Quote:
Originally Posted by Descant
Once in place, it is too easy to increase from say 2% to 3% to 5%. Not long before you lose the NH Advantage. We found this when we put a tax on gambling winnings ~10 years ago. Stores lost all sorts of border traffic, the Belmont track lost huge amounts of business. It was repealed the next year, but the damage was done.
A "local" tax will just send business to the next town, Businesses will close. Then you start to lose business profits tax and property tax too.
Feel free to move to NY, MA, NJ, CA etc. and help yourself to more taxes, where people are leaving because of taxes.
After 250 years of fighting taxes...we should be celebrating, not repeating mistakes.
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Then we need to stop spending.
I was young when Governor Thomson suggested that "low taxes come from low spending". He was able to con a lot of people with that fake farmer act.
After seeing what he did, the State Constitution was changed and Part First Article 28-a was enacted to stop the State government from spending without discipline.
"[Art.] 28-a. [Mandated Programs.]
The state
shall not mandate or assign any new, expanded or modified programs or responsibilities to any political subdivision in such a way as to necessitate additional local expenditures by the political subdivision unless such programs or responsibilities are fully funded by the state or unless such programs or responsibilities are approved for funding by a vote of the local legislative body of the political subdivision.
November 28, 1984"
Since that time, many items paid at the local level have been mandated. Some are new, but many are expanded and modified.
We also are not using our fee schedule correctly.
So we have structural problems that cannot be overcome by politicians.