An inquiry (primarily) for still independent/undecided voters

[airiefairie]

With less than a week remaining until the voting stations are opened, and America picks up the lesser among two evils ... the next Antichrist ... the guy who will shortly preside until the impending Mayan apocalypse, here is a question that has been torturing this blonde head recently... not letting me sleep at night, constantly wondering. So far I

Comments

[a_new_machine]

Man, I thought I was undecided/independent, but after reviewing all the local races, I think I should just register as a Democrat and call it a day. I just do not understand the modern Republican party.

[nairiporter]

Why, what is going on over there?

[a_new_machine]

Priorities are screwed up, nobody understands investment. Basically the Republicans in my state want to drastically cut spending on everything, despite my state's terrible infrastructure. We're living on things that our grandparents build in the '50s and hoping they keep up for another decade. There's also the "tax pledge" that promises not to institute a sales or income tax. Not that they won't raise taxes - just that they'll avoid broad-based taxes that are more resilient to economic swings. Instead, we have a state-wide property tax, high business taxes (which defeats the claim that our tax structure is better for business), and high hospitality taxes, despite hospitality being a big service in the state, and heavy competition from surrounding states (we basically remove our hospitality advantage by having that tax instead of a general sales tax

[nairiporter]

This all sounds so terribly messed up. Three questions. Which state is that? Why do you think they are doing all this? And has the situation passed a point beyond which there is no repair?

[a_new_machine]

1.) New Hampshire

2.) It's just the local culture. We're a very libertarian state, overall, and we've had an influx of libertarian individuals and ideology over the past decade or so since the Free State Project decided to shine a beacon to both legitimate libertarians and crazy tax-dodging conspiracy theorists and invite them to invade our too-permeable democratic structures. NH, a state of some 1.8 million people, has the third biggest legislature in the English-speaking world, behind the US Congress and the Indian parliament

[peristaltor]

Yeah, very few appreciate the underhanded evil that is Grover Nordquist.

[a_new_machine]

Oh, our Tax Pledge is different. You can raise taxes, just don't institute a broad-based tax like an income or sales tax. NH has a very unique culture when it comes to this stuff.

[a_new_machine]

Yeah, Resolution 13. It's pretty silly.