Taxes, New Hampshire, and Vermont

As I've mentioned in the past, I think one of the greatest things about New Hampshire is the fact that our government does not have recourse to broad-based taxes, like a sales or an income tax. It means that our government can't just tweak a rate by .25% or .5% to get more revenue, and in so doing get used to thinking of citizens as piggy banks.

The liberal line on the state, however, has long been that our resistance to broad-based taxes has been our stumbling block in 'solving' our education funding crisis (to recap: the latest ruling from the New Hampshire Supreme Court said the Legislature has until June 30, 2007 to come up with a solution on how to fund education - or the courts will design one for them. Most Republicans [me included] think this means the imposition of some kind of broad-based state tax, be it an income or a sales tax).

Well! As fate would have it, I spent a bit of time in Vermont these days. The Green Mountain State has both a sales and an income tax. But what's this? It seems that, despite the plethora of taxes, the education funding problem is no better in Vermont:

The Vermont League of Cities and Towns voted Thursday to recommend repeal of the laws that govern the way the state pays for schools -- including Act 60, the landmark 1997 reform law passed in the wake of the Vermont Supreme Court's condemnation of previous funding schemes... The repeal recommendation included guidelines about a replacement system. Less reliance on the property tax should be a priority, League members said.

This Granite Stater has to chuckle. Far from solving their problems by levying broad-based taxes, the state of Vermont is in the same dilemma. With one exception: their taxes are a lot higher and their median incomes are a lot lower.