My speech on May 16, to the NH House on amending the constitution regarding a state-wide income tax.
For over 200 years, New Hampshire has thrived as a state.
Every two years, we come together as a legislature and pass a balanced budget to keep our state running for the next biennium. The amount of spending will change, the things we fund will change, and the way we raise revenue will change. But no matter what, the budget that we pass into law is balanced.
That concept of a balanced budget is so ingrained in our state’s culture that many people think it’s required by our Constitution. It’s not. It’s simply a statutory requirement in RSA 9. So, for over two centuries, New Hampshire has enacted a balanced budget every term despite no constitutional provision requiring us to do so.
We’ve managed to balance our budgets for over 200 years without an income tax and have done so in this very room because we listen to the voters.
Now does that mean we’ve always done it right? I don’t think we have. Some of the decisions that this legislature has made in recent years have set our state and our constituents back.
Cuts to business taxes over the past decade have shifted more than a billion dollars of the tax burden onto property taxpayers. Other changes to tax policy that benefit the wealthy have shifted the burden even further. Our constituents understand that what we’ve been doing isn’t working for them and isn’t a sustainable strategy.
Granite Staters DO NOT want an income tax. I know that from talking to my constituents in Greenland and Rye, and former constituents in Barrington and Newington. Opinion polls consistently tell us the same thing. So, if the people don’t want an income tax, do they also think the Constitution needs to be amended to ban one?
The public hearing on this amendment was telling. Despite a month of promotion in the press and on social media, public turnout at the hearing was minimal. Most of the people who showed up to speak in support of the amendment are sitting in this room right now or on the other side of the wall. Of the sixteen members of the public who spoke at the hearing, nine were in support of the amendment and seven were against. Among those who registered their opinion online, opponents of this amendment outnumbered supporters by hundreds.
So why the push for this now? That’s a great question.
Last fall, members of this body filed over 800 bills for the legislature to consider in the 2026 session. This proposal was not one of them. It showed up as a nongermane amendment to a Senate bill a month ago.
Amending the constitution is a big deal and should require a high bar. Based on the rhetoric I’ve heard surrounding this CACR, you’d think we pass every Constitutional Amendment onto the voters because it’s simply the right thing to do. “Just let the people decide.”
We all know that’s not how it actually works. We’ve taken up 24 Constitutional Amendment proposals in the House alone this year. On subjects ranging from the right to fish to the right to vote. And the only one of those 24 amendments that we’ve seen fit to pass onto the voters is one eliminating the Register of Probate.
So here we are, considering our 25th Constitutional Amendment of the year, CACR 12. A proposal that may be new to us but also resembles amendments this body rejected in 2019 and 2021.
Amending the constitution to ban a tax that doesn’t exist will do nothing to reduce the burden of property taxes and the rising cost of essentials like food, housing, and childcare that voters are repeatedly voicing today.
This amendment is poorly written, unnecessary, and performative. I urge my colleagues to press the RED button to defeat this motion.
On a roll-call vote, the motion failed to meet the threshold needed to be place don the ballot.