Public Finance of the States: The Northeast
The Fiscal Character of the Northeast The Northeast—New England plus the Middle Atlantic states—is America’s oldest industrial and commercial core. Its fiscal profile reflects that history: high taxes, high services, dense and aging infrastructure, and long-standing commitments to public institutions that are expensive to maintain and politically difficult to reduce. The region encompasses two distinct sub-regions with meaningfully different characters. New England Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont share geography but diverge sharply on fiscal philosophy. ...