New Hampshire House Majority Leader Jason Osborne has an op-ed in the New Hampshire Union Leader laying out three occasions this year when Democrats in Concord worked to keep tax questions away from voters. He points to the effort to table House Bill 1300, the school property tax cap question now headed to the November ballot, along with two constitutional amendments that would have let citizens vote on banning an income tax. His argument is that Republicans trust voters with those decisions and Democrats do not.
Osborne begins with what HB 1300 actually does:
House Bill 1300 gives voters in every community the opportunity to decide whether to limit growth in local school property taxes, with adjustments for inflation and new construction. It also limits central-office administrative spending. Under the law, the cap only takes effect if three-fifths of voters in a town approve it. The decision belongs to the voters.
the New Hampshire Union Leader
The bill survived an attempt to table it, and Osborne notes how it became law:
Democrats lost, the bill passed, and Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed it into law, placing the tax cap question on the ballot for November.
the New Hampshire Union Leader
He then turns to the income tax amendments, starting with the one he sponsored in March:
In March, I offered an amendment to CACR 10 that would have constitutionally prohibited New Hampshire from imposing a new personal income tax.
the New Hampshire Union Leader
A second amendment met the same fate two months later, and Osborne gives the vote count:
In May, CACR 12 would have prohibited taxes on wages and individual income. The vote was 193-148. Only four Democrats voted yes; the rest of the Democratic caucus voted no. Once again, a clear majority supported letting citizens vote to ban an income tax. Once again, Democrats used the three-fifths requirement to keep the question off your ballot.
the New Hampshire Union Leader
Osborne frames the contrast between the two parties in terms of who holds the leash on spending, writing in the Union Leader:
Tax caps and constitutional protections put guardrails around politicians. Democrats see those guardrails as obstacles to their tax-and-spend agenda.
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He closes on the principle at stake for voters this November, arguing that self-government means trusting citizens:
A party that respects voters does not need to shield them from difficult questions.
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With the school property tax cap question on the ballot in every community this November, Granite Staters will get the direct say on local school taxes that Osborne and House Republicans fought to give them.
Read the full story at the New Hampshire Union Leader.
