7 Days to Go: Bringing Down Property Taxes
With just seven days until the primary, I am using each day to discuss an issue I have highlighted on the campaign trail. For Day 7, I am highlighting the need to lower property taxes for Granite Staters.
Everything costs more under Donald Trump’s leadership.
Gas. Groceries. Childcare. Healthcare. Housing. You name it. So the last thing Granite Staters need is to also be crushed by sky-high property taxes.
Unfortunately, Granite Staters don’t have the partners we need in Concord or in Washington to bring them down. We deserve so much better.
We need courageous leaders in Concord and Washington to keep the needs of working families in mind when making decisions about our future. That’s what I’m running for Congress to do.
Last fall, after Hampton’s reassessment, hundreds of residents packed the basement of the town hall where I chair the Select Board to talk about their property tax horror stories.
We heard from a retiree who lives in a mobile home and can’t afford to pay an additional thousand dollars a year on her tax bill, and a neighbor who had to choose between paying for his heating oil and his property taxes.
I hear stories like this all the time on the campaign trail, but it shouldn't be this way.
Do you want to know one area where we can make a sizable difference in bringing down property taxes? Public Education.
New Hampshire ranks dead last in state funding for public schools. When the federal government cuts funding, the costs don’t just disappear. They land on towns, and towns push them onto families through higher property taxes.
Here’s where it gets specific: Congress passed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act over fifty years ago and promised to cover 40% of special education costs. It’s never come close to doing that.
Special education is now one of the single largest cost drivers in local school budgets, and these costs are federally mandated and almost entirely paid by local property taxpayers.
Granite Staters are tired of paying higher property taxes because our leaders pass laws and then pass the buck. Our budget in Hampton just failed for the second time in four years because residents can’t take another increase.
That’s why when I get to Congress, I’m going to fight to fully fund IDEA and provide federal funding for critical local infrastructure programs so we can bring down property taxes.
We’re paying more in New Hampshire while getting less because of the choices that our leaders in the statehouse and in Congress are making.
