Littleton, NH

**jackstraw** · 01-14-2022, 09:54 AM

Maine and VT have legal weed...and MA and Canada. We're surrounded but have a governor with his head up his ass. NH is a fucked up state in many ways, don't kid yourselves.

**Self Jupiter** · 01-14-2022, 10:02 AM

can’t Live Free with legal weed

**riser4** · 01-14-2022, 10:21 AM

Originally Posted by jackstraw

Maine and VT have legal weed...and MA and Canada. We're surrounded but have a governor with his head up his ass. NH is a fucked up state in many ways, don't kid yourselves.

Ya, that's why all things considered I prefer VT. So far. ME would be my second choice. Heck, of the six New England States, NH ranks seventh on my places I'd choose to live when restricted to those six. I'd check out the Upstate before NH. The funny thing about VT legal weed is that is the policy I would expect from NH: rugged individualism so you can grow your own, but can't sell it, buy it, gift it, or trade it.

**jackstraw** · 01-14-2022, 10:38 AM

Yeah, I grew up here. I left then came back and was around for my parents in their later years. If I was to move back east right now, I'd most likely head to Maine. My wife needs to be on the coast, so the greater Portland area is where I'd land. Portland is cool city, not that I want to be in it, but having quick access is nice. You have an airport...that doesn't really fly anywhere

but you have one and Boston isn't a terrible trip right down 95.

NH schools do the best they can but are grossly underfunded. We generate our revenue from business taxes, property taxes, butts!, and State run alcohol sales. Even bars have to buy from the State. Our short small highways rape you on tolls. We'll never have a sales or income tax, but probably should have small one. A weed tax would certainly help...if we sold it.

**riser4** · 01-14-2022, 10:48 AM

Originally Posted by jackstraw

Yeah, I grew up here. I left then came back and was around for my parents in their later years. If I was to move back east right now, I'd most likely head to Maine. My wife needs to be on the coast, so the greater Portland area is where I'd land. Portland is cool city, not that I want to be in it, but having quick access is nice. You have an airport...that doesn't really fly anywhere

but you have one and Boston isn't a terrible trip right down 95.

NH schools do the best they can but are grossly underfunded. We generate our revenue from business taxes, property taxes, butts!, and State run alcohol sales. Even bars have to buy from the State. Our short small highways rape you on tolls. We'll never have a sales or income tax, but probably should have small one. A weed tax would certainly help...if we sold it.

Downeaster to North Station FTW.

**cinnepa** · 01-14-2022, 10:49 AM

^^^we like maine, but isn't ski access not the most convenient?

**buttahflake** · 01-14-2022, 11:03 AM

You would rather live in CT than NH? That’s fucking dumb and you know it. Upstate over NH? What happened to you in NH, camp councilor touch you funny?

If you are basing your living situation on the legality of weed that’s just asinine. Grow the fuck up. No one gets busted for weed in this state, no one.

**riser4** · 01-14-2022, 11:17 AM

Originally Posted by buttahflake

You would rather live in CT than NH? That’s fucking dumb and you know it. Upstate over NH? What happened to you in NH, camp councilor touch you funny?

The NH attitude is what kills it for me. All the shitheads bagging on VT taxes and "liberals". "Nice place to visit but I don't want to pay for it" so I'll live next door and contribute mere pennies. Turn about is fair play. And Upstate NY has nice roads, paid for by Not Upstate. :P

**buttahflake** · 01-14-2022, 11:21 AM

Huh? I could give a fuck where you live, but for real, NH is always one of, if not the best place to live in this country. Always been that way.

**Todd Zander** · 01-14-2022, 11:28 AM

NH is also just red enough to allow free staters in and blindly follow them down the slash budgets rabbit hole that never ends.

Whats ironic is that by definition free staters are, for the most part, products of a healthy public education system.

Also, is it rule #1 dont talk about the free state project when asked if youre a member?

**riser4** · 01-14-2022, 11:50 AM

Originally Posted by buttahflake

You would rather live in CT than NH? That’s fucking dumb and you know it. Upstate over NH? What happened to you in NH, camp councilor touch you funny?

If you are basing your living situation on the legality of weed that’s just asinine. Grow the fuck up. No one gets busted for weed in this state, no one.

Since you added the bit about weed, I'll address that too. If I was basing where I lived based solely on legal weed, then it wouldn't be VT.

**riser4** · 01-14-2022, 11:52 AM

How do you know if someone's from NH? When they tell you, they start off by saying they don't live in VT and something, something, liberals, something, taxes.

**jackstraw** · 01-14-2022, 11:58 AM

Originally Posted by buttahflake

You would rather live in CT than NH? That’s fucking dumb and you know it. Upstate over NH? What happened to you in NH, camp councilor touch you funny?

If you are basing your living situation on the legality of weed that’s just asinine. Grow the fuck up. No one gets busted for weed in this state, no one.

Who the fuck are addressing here? CT?

**riser4** · 01-14-2022, 12:02 PM

Originally Posted by jackstraw

Who the fuck are addressing here? CT?

He was addressing me.

**ötzi** · 01-14-2022, 12:02 PM

If you can stay off the highways CT is actually pretty nice.

**jackstraw** · 01-14-2022, 12:13 PM

Originally Posted by ötzi

If you can stay off the highways CT is actually pretty nice.

I agree.

**AdironRider** · 01-14-2022, 12:25 PM

“Up in the Mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there he makes men.” - Daniel Webster

I'd like to think our boy Dan would have some snarky comment about those pot smoking hippies in VT that smell like patchouili oil and foot funk if he were still around.

**I've seen black diamonds!** · 01-14-2022, 12:39 PM

NJ > CT

**geomorph** · 01-14-2022, 12:41 PM

Originally Posted by AdironRider

“Up in the Mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there he makes men.” - Daniel Webster

I'd like to think our boy Dan would have some snarky comment about those pot smoking hippies in VT that smell like patchouili oil and foot funk if he were still around.

What do you think old Dan would say about the state being too cheap/risk averse to actually do anything meaningful to prevent the icon of the state from falling?

**ticketchecker** · 01-14-2022, 12:51 PM

Originally Posted by cinnepa

^^^we like maine, but isn't ski access not the most convenient?

It's convenient to skiing at resorts in Maine, shocking right? Conway, NH is 1.5 hrs from Portland which is an hour closer than Sugarloaf.

Now skiing in VTah is a lesson in 'you can't get there from here' navigation. Takes me over 3hrs to get to Burke, VT but if I go there to ride bikes it's for a few days so no biggie.

**schuss** · 01-14-2022, 04:21 PM

Yeah, school funding is district by district in terms of good/bad and is a shitty system for low prop value towns.
NH has always been individualist, but right now there's been plenty of kowtowing to national platforms compared to the past as stuff like weed legalization has broad bipartisan support in the house but the old fucks in the state senate block that. We really need our old guard to walk away, which they won't.

**MyNameIsAugustWest** · 01-14-2022, 04:47 PM

Originally Posted by geomorph

What do you think old Dan would say about the state being too cheap/risk averse to actually do anything meaningful to prevent the icon of the state from falling?

So you're saying the state should have installed all kinds of cables and anchors in the rock? I'd rather let nature take its course because in the end, nature will always win.

I'm a 5th generation Vermonter on my father's side. I lived and worked in Vermont until 2 years ago. Lived in Upstate, lived in Mass also. I chose to retire in NH. Here's some inconvenient truths for you....

Vermont has the 5th highest funding per student in the country but can't crack the top 10 in any benchmark of student success. You know why that is? Because they have all these rural and inefficient school districts that pay too many superintendents and principals and staff and...teacher pay is shit. My daughter is a teacher in NH and her pay is way higher than VT for her experience level. We tried to get her to move back to Upstate where she went to HS and the teacher pay is great but she wanted to stay in NH. NH falls somewhere slightly above the median in the US in terms of those benchmarks but as noted, they pay far less for those results. Not saying that's a winner but I am saying Vermont is wasting education money that the taxpayers contribute.

Vermont taxes Social Security...all of it unless you earn less than $25K per year (that's rounded, it's actually lower). Even the amount you paid in which was a tax you already paid. That's just fucked up.

Vermont is the only state north of the Mason-Dixon line that taxes military retired pay. That's right NJ, NY, CT, MA and every other state north of MD does not tax military retired pay. Kudos to Phil Scott for trying to get that changed but Vermont has never (ever) rolled back a tax they imposed and the Legislature won't even consider it.

The current myth is that NH property taxes are higher than Vermont. That's not true in my experience. I bought a waterfront home in NH (12 minutes from Keene) and I pay far lower ($3000 less) property taxes on it than I did for a condo in Essex Junction (suburban Burlington) even though the NH home is assessed at $100K over the Vermont condo. I pay about the same taxes on a house in rural Vermont that is assessed at a value $160K below the NH home. This is just my experience but from my vantage point, property taxes in NH are far lower than in Vermont.

Roads are about equal in my experience. The main state roads in NH are actually in better shape than the main state roads in VT but some of the rural routes in NH are worse. I'll call it a wash.

There are 50,000 native-born Vermonters that live within 10 miles of the eastern shore of the Connecticut River in NH. That's almost 10% of the current population of Vermont. Chew on that fact for a while.... Of my entire extended family, I have exactly 1 cousin who is still living in Vermont. Most live in NH and more than 10 miles from the river.

I spent a fair part of my childhood and college years in Vermont and really wanted to love it. But I can't afford it.

Skiing is far better in Vermont. That's a no-brainer. The Greens get far more snow than the Whites.

**geomorph** · 01-15-2022, 06:59 AM

Hey, I'm a born and raised Vermonter turned NH homeowner, so I get it. But I also worked in highway geology for a while and there's plenty of large overhanging rocks above highways that haven't fallen down. There's engineering solutions for that stuff and the cable/turnbuckle solution they had on the old man was not it.

**riser4** · 01-15-2022, 07:36 AM

Funny anecdote. When I was wrapping up my degree at UVM I was considering a job in NH. A guy I worked with in a lab in the medical school heard about it and said something about if I wanted rednecks (and some other unkind descriptors including trailer park dwellers), I didn't need to move to NH, I could just move to Milton. His family went back far enough fir him to actually be called a VTer. He lived in a remote area so it was funny to hear him disparage Milton. In the end I took a job in VT that paid better than the NH job and saved myself a move to Nashua.