By Sen. Jeb Bradley and Sen Sharon Carson
Rising prices nationwide have made life challenging for Granite State families. That’s why in 2023, we passed a budget that protects New Hampshire families, small businesses, and our state’s economy from new and higher taxes while prioritizing spending on our state’s most vulnerable populations and increasing education funding.
The 2024 legislative session will focus on keeping New Hampshire affordable and protecting Granite Stater’s wallets, while also keeping our state the safest in the nation, empowering our parents, and providing more opportunities for affordable housing.
Republican policies have lowered business tax rates, strengthened our economy, and produced budget surpluses. This year, we will protect business tax cuts, and block policies that would hurt workers and drive-up costs for our small businesses. We will always fight to preserve the New Hampshire Advantage by opposing an income tax, a sales tax, a capital gains tax and the return of divisive donor towns.
We will also continue our efforts to lower property taxes. In the 2021-2022 session we provided $500 million to cities and towns, public schools and counties. In the 2023 budget we increased education funding by $169 million, dedicated $260 million of the Rooms and Meals Tax Revenue to cities and towns, and over $50 million to local water projects, roads, and bridges.
Given this sound fiscal management, it’s no accident that New Hampshire has the lowest poverty rate in the nation, 3rd lowest unemployment rate, the 8th highest median family income, and is ranked #1 for economic freedom!
In New Hampshire, we also see the results of open border policies as drugs flow across the southern and northern border to every community in the state. We have thankfully avoided much of the crime wave gripping the nation because New Hampshire has not defunded the police which is why we are the safest state in the nation. We will continue to focus on public safety by introducing bills to keep drugs and crime off the streets, instituting bail reform to ensure violent repeat offenders are seen by a judge before being released, and strengthening penalties for DWIs.
According to the Northern Border Alliance Task Force, 7,000 illegal interactions occurred across the northern borders of New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire this year which increased by nearly 5,000 interactions from last year. That is why we allocated $1.4 million to the Northern Border Alliance. It’s imperative to guard our northern border so we can prevent drug smuggling and human trafficking into our state.
We will be fighting for a Parental Bill of Rights to ensure parents know what children are doing in school, including keeping parents informed and involved in decisions regarding their children’s health care and mental health treatment. We will protect educational opportunities for children, Education Savings Accounts, and school choice.
An activist judge recently mandated spending an additional $535 million for education funding, ignoring our just-approved Student-Centered Education Funding Formula which increased state aid by $169 million in this budget and by 31% per pupil over the next decade. This ruling would force communities to send excess Statewide Education Property Tax to the state, creating donor towns. Increasing spending by this much would require a broad-based sales tax, income tax, return of donor towns, or all of the above. The legislature is elected to set education funding in New Hampshire; not a single judge. Senate Republicans will fight this overreach.
Finding affordable housing is not only a challenge for New Hampshire families, but an obstacle to our state’s economic well-being. Building more affordable workforce housing is critical as well as supporting programs to combat homelessness. Republicans plan to address this issue by doubling dedicated funding for the Affordable Housing Fund and making it easier for people to find housing in our state.
There is more to do in Concord to help Granite Staters succeed. Republicans will continue to fight for you so that we have the most affordable, safest, and freest state in the nation. We will continue to protect our wallets, safeguard our communities, and empower our parents. This conservative, commonsense plan will further opportunities for all Granite Staters across our great state.
Senate President Jeb Bradley (R-Wolfeboro) represents Senate District 3.
Senate Majority Leader Sharon Carson (R-Londonderry) represents Senate District 14
