When Dems Say It's Not a Tax ... It's Definitely a Tax
Like most large states with vast rural areas, the cities, peopled with hordes of proglodytes, often decide statewide and federal elections. The State of Maine is a recent victim of this. It is in decline. Democrat decline. A condition as predictable as the inevitable deterioration of a body suffering from incurable disease. Democrats have one plan, and it wrecks everything they touch.
It is also expensive. No amount of your money is enough or too much to fund their projects, plans, and provisos, so taxation pursues it the way thunder follows lightning. Where there are Democrats, there is increased spending, and someone has to pay for it.
Oddly enough, despite efforts to make it patriotic, the words tax, taxes, and taxation still rub people the wrong way. So much so that the spenders try to call it something else. Maine passed Paid Family Leave, which is another backdoor effort to establish government-managed and funded cradle-to-grave ‘care.’ It is more nibbling at the edges until they can swallow the whole health industrial complex. And despite having the word “paid” in the name, some folks might be alarmed to learn that paying for it will require a new tax.
In less than a month, Mainers will see their paychecks go down slightly to help pay for Maine's new paid family medical leave program.
Notice what’s missing? The word “tax." That is the approved narrative at work. When New Hampshire tried to pass Paid Family Leave, proponents tried to exclude public employees from the tax, and it wasn’t a tax. It was “a premium that is calculated on your earned wages." The Dems convinced a Freshman State House Rep to say this before the entire chamber, recorded and saved (here) for posterity.
“I just want to start with one point of clarification. Throughout this entire process, there has been a lot of talk about income taxes. I’m not an economist. But I believe by, in point of fact, by the definition of an income tax, which is that it taxes your income, this is not an income tax. Just, just want to put that out there.
It is a premium that is calculated on your earned wages. Wages are certainly part of your income. But there’s a lot more that goes into your income. Uh, again, not an economist but, this is the way I like to think.”
The New Hampshire version would have added a 0.5% reduction by force of law to what employers paid employees. New Hampshire doesn’t tax an employee’s check directly. It taxes employers’ payroll expenses. If you add 0.5% to what you take, it is an additional tax on income.
The words “income tax” and “broad-based tax” are a third rail in New Hampshire politics. And while most Democrats pander to the notion that they won’t ask for, vote for, or sign one into law, they all want one because there is no other way to pay for all the spending they have to have.
Recent efforts at statewide tax schemes have focused on “reducing local property taxes.” Property taxes ARE high (because of bloated school budgets), but the overall tax burden in New Hampshire is consistently one of the lowest in the nation. That is thanks to property taxes, no sales taxes, and limited taxes on income, one of which was repealed and goes to zero on January 1, 2025. The simplest rebuttal to the lowering property tax lie is that you can’t lower taxes and increase spending, and you will always increase spending.
There is no version of Democrat majority rule where the government gets smaller or spending goes down. Nor is there one with a hard stop. There is no such thing as enough, even if you can’t earn enough to pay for it. As I write this, Vermont suffers from severe side effects of Democrat majority rule, and Maine is headed there.
Thanks to the 2024 Republican sweep of the November elections (state races, not federal), the Granite State can expect at least some attempt at frugality for two more years. However, we’ll have to fight hard to keep it in 2026, and if we don’t, we’ll join the rest of New England on that slippery slope where the government taking more money out of your paycheck isn’t a tax on income.
Unless, of course, they somehow managed significant majorities, in which case paying more taxes will once again become your patriotic duty.