If it feels like times are tough in New Hampshire, maybe you’re just reading the wrong lists

I’m a big fan of lists and rankings, and for a lot of different reasons.

For example, I don’t follow Major League Baseball as closely as I used to, so the ESPN pre-season rankings help me set my expectations for the Red Sox this year. (They’re ninth.)

Some lists can even be life-changing. In ranking “My Brilliant Friend” as the best book of the 21st century, The New York Times Book Review (with a lot of help from “503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics, and other book lovers”) gave me the final nudge I needed to read the brilliant Elena Ferrante.

Mostly, though, rankings are just purely subjective and endlessly fun. Rolling Stone has Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” as the top album of all time, and while I have no real beef with that I could still make a strong case for Carol King’s “Tapestry” or Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue” for No. 1.

The point is that most lists and rankings are meant to start debates not end them. But don’t tell that to New Hampshire Republicans.

On Tuesday morning, both the governor’s office and the House Republican Majority Office sent out triumphant press releases to tout New Hampshire’s No. 1 ranking for something that personal finance company WalletHub calls “taxpayer return on investment.”

In Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s interpretation, that means the “New Hampshire Advantage is worth protecting, and we’re doing exactly that.”

House Republicans unsurprisingly opted for a more pugnacious take on the same theme: “Thanks to our Republican leadership, we are a beacon of fiscal responsibility. We can never take this for granted, as Democrats are actively trying to tank our ranking.”

If you’re at all familiar with WalletHub, you know that their lists run the gamut from wonky (“Changes in Inflation by City”) to click-baity (“Most Sinful States in America”). But helpfully, WalletHub also includes a methodology with most of their rankings, which at the very least provides a hint of empiricism.

In explaining New Hampshire’s top ranking on taxpayer return on investment, mainly due to the “New Hampshire Advantage” of no sales or income tax, WalletHub said: “The Granite State’s tax resources have had a good impact on crime prevention and the environment, as the state has the lowest crime rate and the third-lowest air pollution in the country. It has one of the best public school systems as well. Aside from those areas, the quality of the rest of New Hampshire’s government services doesn’t stand out much.”

No, no it doesn’t.

But there’s no arguing that New Hampshire is one of the safest states in the nation, which is true of most New England states. It’s odd, then, that the state’s Republicans raise the specter of spiraling crime, amid so much delirious safety, to argue for lifting the gun ban at public colleges and universities and making the state as inhospitable toward immigrants and refugees as possible, all in the name of public safety. It’s a technique the GOP has increasingly embraced in the Donald Trump era: To gain the base’s support for bad policies, just lead them to imagine something far worse coming down the pike. Someday. Maybe. (And all the better if you can hang that something worse on Massachusetts.) 

Like WalletHub, I’m also a proponent of New Hampshire’s air quality. But I do wonder how long we’ll hold on to third place with the elimination of state vehicle emissions testing and Republican disdain for renewable energy, not to mention the Trump administration’s bold pro-pollution agenda. 

Lastly, about that “one of the best public school systems” comment from WalletHub: If that’s the case, why all the fresh Republican meddling and dismantling? Universal vouchers, open enrollment, the CHARLIE Act, the attempt to reduce school administration into an inefficient, bureaucratic nightmare, among others? These are not the actions of policymakers setting out to make the good better. This is what you do when the grand plan begins and ends with downshifting costs to already-stuggling local communities. 

To that point, here’s another WalletHub ranking that wasn’t mentioned in Tuesday’s press releases: We’re the third-worst state for teachers.

There are a lot of WalletHub rankings that Republicans are probably not all that psyched about publicizing, actually. Among states with the highest student loan payments, New Hampshire is fourth. We’re also ranked behind only Missouri when it comes to the worst early education systems (and dead last in the subcategory of “resources and economic support”). New Hampshire is also outpacing the rest of New England, and not in a good way, when it comes to rising credit card delinquency and effective property tax rates.

And once in a while, even the positive rankings must sting for Republicans. New Hampshire placed seventh in WalletHub’s rankings of “the best states to live in” — not too shabby — but the GOP’s arch enemy, Massachusetts, took the top spot. 

These comparative lists are meant to be generally informative, but they should never be considered definitive or even illuminating. That’s why when politicians cherry-pick favorable rankings and then use that as proof of policy success, or a reason to go backward or stand pat, maybe some skepticism is in order. 

The truth is, rankings can’t take the place of what the people know from their own lives — about surging gas prices, rising property-tax bills, and the climbing costs of child care, college, electricity, health care, and housing. That’s a list without end, and it’s painfully accurate.

As Bob Dylan sings in “Subterranean Homesick Blues” off “Bringing it All Home,” Rolling Stone’s No. 31 album of all time, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”