I hope the legislative leadership and, in particular, the budget writers read the recent Wall Street Journal column by Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore excerpted in "The rich vote with their feet" ("Others are saying," Monitor, May 19).

Here is some actual research that validates the New Hampshire Advantage. It's worth repeating: "Updating some research from Richard Vedder of Ohio University, we found that from 1998 to 2007, more than 1,100 people every day including Sundays and holidays moved from the nine highest income-tax states such as California, New Jersey, New York and Ohio and relocated mostly to the nine tax-haven states with no income tax, including Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire and Texas."

I believe strongly that these trends apply in the business community as well. Laffer and Moore also reported that "we also found that over these same years the no-income tax states created 89 percent more jobs and had 32 percent faster personal income growth than their high-tax counterparts." The Legislature should think twice before they put in place any additional capital gains taxes.

As a little side note, when I was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee in 1996, the state budget was $5.2 billion, and it is now fast approaching $11 billion.

Thanks to the Monitor and the Wall Street Journal boys for bringing this validation to our attention. Now we can hang our hat on some research facts for the New Hampshire advantage.

DAVID P. CURRIER

Henniker