That Didn't Take Long

It's hard to see how legislators could make deep cuts in existing programs without also weighing the importance of them against possible tax hikes or use of the rainy day funds. The easy cuts have already been made. Services in place now are ones that policymakers believe to be important. If everything is truly on the table, then taxes and reserves also must be in the mix.
        editorial, Herald

And so it begins.  Not enough money to keep the Montpelier machinery clanking along?  Well, then, better raise taxes.  On the rich, of course. 

Those are the people who have been paying already, as Art Woolf points out in this illuminating and indispensable brief on the current budget crisis.  And it should occur to anyone willing to give the question a couple of minutes of calm thought, that people who pay taxes on investment income, capital gains, etc. will more than likely be people who are mobile.  And that in this economic environment, they will be even more inclined than usual to take steps to protect their shrinking assets. 

In short, if they see Montpelier is coming after them again with blood in its eye, then they will pick up and leave.

One of the causes of Vermont's difficulties – which were plain even before the global financial crisis and recession – is a naive conviction that it is possible for the state to spend lavishly without having to hit up the majority of the voters for the money.

It had to end. 

And it has. 

Comments

[GreggB]

Anybody else get a quit smoking postcard today from the VT Dept. of Health? I don't smoke but I can still get a free 'marble worry stone' and 'distraction putty.' I could use a new paperweight and my daughter might enjoy some rebranded silly putty. I'm guessing marble paperweights are going to be a popular Christmas gift in VT this year.