Vermont transfers wealth from taxpayers to state employees

July 16, 2020 By John Klar

 Vermont is suffering a crisis of big government, a bureaucratic tax-and-regulate strangulation that is destroying what is already the smallest economy in the nation. Even before COVID struck, Forbes had predicted that “The state’s economic outlook is … weak with job and income growth expected to badly lag the rest of the country over the next five years.” Post-COVID, the Green Mountains finished near the bottom of the national pack (42nd) in the first quarter of 2020, with a 6.1% drop in GDP.

During the COVID-19 threat, Vermont’s Legislature gave itself a raise while it rammed numerous pre-planned progressive initiatives through a remotely-convened legislative process. The state announced an expected $459 million budget shortfall due to the pandemic, and has yet to revise it’s estimated $4.5 billion pension shortfall to reflect the impacts of COVID. Yet, the Legislature appropriated millions of dollars to subsidize EV cars, and seeks to enact a Global Warming Solutions Act that grants legal standing (and a statutory claim for attorney’s fees) to out-of-state special interest groups to sue the State to compel compliance with arbitrary carbon emission “targets.”

These efforts spray gasoline on Vermont’s fiscal flames. In the years since 2013, Vermont employees have been granted wage and benefit increases that outpace inflation: in only one of those years has Vermont median income risen faster than inflation (median income numbers are not yet available for 2019, but state workers gained 2.6% in salaries and 3.9% in benefits in 2019, exceeding annual inflation of 2.3%). Thus, in all years but one Vermont citizens’ income did not keep pace with inflation: their net worth is steadily deteriorating........To Read More......