Assumptions:

1. Salaries constitute 70% of total school budgets.

2. NHRS costs the district 20% of each salary.

3. Before 1977 the state subsidized 40% of each teacher salary.

70% × 20% × 40% = 5.6%

That means when the Republican house, and senate, and the Democratic Governor completely eliminated the state pension subsidy in 2011–12, they shifted a cost equal to roughly 5.6% of the entire school budget onto local property taxpayers.

Not a one-time hit. A permanent increase.

New Hampshire’s pension system is backwards. Teachers and taxpayers are paying enormous amounts into the system, but most teachers retire with fairly small pensions. Tier 1 teachers contribute 7% of their pay and taxpayers contribute another 19%, yet the average teacher pension is only about $23,441 per year. Teachers also have strict limits on what counts toward retirement. Only salary, stipends, and approved extra duties like coaching or summer school can be included in pension calculations. Teachers used to get a 2.5% multiplier per year, but, like most other things, the boomers pulled up the ladder behind them.

Meanwhile, police and firefighters operate under much more generous rules. Tier 2 public safety employees contribute 11.8% of pay, while taxpayers contribute an incredible 29% of salary on top of that. Their pensions can include overtime, unused vacation payouts, details, and extra duty pay, allowing some employees to dramatically increase their pensions in their final working years. Average police pensions are nearly $40,000, firefighters average nearly $45,000, and the system’s top pension recipient collects over $202,000 every year. Many of these legacy pensioners end up double dipping, and getting another job after they retire. Of course, the rules have been tightened up for new recruits. Mostly boomers are getting the crazy high pensions with spiked overtime and duty years.

Taxpayers are getting fleeced. We are not building reasonable retirements for today’s public employees. Instead, taxpayers are being forced to make massive retirement contributions to support legacy pension costs and a small number of extremely large pensions for mostly boomers. Most workers are paying heavily into a system that will never deliver benefits anywhere close to what they are funding.

Under NHRS your average teacher serving 30 years will retire with about a $70k annual pension. The public and teacher combined will have contributed about $1,000,000.

Put that $1,000,000 into a 401k and the teacher would retire with $105k annually based on the past 20 year average returns.

Seeing Mamdani increase taxes on the wealthy so that he can balance NYC's budget without raising property taxes got me thinking about our problems here in New Hampshire.

For decades, New Hampshire politics has been dominated by anti-tax, anti-government ideology built around the promise that if we keep taxes low for wealthy people and starve public investment, prosperity will somehow “trickle down” to everyone else.

The evidence says the opposite.

Since World War II, 10 of the last 11 recessions began under Republican presidents.

Since 1961:

• GDP growth has been roughly 45% higher under Democratic presidents.
• Business investment growth has been 134% higher under Democratic presidents.
• More than twice as many jobs per year have been created under Democratic presidents.
• Budget deficits as a percentage of GDP have been substantially worse under Republican presidents.
• Weekly earnings growth has been positive under Democratic presidents and negative under Republican presidents.

The whole “small government libertarian economics” experiment does not produce stronger economies. It produces underinvestment, crumbling infrastructure, housing shortages, weak public services, and eventually economic decline.

And honestly, New Hampshire is heading directly into that wall.

We rank near the bottom nationally in state support for public higher education. Tuition keeps climbing while young people leave the state because wages do not match housing costs. Local property taxes carry far too much of the burden for public education because the state refuses to contribute enough. Meanwhile, we subsidize wealthy familes so they can send their kids to private religious institutions. The least religious state in the Union and they decided we need to subsidize religious schools?!

This is not fiscal conservatism. It is long-term economic self-destruction.

If New Hampshire actually wants a competitive economy 20 years from now, we need to start acting like a state that believes in investing in itself.

That means:

• Increasing state funding for public education so local property taxes are not carrying everything.
• Dramatically increasing investment in the University System of New Hampshire and community colleges.
• Ending public subsidies and preferential treatment for wealthy private and religious education systems.
• Raising taxes on the wealthy instead of squeezing working families through property taxes and fees.
• Massive investment in housing construction, transit, water systems, roads, broadband, and energy infrastructure.
• Modernizing state government instead of pretending a 1700s political structure still works in a modern economy.

New Hampshire has 400 House members and one of the largest legislative bodies in the world. They are paid only $100 per year. That system does not create “citizen legislators.” It creates a legislature dominated by retirees, extremists, the wealthy, and people with flexible incomes who can afford to “work” for free.

If we want competent governance, we should:

• Reduce the number of representatives.
• Pay them a real living wage.
• Expect professionalism and accountability in return.

A modern economy requires a functioning state.

The states and countries that are winning economically are not the ones hollowing out government on behalf of billionaires. Free Staters and Trump supporters were praising Argentina’s Javier Milei a year ago. Elon Musk copied Milei’s chainsaw stunt. Look at Argentina today. Look at the DOGE cuts today. Remember Ayotte forming an “NH DOGE”? How did that work out?

Successful states invest in education, infrastructure, housing, transportation, and public institutions. Under Republican and Free Stater leadership, New Hampshire has been starving everything through austerity.

Last I checked, New Hampshire was geographically a proud New England state. Yet many of our elected officials are importing policies straight from the South States that made up the the Confederacy. We already fought that battle once. Why are we importing RSAs and policies from the confederacy?

“Government is the problem” sounded clever in the 1980s. In 2026 it has resulted in extreme wealth inequality, an unrepresentative government, a K-shaped economy, debt higher than GDP, corruption, unaffordable college, and an economy inaccessible to young people who were not born wealthy.

New Hampshire cannot cut and deregulate its way into the future.

This November, it is time to retire Republican rule and start rebuilding the state.

1^(st): LOWEST State Contribution to K-12 Education

1^(st): LOWEST State Contribution for In-State College Education

1^(st): HIGHEST Cost of Healthcare

1^(st): OLDEST average age legislature

2^(nd): HIGHEST cost of a college education

2^(nd): HIGHEST median age

8^(th): HIGHEST electricity rates

11^(th): HIGHEST state and local tax burden for lowest 20% income earners in NH. (8.9% of their income)

15^(th): LEAST affordable state to live in

24th: private sector pay

40^(th): WORST housing affordability

44^(th): WORST cost of living

50^(th): LOWEST state and local tax burden for the richest 20% income earners in NH. (2.8% of their income)