Behr Late Than Never

(ed. note:  We encountered some technical difficulties over the weekend and were unable to post the usual Friday, 'Weekend Reading" entry from our friend P.G. "Pete" Behr.  But no worries.  It is still engages on Monday.) 

Vermont in Decline
by
P.G. Behr

The recent brouhaha over Woodstock’s signage regulation, which prompted a local businessman to take out full page ads in this newspaper to complain about over-zealous enforcement, is a symptom of a much larger problem.

The State Legislature and other bleeding hearts seem bent on changing Vermont from a hard-working, productive state with a balance of agriculture and manufacturing, into a green theme park.  Act 250, and later, Acts 60/68, have discouraged investment.  As none other than the dean of the Vermont Law School noted, nine out of ten businesses started in the last decade in the Connecticut river valley are on the New Hampshire side, not the Vermont side of the river.  (Dean Shields should rein in some of the enviro extremists in his own faculty who are anti-growth zealots.)

Let’s look at Woodstock.  When the signage issue arose, The Vermont Standard sought out Jeffrey Kahn to opine on the matter.  With all due respect, Woodstock’s fortunes, let alone Vermont’s, do not rise and fall with the business of The Unicorn, Mr. Kahn’s trinket emporium.  Woodstock, and many other communities in our state, are attractive for their well-preserved historical buildings and homes, along with local businesses serving full and part-time residents and visitors.  But without a base of manufacturing, research and development and high-tech service industries to compliment our agricultural and services segments, Vermont will continue to decline.  This is the situation we find ourselves in.  Tourism is good for Vermont, but not a substitute for industries which provide opportunities for our young people, who currently have two basic choices: mow lawns for local and out-of-state property owners, or leave our state for better jobs.

Back to Woodstock.  The East End is a disgrace.  Instead of a thriving, manicured area, one arrives from the east to see weedy, overgrown spaces and shabby, abandoned buildings.  The area should be redeveloped, and the town/village has the means to do so, but no incentive.  Since Acts 60/68 came into being, Vermont towns do not benefit from expanding their tax bases.  By creating higher values for property within their boundaries, Vermont’s towns generate more tax revenues for the state – virtually no benefits flow to the towns.  Our Democrat/Progressive cabal has created a monopoly for the state education bureaucrats and the teachers union.  Vermont’s landowners have seen huge increases in real estate taxes. Equally huge increases have taken place in education spending, without any improvement in outcomes, while the student population has decreased and the teacher population has increased!  The smartest high school graduates leave the state, usually for good.

But politicians, including our own Alison Clarkson, insist our economy is “vibrant.”  They point to legislation like H.446 which will supposedly result in creation of new micro-generating plants to provide electricity from solar and wind sources.  The entrepreneurs who will eventually build these plants, who are guaranteed above-market rates for their kilowatts, will purchase the solar panels and wind turbines from outside the state, so the jobs created will be limited to short-term construction positions and a few positions to operate the facilities.  We consumers will pay more for electricity.  The real winners will be the owners, who will reap an excellent return on their contributions to the politicians who passed the legislation.

What happened to the Vermont that used to have a truly “vibrant” economy, with hi-tech jobs in the machine tool industry, leading the nation in several specialties?  While we can blame China and other low-cost competition for taking away our industry, we must also recognize that the political climate of Vermont has changed dramatically.  Investors have shunned our state, while across the river in New Hampshire, many new enterprises have been established.  Incomes there are significantly higher and taxes are lower.

Vermont should be a great place to live, work and raise a family.  But the good jobs needed to provide the work element of this equation are missing.  Business investment requires a political climate providing reasonable permitting, regulatory, tax, and employment regimes, all of which are less than ideal in Vermont.  The Grange Hill project provides an example.  Whether you are for or against it, the permitting process has taken years, and is still not concluded.  Businessmen cannot accept this kind of uncertainty.  Our politicians have their heads in the sand.  Our state bird is the ostrich.

Woodstock is a good place to live if one has an independent source of income.  It’s nice to have The Unicorn, but it would be far better to have more businesses providing good careers for our young people.   

(This essay first appeared in the Vermont Standard.)

Comments

[Ed G. Mann]

The State Bird is the ostrich?
All this time I thought it was Big Bird!

[Matthew Lyons]

Just curious to know when you are running your update on GMCR? I would think you would find it critically important to inform your readers that they have zero plans to move out of state and are in fact committed to staying here.

This is good news right?

[Paul]

Can anyone blame Woodstock? Williston sacrificed it's quaint little villaqe to build a tax base near the interstate exit. What happened? Vermont changed the rules of the game and declared Williston a "gold town". Now much of the extra taxes flow to the State.
Under the present rules, if I was a voter in Woodstock I would have the same attitude.

[GreggB]

Woohoo Vermont 'still' has GMCR crank up the taxes man.
VT doesn't have the capacity to take on these continued abuses from within. Step outside for awhile them go back and look, the paint is starting to peel and the boomers don't have enough of that money earned elsewhere, left to repaint. It is starting to dumpy again up there, 1980's dumpy, enjoy.

[Paul]

I think what GMCR is saying is that the administrative offices will stay in Vermont, but we are seeing that production faciities are being built elsewhere

[Vermont Woodchuck]

It shouldn't be too hard to find what Vermont gets in taxes from GMCR. Subtract a buck and a half per year for two years. That's the first cost. Any layoffs, transfers cut into the income tax and unemployment collections.

What does the state do after that. What does the state do with the NEXT company that asks? The one after that? Somebody is going to ask, you know they will, wouldn't you?

It's not will, it's when!

Is Vermont in the business of buying loyalty?
That's a losing game for there are states with deeper tax pockets than L'il Ole Vermont.

[G. Cross]

Is there a reader of this site who has a reasonably good handle on the businesses that come to Vermont or stay in Vermont who might be able to enlighten a few folks here about the fact that not everyone is running away from these green mountains? Or is this site only read by the anti-Vermont forces and few crazies like me?

[Matthew Lyons]

I think what GMCR is saying is that the administrative offices will stay in Vermont, but we are seeing that production facilities are being built elsewhere.

Well DUH. But that was the whole point of the scare tactics in the first place. The statement Douglas made and this site reiterated was that there admin offices were leaving.

NO ONE ever stated that opening new production facilities was the problem. As GMCR expands into new markets of course they open facilities elsewhere. This keep distribution cost down and allows for a broader more efficient expansion.

The preceeding statements really should enlighten all readers to how absurd this web site is. You can't even acknowledge one wrong choosing instead to go back immediately to your tired talking points.

Typical Douglas supporters. Its all negative and even when good things happen you continue to choose to highlight the negative opposed to applauding the positive.

Now who does that sound like? Oh, right, I remember now. It sounds exactly like the way Rush Limbaugh described anti-war protesters that were upset when the war effort in Iraq went well.

I guess the saying is true. what's good for the goose.....

[Tom Licata]

"Is there a reader of this site who has a reasonably good handle on the businesses that come to Vermont or stay in Vermont who might be able to enlighten a few folks here about the fact that not everyone is running away from these green mountains?"

G. Cross, here's some "enlightenment":
http://www.vteh.org/content/slideshow

Go to slides 17 & 18 to see the 3,500+ jobs lost since 2007.

These slides SPECIFICALLY list the 50+ companies that have left or folded in Vermont.

It's not a pretty picture and worse, these slides haven't been updated in awhile.

Vermont's private-sector job growth going into this recession? 0%.

How will Vermont pay for its estimated $400 million budget shortfall through 2012?

It's not about "anti-Vermont forces and few crazies..." It's about realism and the social and economic disaster which Vermont is on the cusp of. Not unlike that of California.

[Tom Licata]

In my preceding post, it should read "These slides SPECIFICALLY list the 50+ companies that have left, folded or have down-sized in Vermont."

[Tom Licata]

"The preceding statements really should enlighten all readers to how absurd this web site is...

Typical Douglas supporters. Its all negative and even when good things happen you continue to choose to highlight the negative opposed to applauding the positive."

Matthew, "Absurd" is defined as follows: "Inconsistent with reason or logic or common sense."

It is you, calling this web site "absurd" which is absurd.

Most objective readers of this site would have to acknowledge its observance to free-market economic principles; which are hardly "inconsistent with reason or logic or common sense." Some of the comments may be "absurd" though, they may be appropriate and intended sarcasm, as well.

"Applauding the positive" in that a company that is already here and continues to do so after threatening to leave is - kind of - 'dumbing down' the definition of "positive."

This "Vermont in Decline" article speaks to the failed "political economy" which our Legislature continues to pursue, despite its continued failure. This web site speaks to an alternative, that is, the free-market economy and its principles.

There is no doubt in my mind that this Legislature is taking this state into some very turbulent waters in the near future. Not unlike that of California. I said so, as well, in my testimony to the Ways and Means Committee in April.

It won't be pretty.

Vermont Tiger offers reasonable solutions.

[GreggB]

Matthew, the Tiger hasn't beat him up much lately but you should search the Tiger for articles on Douglas. Douglas treatment here has been quite harsh. It is telling that VT's left thinks Douglas some evil right wing agent of doom and everyone else thinks he is a progressive in a republican robe.

[Vermont Woodchuck]

Tom, Ed, Gregg, Paul, et. al. Douglas lost the 2010 election. Mr. Lyons won and he has the same Legislature.

Mr. Lyons, go ahead, please tell us how you are going to get the state out of the fiscal hole, stabilize the job loses and increase business hiring. You have a Legislature that will work with you, so there is no reason for political conflict.

I don't expect it done in one year but you really need to put a dent in the troubles quickly, simply because money problems compound rapidly.

I look forward to your essay.

[Chris Campion]

Tom, thanks for that link. I've been posting the VT Dept. of Labor stats for a year and half now - there's no bias in the reporting of what the state is recording in terms of net job losses or gains. The only sector currently showing growth in a recession is the government sector, and those jobs are funded by taxes and borrowing - not exactly what's generally understood to be wealth-creating jobs.

One can only point to what's floating in the punchbowl so many times. After that, it's up for people themselves to decide whether or not they agree with your observations.

[Tom Licata]

Thank you Chris. I agree with your punch bowl analogy.

We have reached the "Tipping Point" in Vermont.

Tipping points are "the levels at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable; as a sociological term: "the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point."

In Vermont, the narrative has been written.

The actors in Montpelier have their respective scripts and will play out their roles.

As well, Vermont's "group think" media, special interests and intelligentsia complete the cast; as they know and will play out their supporting roles in what will be a very painful chapter for many Vermonters.

As they say, you get the government you deserve.