The grass is always greener, or so the saying goes.
But what if the grass in your neighbor’s yard wasn’t actually any more or less green, but rather a different kind of grass entirely – a species uniquely suited to your neighbor’s soil conditions, watering schedule and lawnmower height?
While it might be tempting to adopt whatever your neighbor is doing with his lawn and do the same thing in your yard, absent the perfect conditions described above you’re only setting yourself up for failure.
The circumstances noted above can also be applied to the overall state of the Massachusetts economy relative to its neighbors – particularly its Live Free or Die neighbor to the north.
A recent report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston sought to explain how New Hampshire – a state with a relatively healthy economy, strong growth prospects and an overall high quality of life – manages to succeed in a fiscal environment that shuns taxation and exhibits above-average Yankee frugality in terms of public spending. Indeed, New Hampshire politicians famously vow to forego imposing a sales or income tax in all forms before agreeing to take office.
In recent years, many on the right have used the Granite State as a shining example of low-tax, small-government policies at work. If it works there, it can work in larger states and on the federal level, too.
Well, not so fast, according to the Fed.
If the grass seems greener in New Hampshire, well, that’s only because New Hampshire is working within a strict set of political, economic and social circumstances and policies that works for its situation. In other words, the Fed found, what works for New Hampshire simply won’t – and shouldn’t be expected to – work in Massachusetts.
To wit: New Hampshire spends considerably less money on its public higher education efforts than Massachusetts. That’s to take nothing away from the University of New Hampshire, which is a fine school system by any account, but UNH isn’t expected to produce the kinds of Nobel Laureates that, say, UMass Medical School is. Ditto the Bay State’s enviable collection of public and semi-public state hospitals and care centers, which rank among the best in the world.
In the Bay State, we take pride in these institutions, as we should.
And because we take such pride in these top-flight systems, we fund them at a top-flight level. It costs Massachusetts hundreds of millions of dollars more per year than it costs New Hampshire, but to do any less would be doing Massachusetts a great disservice.
New Hampshire also spends considerably less on costly social service programs. But in a state with one of the lowest poverty rates in the country and among the highest per capita income, this is also to be expected. Largely rural, New Hampshire doesn’t have to deal with the complex and costly problems inherent in large urban centers like Boston and Worcester, or to a lesser extent Springfield, Brockton, Lowell or Lawrence.
And because New Hampshire makes conscious decisions to be so thrifty, one might argue its citizens suffer the effects. As a matter of policy, it is harder to qualify for Medicaid coverage up north than it is almost anywhere else in the country. Yes, that saves the state millions of dollars, but is it worth it in the numbers of single, working mothers that go without health coverage? Should we adopt the same principles here, just to save a few bucks? Would we let ourselves?
The point here is not to glorify New Hampshire at the expense of its neighbors, or vice versa. It’s often heard, for example, that “If only we were more like North Carolina, we’d get even more biotech jobs!” But if we were more like North Carolina – or New Hampshire or anywhere else – we’d be less like Massachusetts.
Sure, we have our problems, but so does everyone else. And few have our strengths. Instead of crying to “be more like them,” in other words, maybe it’s time to take pride in the fact that oftentimes, they want to be more like us.
