Every year when that property tax bill arrives in the mail, my neighbors do the same thing that I do. They open the envelope, squint at the number and shake their heads. For many residents, property taxes have nearly doubled in the past 15 years. People have not added additions to their homes and the land is the same. But the bill keeps climbing.
Across New Hampshire — from the North Country to the Merrimack Valley — Granite Staters are asking the same question: why?
The answer isn’t complicated. Democrats keep raising your property taxes.
For decades, New Hampshire Democrats have pursued a simple strategy at the municipal level: grow budgets, grow staff, grow spending — and send the bill to property taxpayers. Town by town, school district by school district, they have built up layers of government that cost more every single year. Every dollar of local spending hikes lands directly on your tax bill.
Nowhere is that clearer than in the Kearsarge Regional School District where a proposal to limit per pupil expenditures to $27,000 per pupil was rejected in favor of spending $33,000 per pupil. Just as troubling as this huge Democrat-led local spending blitz is the demand that Republicans in Concord pay for it.
Rising property taxes are the result of Democrat’s spending agenda. Higher property taxes have become the local backdoor to the big-government model Democrats have always wanted — inflating municipal budgets year after year and let the property tax do the dirty work. That means higher and higher taxes for you.
At the state level, the pattern is the same. Every session, Democratic leadership proposes new spending programs This session alone the Democrats offered up $1.75 billion in new spending. That means money flowing out of your pocket, into government accounts and leads to an income tax.
I’ve spent my entire time in office fighting against higher taxes. I understand what it means when spending rises faster than revenue. It’s not sustainable. A family budget doesn’t work that way. A small business doesn’t work that way. And New Hampshire shouldn’t work that way either.
Unfortunately, Democrats can’t help themselves. They just love overspending and love higher taxes. They always have and they always will.
But even our current high property taxes aren’t enough for New Hampshire Democrats. On March 3 of this year, leading Democrats stood on the Statehouse steps and announced a plan to force through a 3% income tax. And if that’s not bad enough, they also announced plans to create a new Homeowners Tax — an additional state-level property tax on top of your current property taxes — that will add between $1,800 to $2,000 to tax bills of many families.
Yes, you read that right. Can you afford to add an additional $2,000 to your property tax bill each year?
When Democrats claim they want to lower property taxes, hold onto your wallet!
The Republican plan is the polar opposite. This year, we passed legislation that truly puts property taxes on the ballot. Every single Granite Stater will have the opportunity in November to vote on a ballot question to cap the Democrats’ municipal spending.
A YES vote from the voters of your town means Democrats won’t be able to spend more than the rate of inflation. A NO vote on the tax cap means the Democrats can continue spending recklessly.
Voters should make spending decisions — not well-organized special interests.
Imagine, no more property tax hikes year after year. We have the opportunity to put the common sense of New Hampshire taxpayers back into the equation. If local officials want to grow the budget beyond a reasonable threshold, they will have to make that case directly to the voters who pay the bills. That is not radical. That is democracy working the way it should.
My neighbors are not opposed to good schools or good roads. Neither am I — in fact, we all want those things. What we’re opposed to — what every reasonable Granite Stater is opposed to — is a government that grows without limit, spends without accountability and sends you the bill that says “pay here.”
New Hampshire was built on something better than that. We were built on thrift, self-reliance and the radical idea that government should justify itself to the people — not the other way around.
I will be voting YES on the ballot question to cap municipal overspending because Republican’s priority is protecting taxpayers.
The Democrats — well, they voted against even putting the tax cap question on the ballot. Not even letting you decide. That tells you everything you need to know to protect your wallet.
Sen. Dan Innis, from Bradford, represents District 7 in the New Hampshire Senate.