Montpelier Thinks (Deep) Inside The Box

At It Again
by
Jack Harding

Well, they’re at it again; that is, wasting their time and our money.  This time legislators Obuchowski and Botzow floated J.R.H. 68 which called for every insurance company, health care facility, financial institution and utility, regulated or not, to freeze prices for one full year as a means to offset the rising costs of fuel and food. It never came to a vote before the session, mercifully, ended.  But it, no doubt, sounded good on the surface.  After all, if you are one of the folks getting the (temporary) break the extra money can’t hurt.  Or can it?

Haven’t we already decided communism was a bad idea?  Milton Friedman pointed out that it sounds good in theory that every worker should get the same new  machine until, inevitably, there are not enough to go around.  Then guess who decides who gets the last  machine on the loading dock?  That’s right. The same guys who decided we should all be happy with the state-selected washer and who, as smarter folks, told the washer machine company how to run its business, price its products and, otherwise, subordinate the need to earn and reinvest profits to make more and better washers.  By the way, their intentions were (originally) the best.

Why in the world would we want our businesses to be ordered to charge sub-market prices, limit their profits, risk the jobs of those they employ and give them an (additional) incentive to leave Vermont? Under this practice we run the risk that now we’ll have NO  machines on the loading dock … or anywhere else.  Give me a choice of lots of machines and, if I like one, I’ll buy it.  Or, I won’t.  DO NOT limit my choices under the banner of protecting me. I can protect me.  I can really protect myself and my local community if the legislature would let me spend my own money.  Now, that is a progressive concept.

Were our legislators really proposing a year of relief or testing the waters with regard to telling these same businesses to freeze prices for 18 months, 24 months, or 24 years?  Elected officials are notorious around the globe for “temporary measures” that rival the longevity of a Galapagan tortoise.  We are drowning in entitlements for this precise reason.  The difference with entitlements, though, is that our elected officials are taking monies we and businesses earn, and because they are smarter than us, spending those monies on our behalf and, largely, without our say.

Price freezing laws like J.R.H. 68 are way --  and I mean way -- different.  Now the Smarter Guys are telling businesses, “We are deciding that you should earn less profit”.  (Recall, so far it’s been, “Give us a piece of the profits you have earned.”) Of course, their insatiable appetite for spending other peoples’ money will ensure they keep coming back for more, except this time they have to find it from companies that have been artificially hobbled.  This doesn’t sound particularly good for Vermont and it is a shot of WD-40 on an already dangerous and slippery slope.

No companies will stay in Vermont if they are told what their prices should be.  And they shouldn’t.  And until they pack up and leave they will gradually direct their rare resources to those states that, at least, are fighting them for the profits they earn; not restricting those profits.  Jobs will be lost. More precisely, there will be an acceleration in the decade-long trend of non-government jobs to leaving this state.  How much can Vermont take? 

But if this isn’t enough to terrorize any member of Vermont’s business community, or anyone who has a private sector job, it gets better.  The Rutland Herald reports;

With numerous bills still pending before the expected adjournment this weekend, the Vermont House got weighted down Friday on a resolution over the price of oil that literally carried no weight.

The measure called on the Vermont attorney general and the U.S. Congress to investigate allegations of price-gouging or other illegal activities leading to higher costs at the gasoline pumps.

Debate over the measure, which is purely symbolic, consumed the House for more than an hour Friday morning as some Republicans fought against the measure and tried to derail it with amendments. It eventually passed in a vote of 117-16.

While they must have realized such legislation is only symbolic, perhaps they all went home basking in the psychic glow of taking on those nasty oil companies, without which, we could go back to horses and fireplaces….you know, the good old days.  Vermont taught them a lesson alright.  We’ll bring big oil to its knees as we switch to electricity sourced from coal….well, not that…. too much pollution. Ah, yes, nuclear…..nope, Mr. Shumlin is gonna shut down Vermont Yankee first chance he gets….Wind power?  Sorry, the turbines look so bad on the mountain tops.  Solar…that’s the answer.  We’ll put outlets under solar panels all over the state so we can drive county to county and then plug ‘er right on in for 4 or 5 hours and then keep on goin’…..now that’s progress.

Thanks, Vermont Legislature.  Your commitment to solving the real problems of Vermonters is crystal clear as you chase out our businesses, double our energy costs and spend crucial hours making global fashion statements.   At least we can take comfort knowing that the profitable companies that insure, finance, provide health care and fuel us are aware of how much we appreciate them.  Keep workin’ the tough ones for us.

(Jack Harding is, among many other things , Chairman of the Vermont Tiger Board of Advisors)

Comments

The aesthetic issue is certainly one reason to oppose industrial wind turbines. However, the more fundamental reason to oppose them is that they do not offer a reliable/dispatchable source of energy for either baseload or peak needs. Industrial wind energy is a symbolic gesture towards energy independence aided/abetted by PC and federal and state subsidies.