Rep Berry and House GOP are treading on me
I don’t enjoy paying taxes, but I love the civilization they give me. I paraphrase Oliver Wendell Holmes because as a member of my community I can see, and genuinely admire, how carefully the school boards, teachers and select board use my tax dollars.
But in Concord, Rep. Ross Berry is proposing legislation that would force cities and towns to vote every two years on whether to cap their local property tax growth. Rep. Berry wants to infect the participatory democracy of Town Meeting and local control with a “one size fits all” law. He is imposing onto me and my neighbors a legislative fiat from on high.
Berry rings a shiny bell but I don’t buy this fakery. He (and every legislator in Concord) should be honest and take responsibility for higher local taxes because they have abolished the dividends tax to benefit the rich, and they refuse to increase state funding to public schools. New Hampshire ranks 50th regarding state aid to local schools — we’re behind Mississippi and Alabama. According to a recent court ruling, state aid to New Hampshire public schools is “constitutionally insufficient.”
While we are at it, my tax dollars are benefitting wealthy parents who are using the school voucher program (Education Freedom Accounts) to send their kids to private schools. Between limiting my voice at Town Meeting with the tax cap proposal and using my tax dollars to subsidize wealthy families, Berry and House Republicans are treading on me.