisdictions per 100 square miles.
Regulation, zoning laws, and the State’s liquor store monopoly are a few of the things CATO views and negatives. Still, overall, the Granite State continues to rule the roost on “freedom,” ranking first or second every year since 2000 and first every year since 2012.
The lesson is that Vermont should try to be more like New Hampshire. The reality is that NH Dems want the Granite State to be more like Vermont. The only thing standing between them and that is you.
And if you are looking for an example of why Democrats don’t deserve someone’s vote because of what they will do to New Hampshire, point to Vermont.
It’s just a step to our left., but there is a steep drop in freedom that keeps getting worse.