Complexify, Complexify!!

In Montpelier, they seem to have misplaced a few million bucks.  Hey, these things happen.

   

    Vermonters are still waiting for Montpelier to engage in the promised full-contact debate over the statewide property tax and the rising – not to say “out of control” – cost of education.  Nobody denies that the debate is necessary or that it will be exceedingly tough.  Politicians would rather drink cold cooking grease than either raise taxes or cut spending and they may soon be obliged to do both.  It is understandable, then, that so far this session, the legislature has been concerning itself with global warming and studying bills to require licenses for bicyclists who use the state highways (eight bucks a month, fifteen for a year) or to impose heavy taxes on the construction of new homes that exceed 4,000 square feet (one grand per one hundred feet). 
    One hears rumors that the “solution” to the tax problem will be a nominal cut in the residential rate which will look good on paper but still leave many Vermonters paying higher taxes since their assessments have gone up.  This is a fix that only politicians could love since it allows them to claim that they have cut taxes but also brings in more money for them to spend.  What’s not to like?
    But last week, there was a development that throws a light on the nature of the whole property tax system and the way in which it was designed to deceive. 
    According to this story, it seems that the Education Fund has been getting stiffed and that this violates the law (Act 68) that was meant to fix the egregious flaws in the law (Act 60) that established the statewide property tax system in the first place.
    The apparatus by which money is moved from the general fund to the education fund is complex and designed to be.  Rather than attempt to explain it (assuming that it could be done), lets just stipulate that the people who were supposed to be administering and overseeing this dazzlingly intricate machine, were either asleep at the switch, incompetent, or dishonest.  Otherwise, how did they not notice that the Ed Fund was short somewhere between $14 million and $40 million.  (What’s a few million between friends?) 
    Everyone admits that the money isn’t there and if nothing else, this demonstrates that the people in Montpelier aren’t even capable bureaucrats; are unable, merely, to enter figures in a ledger they designed themselves.  Voters expect, at the very least that the people they elect will be able to handle the green eyeshade tasks of government.  Leadership and vision would be a bonus.  But the people in Montpelier have now demonstrated that they don’t do basic arithmetic. So what makes them think they can save the planet from the perils of global warming?
    Voters might be forgiven for asking the people they elected to clean up the backyard and fix the potholes before they start fancying themselves fit to lead global crusades.
    But, of course, this is what the anointed do.  First they complexify (which, if it isn’t a word, should be) and then they move on. We all know how the federal tax code runs to enough pages to fill a library and that no mortal can understand it.   But nobody in Washington is inclined to go back and fix it.  Time to move on to, oh, health care and one cringes to think what the regs governing a visit to your doctor will look like in ten years time.  This is what has happened – is happening – in Vermont.  The laws are incomprehensible and irrational but the people whose job it is to fix them lack the will.  So money gets slopped around from one “fund” to another while the problem is studied yet again.
    The genius of “complexification” is that it leaves voters first bewildered and then apathetic.  If one cannot fathom the mysteries of the law then one is obliged to trust the experts and, if it is taxes we are talking about, then pay up; if it is regulation, simply comply.  The “system” (if you can dignify it with the name) has created a whole tribe of consultants whose job it is to study the laws and explain, as nearly as possible, what they mean.  So studies are commissioned, panels are appointed, adjustments to the law are made and meanwhile … it is on to single-payer health care and global warming.  The voter throws up his hands and hopes they don’t foul this one up too badly.
    Going on the record, though, we can expect the implementation of incomprehensible “carbon taxes” (which will immediately rise) followed by a drastic increase in the earth’s temperature. 
    Call it a fever.

Comments

[Kevin Blier]

Complexify! If you read comments I made a month ago on the Dwinell Political Report concerning education finance, I railed against the "process" (if one could call it that) you have coined.

I believe there are two people you can thank for that, and they are the only two people in Vermont who seem to know the system down to a science, and that's Bill Talbott and Bill Mathis, the two "Education Finance" gurus who were instrumental in developing this complexification. As long as they are the two who understand the system the best, who know better than anyone the ticking time bomb they've created, Vermont taxpayers will continue getting bilked by the DOE!

[Pres Sloterbeck]

Geoff, I think that you are guilty of complexifing as well. Pls be specific about the missing $$$ so that one can start to do something about it. Pres