Vermont planned to launch a COVID relief fund backed by the printing presses in DC. It would use American Rescue Plan dollars to reimburse employees who missed work because they caught COVID-19. Any employee. That was the plan.
Vermont’s program would have allowed workers to get up to $21 an hour and it didn’t matter if their employer offered paid sick time or not.
But the feds say not so fast. Their rules state in order for people to get these funds, each business applying would need to have an existing paid sick time policy and have already paid their workers before they would be eligible for that reimbursement grant.
Vermont Democrats neglected to read the not-so-fine-print or, more realistically, failed to get in touch with their corporatist-socialist roots. Ideologically competition is the antithesis of the planned anything. You can’t have just anyone offering products or services, or ideas, so all things must swirl inexorably toward that black hole of Democratic-Socialism (Marxism).
You need oligarchs who dominate every economic sector with unions or licensing cartels or something that can be used as leverage.
If you’d like a COVID-related example, Hospitals have been destroying private practice for years while politicians make it impossible for anything to compete with them. Everyone has to affiliate with the Hospital cartel, which, like health insurance, is spiraling down to just a few significant players.
During the so-called pandemic, politicians shut down mom and pops and allowed big box, chain stores to remain open for no public-health-discernable benefit. The larger their corporate footprint, the more permissions they could enjoy, probably because of the political leverage they could bring to bear if needed.
It wasn’t about health or health care, nor was the money printed to backstop the COVID relief handouts. Much is wasted on corporate friends and family or lost to fraud and corruption.
But someone in Vermont thought the people who need the help are folks in small concerns who might not be able to get paid days off for illness. They saw an opportunity to pander to them and figured, let’s get them on the dole too.
The Feds like the dole, especially states that take deficit dollars. These once sovereign entities quickly become more dependent and docile when the swamp needs them to do something—a favor. Propaandize the kids. Declare parents domestic terrorists. Cut off the kiddie’s body parts. Or disarm the locals. But they need to control the bribes. You can’t let just anyone take a payoff from the Feds. They might vote Republican!
It may work out in the end. The Boss might find a way to get Vermont on another hook. But until or unless that happens, perhaps Vermont Dems can develop their own unsustainable, taxpayer-backed state-level program.
Your universal health care system collapsed. You’ve got a green energy commission with dreams Vermonter can’t afford. And that EV mandate will bite you in the ass.
Why not start your own COVID Paid Family Sick Leave?
