One of the arguments for states' rights and federalism is the notion of "fifty laboratories:" the states serve as independent test beds where different approaches to public needs are tried, and the best ideas can then "rise to the top" as other states observe and adopt them. This laboratory vision requires us to do something that we don't seem to do very often: actually pay attention to what other states have done and how it works. The data are out there.
This diary looks at one simple question: How do other states control their spending, in comparison to New Hampshire? The point of the exercise is pretty straightforward. We want to learn:
Is there slop in our budget that other states have figured out how to cut while maintaining a good quality of life?
Or are we already so tight-fisted that other states should be copying us? Will further cutting plunge us into territory where the results are unknown - perhaps collapsing bridges, failing schools, rising unemployment, and greater street violence?
Asking this question is simple common sense, the sort of analysis practiced by the small businessman and by the household budget maker alike. If you talk to your neighbors and learn that the lowest weekly grocery bill for a family of four that anyone is living on is about $90, you don't focus on cutting your own grocery bill to $60. If you learn that the cheapest rent any shopkeeper has found is $2000 per month, you don't build a business plan on hopes of paying $1400.
Here is a sneak preview of the data: a chart of per-person spending by each of the fifty states for 2009, the most recent available data, with no identification:
With 100 representing a drunken sailor and 1 representing Ebenezer Scrooge, where does New Hampshire fall?
If we score in the 80s, the argument for finding places to cut spending is compelling, and we should examine the approaches that other states have taken. If we score in the twenties, not so much: we are already stretching each dollar just about as far as anyone can.
New Hampshire ranks 48th of 50 states on spending per person. We spent $2488 per person in 2009: already 30% less than the national average of $3557. That compares to $15,007 per person in spending under Tea Party heroine Sara Palin in Alaska. (Neighbors Massachusetts, Vermont, and Maine rank 6, 7, and 21. Tim Pawlenty's Minnesota ranks 16, Haley Barbour's Mississippi ranks 33.)
Only two states spend even less per person than New Hampshire: Texas and Florida. One factor is the average income in each state: if prevailing wages for everyone are higher, the cost of doing the same job will also be higher. For 2010 New Hampshire ranks 9th in per-capita income at $44,084; Texas and Florida raked 23 and 24 with incomes of $39,493 and $39,272. (The states that spend less per person than New Hampshire also have personal incomes 10% lower: how's that for an income tax?).
New Hampshire is already at the limit of tightly-controlled spending compared to every other state. The ideological extremists who are trying to cut hundreds of millions more will drive us off the map into uncharted territory where people tend to be poorer and the quality of life tends to be worse.
Notes:
The spending in this chart includes general funds, special funds, and bonded money: reclassifying the spending doesn't affect the chart. This chart does not include local spending. The source for spending numbers is a report by the National Association of State Budget Officers found here.
The source for state population estimates is the US Census.
