A Message from the Vermont Republican Party

A Resolution for 2008: Save the Geese!

"If one possesses geese that lay golden eggs, its best to develop a taste for eggs and not for goose meat." These were the wise words of panelist Christopher Ellis at the Vermont Tiger symposium, Entrepreneurs or Entitlements. "Unfortunately," he went on, "Vermont has a habit of fattening up its geese to a certain point and then slaughtering them."

Ellis, of course, was warning us that if we allow our government’s appetite for tax dollars to consistently kill off, chase away, or dry up those individuals and businesses, large and small, who pay our bills, we will end up with nothing. We will have neither goose, nor eggs. If this happens, our ability to maintain Vermont as the unique, safe and secure place we know and love will become an impossible and unsustainable proposition.

We are rapidly approaching that point. As Democrat Senate leader Peter Shumlin forcefully pointed out at the beginning of the last legislative session, "there is no more tax capacity left in Vermont. There is no more money in the bank." (Rutland Herald, 2/1/07). "It's just not there," he said. "We are tapped out." (Brattleboro Reformer, 2/20/07). Over the summer, Democrat Chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Susan Bartlett observed, "Then, poof! The revenue just stopped." (Burlington Free Press, 7/13/07).

The revenue didn’t really stop. It’s just that Vermont – the state already with the highest per-capita demand for tax dollars in the country – is spending money faster than its citizens can earn it. Montpelier is eating more eggs than we can produce and the frightening part here is that Shumlin, Bartlett, Speaker Symington and the dominant political culture in Vermont have lost control of the situation. With these folks in charge, we are all potential goose meat.

Citizens in Essex Junction just learned this the hard way. Their local golden goose, IBM, frustrated by Vermont’s increasingly high-tax, over-regulated economic environment, decided several years ago to stop investing in its Essex plant and, instead, sent billions of dollars to Fishkill, New York. As a result, IBM’s property value in Essex dropped 30 percent, and when the town reassessed this year, average taxpayers in Essex Junction found themselves staring down the barrel of a 34 percent property tax increase, amounting to about $1,000 for an average home valued at $266,000. After all, the government didn’t curtail its appetite for money by 30 percent. The big goose was gone, and the little geese had to be slaughtered to pick up IBM’s tab.

Obviously, demanding that ordinary middle class taxpayers shoulder the financial burdens formerly paid by the IBMs, Omyas, MetroGroups, Dirigo Papers, Capital City Presses, etc, is not a direction Vermont can continue in for very long. It is both undesirable and unsustainable.

Yet, as more productive individuals and businesses migrate away or become extinct in the face of the Montpelier meat cleavers, Vermont will be forced to rely increasingly on a shrinking group taxpayers to pay all of our state’s bills. The more this becomes the case, the more we risk losing our current education system (the third most expensive in the nation), our health care safety net (supporting one in four Vermonters), our ability to support the government and non-profit jobs (nearly 4 out of every 10 jobs in Vermont according to Ellis) that are either directly or indirectly funded by tax revenues. We won’t be able to afford the kind of environmental policies we need to remain a global leader on the issue, or to protect our precious environment here at home. Nobody wants this.

To hold on to the security we deserve in our homes, our jobs, and our communities, Vermont’s number one legislative priority in 2008 must be to regain control and to save our economic environment.

Montpelier must lead an economic environmental movement equal to and in partnership with Vermont’s natural environmental movement. First and foremost, we need to Save the Geese.

To preserve sustainable economic security, it means our legislators must give singular focus to policies that will reduce Vermont’s overall tax burden, control the real cost of health care, and make our regulatory process -- though still tough -- transparent, predictable, and swift. We need to provide a professional work force with affordable housing, affordable property tax bills, and long term career prospects. We need to cultivate, nurture and grow a tax base big enough and sustainable enough to afford the other programs that make Vermont the place we love.

But, just as a commitment to sustaining our natural environment required a political/cultural change, so too will a commitment to sustain Vermont’s economic environment. Montpelier can no longer continue to consume our state’s fiscal resources like an SUV burning fossil fuels. We can no longer afford a political culture that sees the solution to every problem as another tax increase rather than a commitment to economic conservation.

There are many positive reasons to live and work in Vermont today. It is the best place in the world. But, to keep it this way will require work. Work that satisfies the soul, yes, but also work that pays the bills. Please, let’s Save the Geese.

And to those in Iowa - battling it out for supporters; here's a quick laugh for you from "The West Wing."