Martha Abbott, chair of the Vermont Progressive Party, seems to think that Hamlet was right when it comes to analyzing economic development in Vermont
I tend to believe that there are objective factors that influence a state's economic future.
The Progressives must be flexing their journalist muscle, with Ms. Abbott posting two different op eds appearing in the two major state papers within a couple of weeks of each other. I looked at her earlier post here. In her current op ed in the Free Press, she blames Governor Douglas for being realistic instead of being a cheerleader. And she proves that she herself is a cheerleader by filling her piece with exclamation points and capital letters. I didn't realize that some grammatical excitement was all Vermont needed to be more successful.
Among other items, she criticizes Gov. Douglas for telling Vermonters that:
Vermont is one of the most highly taxed states
The U.S. Census Bureau, in their latest report, seems to agree with the Governor on this one, and the Federation of Tax Administrators, using the new Census data, has a nice ranking chart here.
She loses me with this quote:
Now, when you take a survey, is anyone surprised to find that Vermonters think that Vermont is bad for business and too expensive to live in? No wonder young people are leaving! Many of us live here and manage to eke out a living and would never live anywhere else no matter how much money you offered us.
I think she believes that because the Governor has been commenting on our high taxes, people respond to surveys negatively and that the Governor himself is responsible for driving young people out of the state. (I wonder how many 20 year olds can even identify the Governor by name.)
And she continues, Many of us live here... I can't disagree with that. Those of us who live here do indeed live here. As to eking out a living, we've shown in the latest issue of The Vermont Economy Newsletter (sorry, it's not free) that the average Vermont family is doing fine; in fact the middle class has shrunk over the past two decades because more and more families are moving out of the middle class and into the upper class (and the low end of the income distribution is shrinking, not increasing).
I'm not sure about the last phrase in that quote, either. A lot of us can be bought for the right price, and the price is not just money. It's opportunities, excitement, fun, and a variety of other factors that determine where people live and why. Geoff's piece on his tech friend is a perfect example. That's why many people do leave Vermont each year, and it's not just young people.
Our experience is that all the people who move here and pay exorbitant prices for Vermont land and Vermont property are driving up the cost of living for the rest of us! And more people are moving here every day because they recognize an unspoiled place that is ripe for development and because there is money to be made here.
Yes, let's blame the housing price boom (by the way, it's now over) on out of staters. Maybe she's talking about people from New York and Boston buying vacation homes, but that can't explain the housing price rise in places like Chittenden County or Montpelier. As to more people moving here every day, sorry, Ms. Abbott. The Census Bureau tells us that more people have been leaving Vermont than moving in for the past two years. It may be convenient to prey on popular fears of growth and sprawl caused by an influx of flatlanders but the facts don't support that. Quite the opposite.
She continues
Studies show that most of the job loss in the past five years has been the result of business contraction and closures, not relocation.
She must have read my post yesterday. I'm flattered. But Vermont's problem is that we need more job openings to offset the contraction and closures. That's why there have been almost no new jobs created in Vermont in the past six months.
And she wants "wealthy business owners to pay their fair share", whatever that is. Any wealthy Vermonter who earns over half a million dollars already pays a marginal tax rate of 9.5% on any additional income. That's the highest rate in the nation. As an economist, I don't have a good way to define "fair" but if it means paying a higher share than anyone in any other state, than that seems more than fair to me.
She concludes with the knowledge that she knows that the state's economic future will be in green energy. I'm glad she can figure out which industries are going to be successful in the future because I certainly can't.
Finally, she urges us to
Imagine a governor who would lead the charge to create a single-payer health care system for all Vermonters. Businesses should rush to locate here (as they have been rushing to move to Canada) because we would have a sustainable health care system that businesses can afford. Now THAT would lower local property taxes!
I guess the single payer system won't cost any new taxes, although the legislature's consultant found that "there is no revenue source available that meets the capacity requirements of past and likely future health care expenditure growth." Far from businesses rushing here, it is more likely that higher taxes would do just the opposite. (Not to nit pick too much, but property taxes fund schools, and I can't figure out how a single payer health care system will make a dent on property taxes, other than off-loading teacher health care benefit costs onto some other tax.)
I suppose the basic problem is that Ms. Abbot and I inhabit two parallel worlds.
Comments