Bartlett Brief: Minimum wage increases hurt the lowest-skilled workers Legislators on Thursday are preparing to vote on bills to mandate that employers raise wages to levels some politicians find morally appealing. These mandates will hurt the lowest-skilled workers. They also have the potential to raise costs for consumers and taxpayers. House Bill 186 would […]
Serious misunderstandings about the state’s Education Tax Credit Program seem to be driving the effort to eliminate it. At least, they’re driving the narrative behind that effort. Misconceptions are so pervasive that legislators are repeating them in public statements. Experienced drivers know that it’s dangerous if even a few people wind up going the wrong […]
The odds that legislators will vote to raise New Hampshire’s minimum wage this year are significantly better than the odds that sitting through next year’s Super Bowl halftime show will be more entertaining than going to the kitchen for more nachos. Why? Ideas like this, as expressed by Rep. Howard Moffett, D-Canterbury: “If there is […]
Sign up for our e-newsletter by Feb. 21 for a chance to win a $100 Murphy’s Taproom gift card! Socialism is gaining popularity in the United States. And we’re here to fight back… with beer. Each Friday we publish a free-market e-newsletter called The Broadside. Sign up for The Broadside using the form below — […]
Senate Democrats unveiled their paid family and medical leave bill this week, and the big question was: Why? The reasons given — that it will be a job recruitment tool and a family benefit — were hardly enough to justify its cost. The bill’s fiscal note predicts that the mandatory 0.5 percent tax would raise […]
In the last legislative session, this newsletter warned about the dangerous precedent legislators would set if they passed a tax incentive package tailored for a specific industry, in this case a single company, Manchester’s Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute (ARMI). New Hampshire doesn’t do industrial tax incentives, we warned, and if the state starts, other industries […]
Two New Hampshire state employees on Monday filed a federal class action suit against the State Employees Association (SEA) to recoup fees non-member employees were forced to pay the union. Plaintiffs Patrick Doughty and Randy Severance hope to compel the SEA, a chapter of the Service Employees International Union, to repay all so-called “agency fees” […]
If foreigners dispersed throughout the United States a poison that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans, and drug makers had a safe, easy-to-administer antidote, would the federal government dare restrict its distribution? It’s an easy answer — because just that scenario is happening right now. Drug overdoses are poisonings (they’re officially classified as such). The […]
If it weren’t for the expectation (among modern governors) that modern governors must use state-of-the-state addresses to excite the populace with a list of flashy new policy proposals, Gov. Chris Sununu could have simply read excerpts from the state’s recent Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, released December 27. We quote a few key passages below. “In […]
The incoming chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee wants New Hampshire to go from having the second-lowest corporate tax rate in New England to the second-highest (based on Tax Foundation rankings). The incoming House speaker initially expressed opposition to the idea, only to backtrack in an interview with the New Hampshire Union Leader. […]