The top ten US states with the highest tax burden are all blue. One of them is Vermont (#3). Maine clocks in at #5, with Rhode Island at #8, and Connecticut at #10, with the highest total tax burden. Massachusetts is #13.
New Hampshire is 48th, making it the third least taxed state in the country. Montana is #49 and AlaskA has the lowest taking #50.
You can find yours on the map or check out the research here, but New Hampshire-Vermont comparison deserves some attention. The only thing separating them is a River and electile dysfunction. Vermont went hard blue while New Hampshire looks purple but at the state level is more often red. And while a lot of those Republicans are the Northeastern strain – Real Republicans would call a lot of them Democrats – the Left has not been able to drag what we call the New Hampshire Advantage into an ally to beat it to death.
No sales or income tax (there is a tourist tax on hotel stays and restaurants, but even that was lowered in recent years). New Hampshire eliminated its only “income tax,” which was a tax on interest and dividends. The legislature has also lowered business taxes year after year. Democrats want them all back, and as for the NH Advantage, they’d be happy to mug it, shiv it, and leave it to bleed out.
They want NH to be just like the rest of New England.
In recent years, Democrats have stopped lying about taking the no sales or income tax pledge. They come right out and admit they want that, or can’t stop themselves from saying it and then paying the price at the ballot box. It still has influence which is why the total tax burden is one of the lowest in the nation in every year.
But it also presents a problem.
Democrats like raising taxes and not paying them, so they move here and keep voting Democrat, and that never ends well. They seem to think they can vote for all the extra stuff they had in the state they left without turning New Hampshire into the place they thought they’d escaped.
It is one of the many reasons we think Democrats are a bit dim. It is why New Hampshire’s tenure at the top of the lowest-taxed states (or, if you prefer, the bottom of the highest-taxed) is in jeopardy. And Republicans aren’t helping. Their zoning power grab peddles to developers who add blocks of apartments, which create the very sort of density that leads to blue municipalities with which the red rural areas can’t compete at the ballot box.
Making it easier to build single-family homes is a great idea, but mugging local control to get it will turn NH Blue. Kiss the no sales or income tax goodbye. Say hello to every idiot left-wing idea and all the revenue needed to fund them.
But hey, it’ll make Vermont and Maine Democrats happy.
