The Republican Party is the billionaires’ favorite party, with good reason: they spew out propaganda that makes it sound like they’re on the side of everyday working people, when in fact the opposite is the case. All the propaganda is “fool’s gold” — the substance gold seekers think looks like gold, but is essentially valueless.
Take Sen. Dan Innis’s recent opinion column on “combating rising property taxes” — which, of course, he blames on Democrats who “just love overspending and love higher taxes.” In actual fact, the New Hampshire Republican party has been downshifting state level costs to the municipalities for years while simultaneously cutting taxes on the wealthiest state residents. For example:
- The state formerly shared state tax revenue with local cities and towns to help with services and reduce pressure on the property tax. Revenue sharing was suspended in 2010 and finally formally repealed in 2025 as part of a budget signed by Gov. Kelly Ayotte.
- Until 2020, the state paid 35% of state-required local retirement costs for teachers, police and firefighters. Now with effectively zero state support, that cost has shifted to local property tax payers.
- In 2004, the state provided a basic adequacy grant for education of $3,390 per student. If that fund had kept pace with inflation, it would be over $6,000 today. Instead it remains at $4,300, as of 2024. Along with the state’s voucher program that draws on property taxes to provide often wealthier families with $5,000 towards students’ non-public education, these policies greatly increase the pressure on local schools and school property taxpayers.
- State highway block grants to local municipalities have remained relatively flat while the costs of paving, construction, equipment and bridge maintenance have risen dramatically — increases borne by local taxpayers.
- Until 2011, the state helped pay for local school construction costs statewide; that aid was suspended and replaced by a grant program capped at $50 million when construction needs far exceed that amount. Again, the impact falls on local taxpayers.
These are only some of the examples of the ways in which the state has downshifted costs to local property taxpayers. No wonder local folks are up in arms about their rising property taxes. Republican mythology reflexively claims that they are the party of “low taxes,” when in fact our property taxes have been rising for decades in large part because of Republican state and federal policies.
Innis is bothered by the “unsustainability” of spending outpacing revenues at the state level. But who has been reducing state level revenues in ways that favor the rich? None other than the Republican party with their reduced Business Profits tax, their elimination of the statewide Interest and Dividends tax, and their efforts to increase the exemption for the Business Enterprise tax.
Innis’s column singles out the recently proposed “3-3 Tax Savings Plan” for particularly egregious misrepresentation, claiming it will increase the tax bills of “many families.” He suggests the plan wants to “force” a 3% income tax and a “new Homeowners tax.” The plan replaces local school property taxes with a 3% state income tax with deductions that will make it more equitable, and it raises the statewide property tax while exempting the first $250,000 of a resident homeowners’s taxes, shifting some of tax on to second home owners. Renters get a $750 tax credit since they pay property taxes indirectly.
True, some wealthy or property-wealthy families will pay more in taxes under the plan, but roughly 80% of New Hampshire taxpayers will pay less in total state and local taxes under the plan. Even better, you can find out for yourself what will happen to your taxes under the plan, by going to nhtaxsavingscalculator.com and entering your 2024 federal income tax Adjusted Gross Income amount and your 2024 local property value from your tax bill of that year.
Dan Innis’s solution is to cap the rise in property taxes at the rate of inflation. For starters his plan won’t reduce your property taxes, but over time it will increase the pressures on school, municipal and county tax rates. Ultimately, it will cripple public education and force reductions in local and county government services. That is exactly the “free staters’” vision for New Hampshire.
When will the timid Democratic party leadership get behind the 3-3 plan and put an end to this fiasco? Only when New Hampshire residents tell them to!
Ted Morgan is a member of the Cut Our Property Taxes group and is a retired political science professor living in Tamworth.