Michael Kitch

The residents of New Hampshire earn among the highest incomes and pay the very lowest taxes in the United States. The most recent census found that both our median family income, at $49,509, and our per capita disposable personal income, at $26,732, placed us as the sixth most affluent state in the country.

Governing Magazine recently reported that our state taxes represent 4.2 percent of personal income and our state and local taxes together 8.8 percent of personal income, both the lowest of all the states.

During the past three decades, the growth of our state government has lagged behind the expansion of the state economy. After tracking increases in the state operating budget and the gross state product, the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies found that as a portion of the state economy, state spending has shrunk from 3 percent in 1973 to 2.25 percent in 2003.

Not surprisingly, last week the so-called Free State Movement, a group championing minimal government, announced that it expected 20,000 of its number to move to New Hampshire during the next two years. Apparently they concluded that our state government was small enough that they would be able to pare it down to the size of their liking in time to enjoy it in their lifetimes.

But, judging from the latest pronouncement by Governor Craig Benson, apparently all is not well with the "New Hampshire Advantage." The governor has called for a Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, a constitutional amendment that would limit increases in state spending to the rates of price inflation and population growth and require a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to raise the rate of any state tax.

Ignoring our fiscal record and economic performance, Benson claims the constitutional amendment is "a fiscally responsible approach to keeping state spending in check" and "the only way to ensure economic expansion and prosperity." Whatever happened to "if it ain't broke don't fix it?"

Although the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights is fiscally unnecessary, it is a political imperative, the newest ploy in the New Hampshire Republican Party's long history of gulling voters into picturing themselves as hapless paupers groaning under the weight of a bloated government and onerous taxes, and fearful their plight will only get worse. Ever since Benson announced his candidacy, he has presented himself as an "entrepreneur," a "change agent," who would start "with a blank sheet of paper" and turn government inside out and upside down. In fact, he is a staunch defender of the status quo, who owes his election to popular fear of change and his pledge to resist it.

Benson and his party cannot let that fear of change abate, but must constantly stoke and kindle it to ensure their ascendancy. The Taxpayer's Bill of Rights rests on the premise that without it state government would spend like a drunken sailor and tax like an Oriental despot. It is intended less as a measure of fiscal management than as a means of perpetuating fear and distrust of state government.

Never mind that government spending is limited and state taxes are low. Never mind that not a dollar has been spent or tax levied in New Hampshire since Lee offered his sword to Grant without the blessing of a Republican legislature and Republican governor. The more senseless and shadowy the fear, the tighter its grip and the more profound its impact. Fear paralyzes. And there is no better way to sustain the status quo than to induce paralysis in the body politic.

There is something puritanical about the political culture fostered by Republican rhetoric and rule in New Hampshire. The "New Hampshire Advantage," rooted in our limited government and low taxes, expresses our superiority to other states. In a nation beset by profligate and corrupt governance, New Hampshire is touted as a "city on the hill," endowed with all the virtues of a genuine republic, uniquely qualified to cull the presidential herd. Meanwhile, there is an apple on the tree and a snake in the garden. The righteous are relentlessly tempted. Occasionally Lucifer himself appears in the guise of an Arnie Arnesen or Mark Fernald to lend credence to the dire prophecies of our political prelates. But, more often passivity prevails.

Then we must be reminded of the presence of evil and dangers of temptation. And so, not long after a Democratic governor exorcised the demons that possessed a Republican legislature to embrace an income tax, Benson offers his Taxpayer's Bill of Rights to rekindle the fear of change to which he owes his office.