"New Hampshire has always been cheap, mean, rural, small-minded, and reactionary. It's one of the few states in the nation with neither a sales tax nor an income tax. Social services are totally inadequate there, it ranks at the bottom in state aid to education--the state is literally shaped like a dunce cap--and its medical assistance program is virtually nonexistent. Expecting aid for the poor there is like looking for an egg under a basilisk.... The state encourages skinflints, cheapskates, shut wallets, and pinched little joykillers who move there as a tax refuge to save money.''

-- Alexander Theroux, novelist and poet (who grew up in Massachusetts)

Editor's note: Mr. Theroux presents some entertaining cliches. But New Hampshire does very well in some indices, including education, where it has long be marked as among the top five states.