Quotable

by Art Woolf

[Speaker of the Vermont House of Representatives Shap] Smith said he hopes that combining these trims can add up to between $30 million and $80 million. He's ruled out new taxes to fix the rest of the budget gap – he said he is focusing on expenditures, not revenue 

--Rutland Herald

The state faces a projected deficit in the next fiscal year of more than $100 million. Some Democrats have said the state needs to raise additional revenue to meet its needs. But [Vermont State Senate President Pro Tem Peter] Shumlin  flatly ruled out new taxes.   We're going to solve Vermont's problems not with new taxes, but with new ideas, new ways of doing things. I think we're in a fragile economic recovery. There is not the capacity for taxes to solve the problem."

--Vermont Public Radio

It is an encouraging sign that on the same day the leaders of the two houses of the legislature (one of whom is running for governor) implicitly recognize that Vermont, a state with one of the highest overall tax burdens in the nation, doesn't have any more tax capacity.

Comments

[Vermont Woodchuck]

Oh Toto, we're back in OZ!

[Bill]

They will run on no new taxes but will fall all over themselves to raise a variety of them in January, 2011.