There are few more enthusiastic boosters for all the great things about New Hampshire than me. I share the data, polls, research, results, and whatever the mighty beast of the internet coughs up. I moved here from someplace else 35 years ago and have been a superfan ever since.
As a superfan, I have also been a determined critic of things that make New Hampshire look less than stellar. Our elections are not clean. Our court system is an F-ing disaster. Family court in the Granite State would have been featured in Dante’s Inferno were it not such a new form of torture. The State has done a significant disservice to the topic of sexual assault, from profiteering to railroading to ignoring systemic abuse of children.
We’ve got an elite cabal referred to rhetorically as The Five Families of whom the Republican Party appears to be their bitch. Financial Skullduggery remains inadequately addressed, and 21st-century developers are generally seen as akin to the railroad magnates accused of defining policy to their benefit in years past.
And allowing gambling has turned into the thing we said it would. People with casino interests can and will buy favors from a government that is also willing to go to bat to take them out in favor of other interests.
Human beings + government = corruption, but New Hampshire is still the freest state in North America, one of the lowest-taxed in the US, and, despite being a constitutional carry state, one of the safest.
No Blood in the streets desire hysterical prognostication by the troglodytes and their gun-grabbing lobbyist buddies.
We’re #2
Last Week, the Governor was gushing as were many a media outlet, some more tempered than others, because the wrong party currently runs things and gets to claim the credit. For what? The State ranked #2 on US News and World Report’s best States survey. Governor Ayotte’s press office sent out the following.
“It’s no surprise that our state was once again named one of the best in the country – New Hampshire is the best place to live, work, and raise a family,” said Governor Ayotte. “Today’s ranking is a testament to our dedicated law enforcement officers, hardworking business leaders, and energetic, independent people. Together, we’ll protect what makes our state exceptional and work to deliver an even brighter future for all of New Hampshire.”
New Hampshire’s 2025 rankings include:
- #1 for Public Safety
- #1 for Economic Opportunity
- #1 for Corrections Outcomes
- #3 for Internet Access
- #4 for Natural Environment
You can review the full monty here, if so inclined, including how we’re 37th on fiscal stability which is a vaguely defined concept that US News describes as,
The fiscal stability of a state’s government is vital to ensuring the success of government-sponsored programs and projects, trickling down to affect the quality of life of state residents. In modern times, the rights and powers of states have been asserted through a broad range of services for their citizens – delivery of public education among them – and effective state administration and fiscal health have become increasingly important.
It almost makes me wish we ranked 50th, but I’m not convinced I even get what they mean.
We ranked 16th on education based on, “… state performance across the life cycle of a young person’s education, encompassing preschool enrollment, standardized test scores among eighth-graders, high school graduation rate and college readiness.”
That seems high to me, but given that the rankings place us compared to every other state, even if we can’t teach a third to one-half of kids to read and do math at even a modern diminished definition of “grade Level,” it only means a lot of other states do a lot worse than the Granite State. A distinction that applies across the board.
We also ranked 19th on infrastructure, which “takes into account metrics such as a state’s use of renewable energy, the quality of its roads and bridges, and its residents’ access to high-speed internet.”
Renewable energy? Seriously? We ranked 37th on energy because we won’t saddle the state with expensive, inefficient, and unreliable greenwashing. I want to rank 50th in that as well.
For the rest, New Hampshire is primarily rural, and many people view “quality roads” as an invitation to violate their privacy.
We ranked 43rd for “Transportation,” which is ” commute time, road quality, bridge quality, and public transit usage.” You can guess why we ranked that way. There is no public transportation, but for a few local city bus services and we like that. As for commute time, people don’t move here to improve their commute time.
Summed up, the report is only as good as it is, which is to say, a speculative analysis based on someone else’s idea of what’s better.
I love New Hampshire. I think it’s the best state in America. But I’m not blind to all the flaws and things that need fixing. Nor am I willing to let the government think it is the only means to those ends. Quite the opposite.
Agree? Disagree? Submit Op-Eds to steve@granitegrok.com – We want to hear from you, too!
