LTE: Tax System Hurting NH Students

Great letter but (4.00 / 1)

However, I stand by my prior comments  regarding our Gubernatorial candidate in 2012: We should not let the tax issue be used against us; we shouldn't run on it. Keeping the seat blue is more important...

I wish I thought if we just keep our heads down the tax issue wouldn't be used against us, but I wouldn't put money on it.  Since the GOP now has no compunction about lying about facts, about the effects of Democratic policies, about what their own policies will do to us, why would they not lie about our position on taxes?

If the NRA can say that Obama doing nothing about gun control proves he is going to take their guns away, there is nothing to keep the GOP from saying that even taking the pledge means that we plan to implement an income tax.  We are caught in a trap of our own making, by taking that pledge so long.  

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by: Lucy Edwards @ Tue Oct 11, 2011 at 11:17:22 AM UTC

Nice letter Dean (4.00 / 2)

I think this is pertinent:

You cannot expect exceptional teachers to stay in an environment dominated by continuously threatened pay cuts and public attacks on their character.

Our state's system is set up, semi-intentionally, to put us at constant war with our neighbors. At the level of a small district this becomes very personal and can rip communities apart.

It's all unnecessary, and unwanted, except to those that thrive on the villianization of public servants.

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by: Mike Caulfield @ Tue Oct 11, 2011 at 11:40:57 AM UTC

Can state-level tax issue be finessed? (4.00 / 2)

I agree 100% with your LTE - but fail to see how it squares with your insistence that we somehow duck (not "run on") the "tax issue" in the 2012 gubernatorial campaign. How can we implement Claremont, shift from excessive property tax dependence, restore CHINS funding, restore higher-ed funding, support health services at a reasonable level, and fund all the other programs that we have been bashing the Republicans for cutting without facing up to and actually doing something about the inequities and inadequacies of state-level taxes?  

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by: rames14779 @ Tue Oct 11, 2011 at 12:52:03 PM UTC

About "Pledges" (0.00 / 0)

"The major reason for setting a goal is for what it makes of you to accomplish it. What it makes of you will always be the far greater value than what you get." - Robert Kennedy

"It's the action, not the fruit of the action, that's important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there'll be any fruit. But that doesn't mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result."  - Mahatmi Gandhi

Let's hope future Democratic candidates for any office stop taking "pledges" invented by selfish people who want government to serve themselves and their bank accounts instead of others.  

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by: Rep. Jim Splaine @ Tue Oct 11, 2011 at 13:31:00 PM UTC

I know it seems a bit catch 22 (0.00 / 0)

To me, we have two different objectives here:
1) Maintain the Gov seat
2) Improve the NH tax structure

Unfortunately, these two issues do not square well together (2002!!!).

While I believe the property tax needs to go, a higher priority for me in the immediate term is retaining the Governor's seat. I'm frankly not willing to lose the seat, and the veto power that comes with it, while reaching for utopian tax policy.

There simply is not enough support right now, or trust in politicians, to enact such a large structural change that effects everyone's finances.

I wrote the letter to focus on the disincentives the property tax creates, but I maintain the Governors race is not the platform to advocate for a policy change.

Our state just isn't blue enough.

Aaron / Deering. Kuster 2012: http://www.kusterforcongress.com/

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by: nhveedub @ Tue Oct 11, 2011 at 13:52:13 PM UTC

Measuring tax change support? (4.00 / 1)

I don't know how to measure this.  At a 9/27 public forum sponsored, advertised and moderated by the moderators of Dublin, Jaffrey & Rindge, all 4 Cheshire County Republican reps said they would not take the pledge in 2012.  One of these reps said he would support a "proportionate" income tax if it displaced the property tax. (Another rep, who in my mind, personifies the worst of the tea party, said he wouldn't sign the pledge but it didn't matter because he would never vote for a tax increase.) Almost everyone in the audience (about 60 people) responded in the affirmative by rasing their hands when asked if they supported a state-wide income tax.  People are very angry about the cuts.  Likewise about unfair taxation and unfair distribution of income and wealth.  Can't we put these issues together?  I fear that ducking the state-wide tax issue will be worse for the electoral prospects of a Democrat running for Governor than a campaign that knits together all of these issues in a way that captures the anger that is out there.

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by: rames14779 @ Tue Oct 11, 2011 at 15:29:52 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

NH already has an income tax. (4.00 / 1)

It's based on the arbitrary value of my property, which is not an indicator of my wealth or ability to pay.  My property has never paid my tax; I pay my tax with my income.

I am in favor of a more fair method to determine wealth and ability to pay.  One that is fair to seniors who desire to maintain their independence and to young families just starting their lives.  

And one that is fair to the more than 27,000 millionaires in NH. http://finance.yahoo.com/real-...

In the immediate aftermath of Since the start of the financial crisis, the Fed/Treasury lent, spent, or guaranteed $28 $29 trillion to save the banking system.

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by: StraffordDem @ Tue Oct 11, 2011 at 14:22:36 PM UTC

Progressive are missing a golden opportunity... (0.00 / 0)

to make the property tax system work for them as an "aikido" move against the right - like the great progressive reformer Henry George did while running as the Labor Party candidate for NYC Mayor at the turn of the 19th century.

this has worked beautifully in Harrisburg PA - prior to their "tax shift" one of the most economically depressed cities in America

http://www.urbantoolsconsult.o...

they should be calling for a shift a "tax shift" - off of buildings and squarely onto socially created locational values with these three exemptions:

1. homestead exemption
2. open space exemption
3. elderly exemption that would be collected at title transfer upon death

today locational values are extremely undervalued in the urban core and property taxes are passed along to renters because our rental vacancy rates are so low.

the building of public infrastructure puts an extreme amount of development pressures on open space

this would super-charge the building of rental units where we need them - downtown (no tax on buildings portion and speculators would be penalized more severely for not putting vacant lots to use) - higher vacancy rates means that landlords can not pass the locational value portion along to tenants.

tenants living in NH would pay:

1. no property tax
2. no sales tax
3. no income tax

the building trades would experience a boom...

talk about helping out the poor!

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by: BeGreener @ Tue Oct 11, 2011 at 16:14:37 PM UTC

Sounds really interesting (0.00 / 0)

but I make a bet that "socially created locational values" would somehow translate into "socialism OMG!"

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by: Lucy Edwards @ Tue Oct 11, 2011 at 19:37:03 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

it just means... (0.00 / 0)

not created via the labor of the landowner.

so, if my neighbor improves his property via his labor - it becomes a positive locational value for me.

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by: BeGreener @ Tue Oct 11, 2011 at 22:30:28 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Won't matter what it really means, (0.00 / 0)

it has that word in it!  Remember, we are not arguing ideas with these people, they don't do ideas.  They do sound bites with scary words.

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by: Lucy Edwards @ Wed Oct 12, 2011 at 15:36:47 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

there's a big difference (4.00 / 1)

between refusing to take a pledge and advocating for an income tax. Blind allegiance to the failed policies of the past is no way to move into the future - and if the Democrats were smart, they'd be focusing on the future.  

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by: susanthe @ Tue Oct 11, 2011 at 18:37:38 PM UTC

However, (0.00 / 0)

we have people who insist on conflating the two, and they aren't all on the "other side."  

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by: Lucy Edwards @ Tue Oct 11, 2011 at 19:35:25 PM UTC

[ Parent ]