To understand whether the people moving to New Hampshire are statists or not, one must have an idea on who the statists in Massachusetts are.
Initiative petitions (ballot questions, which are not always initiative petitions, some times the legislature will throw one on there) have shown a varying degree of non statist sentiment from the entire population of Massachusetts. In 1998 59% of the population voted to reduce the state income tax from 5.85% to 5% (the value it had been before the late 80s fiscal meltdown). Several times ballot questions to introduce a graduated income tax have failed.
For a legislative constitutional amendment to be adopted a majority of ballots cast must be yes. For an initiative petition to pass 30% of the voters must cast yes ballots, and the yes ballots must outnumber the no ballots. So 32% yes, 25% no, 45% blank would pass an initiative petition.
The first was a Legislative constitutional amendment in 1962. It failed with 277,611 yes, and 1,395,996 no, with 470,444 blank ballots. That's 13% yes, 65% no, 22% didn't care. Or
In 1968 they came back again, this time 543,772 voted yes, 1,290,303 voted no, and 513,930 left it blank. 23% to 55% to 19%.
In 1976 they went back to the well. 645,483 yes, 1,787,302 no, and 211,477 couldn't decide. 24% to 68% to only 8%.
In 1980 Prop 2/1 (ballot question 2) to limit property tax increases to 2.5% a year was passed 1,438,768 yes, to 988,839 no, with 129,060 blank. 56% to 40% to 5%. This came in after the huge inflation in the 70s was causing property tax to go up something on the order of 17% or even more a year.
Come 1994, this time it's not a legislative amendment, it's an initiative petition for a constitutional amendment (The statists couldn't get the legislature to stick it on, so they collected signatures of the other statists). It went down 630,694 yes to 1,442,404 no, with 159,108 blank. Or 28% to 65% to 7%.
In 1998, among other things, an initiative petition to reduce the tax on interest and dividends from the then 12% to be the same as the tax rate on normal income passed 1,395,599 yes to 309,416 no with 230,262 blank. Or 72% yes, 16% no, 12% didn't care. Short term capital gains remained taxed at 12%.
In 2002 an initiative petition led by the libertarian candidate for governor to eliminate the income tax entirely went down 885,683 yes to 1,070,668 no with 263,950 blanks. 39.89% yes, 48.22% no, 11.89% blank.
The best measure of statism, at least in my opinion, is who is willing to vote for a tax INCREASE. Not voting for a decrease is merely someone happy with the status quo, and not necessarily a statist sentiment. Back in 1962 only a mere 13% of the voters were expressing a very statist sentiment.
By 1994 it had climbed to 28%. Who are these 28%? Some are bleeding heart modern liberals, to be sure. I'm sure among them are the 1,433 who have elected to pay taxes at the 5.85% rate for the 2002 filing year. Others have no real job, they rely on state handouts, and since they're not paying in, the more the rest of us pay in, the more the state can hand out to them. Then there are those making so little the graduated income tax would not effect them, and they believe in sticking it to the rich guy, because surely they're not paying enough. These people generally don't anticipate doing well enough to bump themselves into the next tax bracket. They may also be relying on state assistance. The safety hammock isn't as comfortable in New Hampshire, they're not effected by the Massachusetts income tax, and if they live near the New Hampshire border they can shop there without having to move there. They have little incentive to move to New Hampshire.
The last main group, and the most powerful segment of the gimmie lobby are the state workers, unions, and their families. The represent a huge block of voters on the state and local level. Politicians fear them, because if you do something against the police department, not only will every member of the police department and their extended families block vote against that politician, but all the fellow unions will join in for support, and their extended families, and the state workers and their families will most likely help out too. In some towns in Massachusetts this can be nearly 50% if not over of the vote right there.
The good thing about this horrible situation for Massachusetts is that these people aren't tremendously mobile. To keep their power to maintain and improve their retirement packages they have to be Massachusetts voters. Which means they can't move to New Hampshire and expect to wield the same influence.
