Explaining the incredible prosperity of New England in the colonial era and early American republic, Alexis de Tocqueville noted first that the people were left largely alone by the government. “It seemed as if New England was a region given up to the dreams of fancy and the unrestrained experiments of innovators. “The English colonies […]
New Hampshire is the most economically free state in the union, according to a report by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think tank. New Hampshire scored a 7.93 out of 10 in this year’s report, well above its New England neighbors and far above lowest-ranked New York (4.49), which placed last […]
A big argument for mandatory paid family leave is that it would help close the gender pay gap and level the playing field with men. Women who had access to paid leave would stay in their jobs and not derail their careers to care for newborns, the theory goes. Turns out, the opposite has happened […]
Last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Janus v. AFCSME triggered a 5.9% reduction in New Hampshire state employee union membership, state payroll data obtained by the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy show. The sudden drop reversed a years-long trend of rising union enrollment in state government. Prior to the Janus decision, New Hampshire […]
The business tax cuts that took effect this past January made New Hampshire more economically competitive, as supporters predicted, not less, as opponents suggested. New Hampshire rose one spot this year to post the sixth-best business tax climate in the nation, according to the Tax Foundation’s 2019 rankings. No other New England state ranks in […]
Economic development tax incentives continue to shrivel under the gaze of the green eye shades. Recent scandals involving these corporate welfare programs in Maryland and New Jersey offer cautionary tales for lawmakers tempted to join this money-losing game. On Thursday, an executive admitted to a New Jersey task force that his company’s application for that […]
Connecting younger audiences with the ideas that drive the capitalism vs. socialism debate is challenging. If done right, it can be fun, though. Here’s the latest effort from the American Institute for Economic Research: A rap battle between Karl Marx and Ludwig von Mises. Share it with your friends, boyee.
Last November, Ontario’s government scrapped rent controls for new rental properties. Activists called it class warfare against low-income renters and predicted huge rises in rents. “The class war fare (sic) launched by Doug Ford’s mean-spirited government continues. Their regressive policies including removal of rent control is going to make Toronto and Ontario less affordable and […]
Through a combination of one-time expenditures and increases in baseline formulas, the new state budget produces significant increases in education funding over the next two years. It is no wonder that state officials hailed the compromise as a windfall for public schools. The budget was built upon an education funding compromise that dramatically reduced the […]
Throughout 2019’s prolonged budget debate, two competing claims dominated the dispute over business tax rates. This week’s budget deal confirms conclusively which side was correct. For months, Democratic leaders in the Legislature claimed that their budget — the one Gov. Chris Sununu vetoed — “stabilized” business tax rates. The budget did not raise taxes, they […]