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By Michael Graham
Throughout a Zoom assembly hosted by the Josiah Bartlett Heart for Public Heart, NH Gov. Chris Sununu celebrated the Granite State’s success attracting folks and companies from high-tax states, however he has a message for brand new arrivals: Go away your politics on the border.
“The one factor I ask anyone after they come right here is, depart your politics [behind]. I do not care what conservative or liberal state you come from. Do not forget why you essentially got here right here. Take a while to have a look at our construction. Have a look at what ‘Dwell Free or Die’ is all about,” Sununu stated.
Sununu was answering a query from Andrew Cline, president of the free-market suppose tank, concerning the state’s technique to entice companies to come back to New Hampshire. In an article on the Bartlett Heart web site, he notes that New Hampshire has enjoyed the highest economic growth of any New England state, and grew considerably quicker than the nation as an entire.
On Tuesday came word the state’s unemployment rate dropped from 4.2 p.c to three.eight p.c in November, the primary time it is fallen beneath 4 p.c for the reason that starting of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak in March.
The pandemic has lit a hearth underneath us,” Sununu stated of the state’s recruiting efforts to carry new companies to the state. “Now we have a really, very aggressive marketing campaign happening throughout the nation proper now: California, Minneapolis, Boston and New York. We’re saying ‘You have heard the tales, now’s the time to come back to New Hampshire.'”
Some Granite Staters, significantly Republicans, have complained that folks fleeing excessive tax states like Massachusetts and New York are bringing their blue-state politics with them, undermining help for the “New Hampshire Benefit” insurance policies that made the state a pretty vacation spot. Census information present that in 2018, New Hampshire had 9,000 extra folks transfer in from Massachusetts than vice versa.
However slightly than making the state extra Bay State blue, these new arrivals have really tended to vote Republican. Border cities like Pelham, Salem and Londonderry have grow to be extra Republican over the previous twenty years thanks partially to right-leaning migrants from Massachusetts.
“Massachusetts has made the state extra Republican, largely shifting throughout the border into Rockingham County and border communities,” UNH political science professor Dr. Andy Smith tells NHJournal. Migration from the remainder of the Northeast has made the state extra Democrat. Individuals carry their politics with them.”
And other people are shifting to New Hampshire, significantly in comparison with the remainder of the area. It is the one state within the Northeast on the highest 10 “inbound” record, according to the latest Atlas Van Lines study. Each Connecticut and New York are on the highest 10 “outbound” record.
As well as, a 2019 UNH study found that “measured in opposition to 2016, greater than 20 p.c of potential New Hampshire [2020] voters are new to the state’s voters, making the voting inhabitants of the Granite State among the many most cellular in the USA.”
Whereas the “New Hampshire Benefit” is significant to the state’s financial well being, Sununu says, it is simply a part of a fancy public coverage puzzle. “Telling a enterprise proprietor ‘Transfer to New Hampshire, you will not pay any taxes on earnings’ is sweet, however what about enterprise taxes? What about vitality prices? Now we have to work exhausting to maintain New Hampshire a spot folks wish to come to,” Sununu stated.
Sununu has made reductions within the state’s enterprise taxes one in all his priorities within the upcoming legislative session, and the brand new GOP majority seems to be on board. Performing Speaker of the Home Sherman Packard (R-Londonderry) told NHJournal he desires to advance recently-deceased Speaker Dick Hinch’s legislative agenda in 2021, an agenda that features enterprise tax cuts.
This story was initially printed by the NH Journal, an internet information publication devoted to offering truthful, unbiased reporting on, and evaluation of, political information of curiosity to New Hampshire. For extra tales from the NH Journal, go to NHJournal.com.
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