Vermont Tiger

Spend, Baby, Spend

Vermont has created the perfect politician for our times.  A Republicrat Congressperson who votes against the $700 slush fund before voting for it. 

The slush fund is, of course, being used to buy votes.  That much was inevitable.  There will be populist grousing about how some of the money is going to Detroit to bail out GM but that misses the point by a wide margin.  The money is going to bail out GM and the UAW and the state of Michigan.  It is being spent, in short, to grease political skids; not to shore up the economy.  Automobiles are being manufactured elsewhere in this country, by companies that are not going bankrupt and are also paying good wages. 

Many voters hereabouts find this sort of thing ... well, irritating.  Taxpayers will likely be bailing out New York which is suffering from the Wall Street debacle.  Tax revenues will not be coming into Albany in the normal volume.  So New York politicians will have to cut back on their accustomed binge spending.  Republicrats and Depublicans view this as a crisis to be managed with infusions of other people's cash.  The rest of us say, "Hard cheese."

Problem is, who to vote for.  The Republican is for the bailout while the Democrat merely supports it. Republicrats endeavor to find a middle ground.

Mark Shepard has announced that he is running a write-in campaign based on his opposition to the bailout. 

Nice to have a choice.

Pre-Election Voting

Tom Burditt of West Rutland summed it up in a letter in today's Herald:

"Between 2007 and 2008, Dirigo Mill in Gilman closed costing Vermont 115 jobs; Quimonda in Williston, 135 jobs gone; Standard Register in Middlebury, 112 jobs gone; Omya Industries in Proctor, 60 jobs gone; Vermont Plywood LLC in Hancock, 35 jobs gone; Northern Power Systems in Waitsfield and Barre, 60 jobs gone; TD Banknorth, 30 jobs lost across the state; Specialty Filaments in Middlebury, 180 jobs gone; Neo EMS in Brandon, 20 jobs gone; IBM in Essex, 180 jobs gone; Vermont Tubbs in Brandon, 100 jobs gone; KBA Printing in Williston, 55 jobs gone; Sirloin Saloon in South Burlington, 35 jobs gone; Metro Group in Rutland, 204 jobs gone; Hillcrest Foods in Fairfax, 24 jobs gone; Vermont Teddy Bear in Randolph, 75 jobs gone; Lydall in St. Johnsbury, 190 jobs gone. These are just the job losses that make big news.  These employers have already voted in this election, and they've voted with their feet."

Protecting the Vermont Brand

The label says "Produced for Bove's of Vermont."  The sauce is produced for Bove's of Vermont.  What more truth in labeling can there be?  But Bove's of Vermont will have to pay a six-figure fine.  Yikes!  We wish Vermont would get as tough on real crime as it is on business.

Estonia's Tax Phenomenon

This is a little unfinished business from earlier this month, as a way-too-much-travel October finally winds down.

When I travel in and out of Tallinn (Estonia), I normally don't use Estonian Air (because it's not really a Star Alliance carrier); however, earlier in the month I made a rare appearance with them, since there was no alternative viable way to get from Tallinn to Bucharest without starting out with EstAir to Copenhagen.

More Taxpayers, Please

It's time to find more people to pay Vermont income tax
by
Win Smith 

Vermont has a fundamental problem. And this was true even before the current economic and market turmoil. Our population is neither large nor affluent enough to generate the tax revenue we need to fund the important projects that will make us sustainable as a state and maintain the quality of life we have come to love.

On the Rails

Off The Rails examines some of the fiscal impacts of Vermont's changing demographics.  The Times Argus points out another impact that we are likely to see more of as the state ages and a larger share of the state's drivers are elderly.   

Will we begin giving annual driver's tests to seniors?  Install gates on every railroad crossing?  Do nothing and accept more accidents, injuries, and deaths at railroad crossings?  Any of these will be controversial and costly. 

Ed Lobby Loses Round One

The education lobby , a formidable obstacle to meaningful education reform and education finance reform, suffered a blow when Judge William Cohen asked to hear more of the lawsuit that seeks to end taxpayer funding of Vermont School Boards Association lobbying.   VSBA attorney Bernard Lambek tried unsuccessfully to get Judge Cohen to dismiss the case.

The hope is that one day, when a non-taxpayer-funded group like Vermonters for Better Education goes to lobby the legislature for school choice or more parental rights, it won't have to face an opposing lobby funded with hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars.

Prescient Analysis

Remember when oil was $140 a barrel, politicians were screaming about obscene profits and greed, and called for windfall profits taxes?   Some people thought differently:

Yet some analysts continue to warn that oil prices are teetering close to a steep fall -- at least back near $80 a barrel. For these observers who see the world's oil supply-and-demand balance loosening and weighing on prices, the red-hot rally is nothing short of astonishing...."I personally think this is the mother of all bubbles," said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research Inc., a consulting firm in Amherst, Mass. He expects prices to pull back to $80 a barrel by late June, and in the long run step down to $50

Wall Street Journal, April 21, 2008

Read & React

We in Vermont can indeed learn a lot of lessons from Europe - but not from the decaying Europe of Sweden, Germany, and France. The real action is in the east - so we should study (and learn from) places like Estonia, Romania, and Slovenia. Anything else is just a silly attempt to impose an ideology onto reality.

From a comment on this post by reader, Daniel Foty.  Mr. Foty oviously knows whereof he speaks.  Read the whole thing. 

If the choice is between the sclerotic socialism of France and the Scandinavian nations or the Eastern European Tigers, then that is what is technically known as a "no-brainer."

Question, Please

To: Geoffrey Norman
From: Richard Heaps
re: a thought

When the price of fuels went up, we needed to appropriate more money for LIHEAP and similar programs.

Now it appears that prices are back to where they were at this time last year.

Do we return the LIHEAP money to the taxpayers?

I must have fallen and bumped my head to come up with such a silly thought.