Ax The Tax

Even the Father of this Country doesn’t get his own holiday. Although Washington’s Birthday is still listed on the official federal government holiday calendar, the Uniform Monday Holiday Act implemented in 1971 moved the celebration from the day of George Washington’s birth to a convenient Monday to give us a three-day weekend.
Thanks to aggressive marketing and the fact that Washington, the man who forged the nation, and Lincoln, the man who saved the Union, were both born in February, most of us now refer to the day as “President’s Day.” I suspect most Americans think of the long holiday weekend as a sales event for cars, appliances, and clothes, preferring good deals over remembering the leader who set the standard for all who followed.
After President’s Day there’s a two-month gap before the next federal and state holiday, Memorial Day in May. While I’m not proposing a new state holiday to fill the gap and give us another long weekend, there is a date in March worthy of remembrance. I would call it “Ax the Tax Day.”
Three-term governor Meldrim Thomson, Jr. was born on March 8, 1912. Governor Thomson is widely considered the father of broad-based-tax-free New Hampshire, which is certainly something to celebrate. In addition to running on the slogan “Ax the Tax,” he believed that “Low taxes are the result of low spending” and governed accordingly. Thanks to his legacy, New Hampshire is the only “tax friendly” state in the entire northeast according to Kiplinger’s most recent “State-by-State Guide to Taxes.”
Unfortunately, political winds are changing. The belief that our state has a revenue problem and that we can be taxed to prosperity is taking hold, despite overwhelming the evidence to the contrary. All we need to do is look at high-tax/high debt California, Illinois, and New York to know that that is a lie. Bad schools, bad roads, wasteful spending, and unresponsive politicians are the hallmarks of those Deep Blue states.
The Democrat legislators our neighbors sent to Concord are trying to use their new majority to wheedle their way into our wallets. They are trying to convince us that they can solve to state’s many challenges if only they had more of our money.
These folks – all too predictably – immediately set to work trying to make us more like Vermont, Maine, and Connecticut – three of the nations’ “Least Tax Friendly” states. They seem uninterested in understanding the ideals embodied in “The New Hampshire Advantage” as they move aggressively to impose new taxes – even broad-based taxes – on the private sector.
We need to learn the lessons that our fellow New Englanders in Connecticut could teach us. In the 28 years since liberal Independent governor Lowell Weicker pushed through an income tax, the Nutmeg State’s finances have gone from manageable to monstrous.
The sad story is well-told in the Yankee Institute for Public Policy’s 2016 report, “Where Has All the Money Gone? The 25th Anniversary of Connecticut’s Income Tax.” It starts with this:
In 1991, state lawmakers asked the residents of Connecticut to support a compromise: in return for an income tax, lawmakers promised to abide by a constitutional spending cap which would, they said, ensure fiscal responsibility. But legislators failed to live up to their end of the bargain.
Of course they did.
Connecticut’s government released the Kraken to prey upon its citizens. The false promises came with the usual pabulum: fairness, equity, more money for schools and struggling municipalities. But in short order spending increased and the tax base cracked. CT went from being the low-tax option for businesses and commuters in the Tri-State (NY-NJ-CT) area into just another place taxing and spending itself into debt.
Weicker and other supporters promised the income tax would end Connecticut’s deficits once and for all. Previous tax increases had been wasted on “orgies of spending,” said Weicker. But, he said, new spending controls would prevent that from happening if Connecticut adopted an income tax.
Of course that didn’t happen.
The entire report is worth reading for the cautionary tale it provided. The summary question, “What did you get for your money?” is answered as anyone paying attention would expect:
•State government spending grew 71 percent faster than inflation between 1991 and 2014 and the cost of state government per person rose 42 percent over inflation
•Spending on debt service payments and public employee benefits grew faster than any other category of spending, 174 percent over the rate of inflation
•The top income tax rate rose steadily from 4.5 percent to 6.99 percent
•Education spending as a percent of total spending remained constant in the income tax era – and below its pre-income tax era high.
•Welfare spending increased dramatically. The number of people living in poverty grew from 6.8 percent to 10.8 percent
•The constitutional spending cap, approved by 80 percent of voters in conjunction with the income tax was never fully implemented
Ignore the promises coming from Concord. Connecticut’s experience will be our reality of we stand by while the Democrats make promises they have no intention of keeping. They can’t help it; it’s their nature.
Maybe we do need an Ax the Tax Day after all.

Ken Gorrell can be reached at kengorrell@gmail.com