If we’ve said it once, we have said it a thousand times. When it comes to Democrats, there is no such thing as enough. They can’t spend, tax, nag, or infringe enough, and my “neighbors” to the Left continue to prove that true.
The Demolition majority legislature just took another tax wrecking ball to the people of Vermont. A move that Vermont Public Radio calls a $120 million boost to the State’s Child Care System. Translated, the legislature spent another 150 million on a problem very likely of their making. Another reduction in the free movement of capital in one of the most taxed states in America. And it is not the only hike.
“Despite these concerns and my efforts, legislative action this year has added a new, approximately $100 million payroll tax; $20 million in unnecessary DMV fee increases; hundreds of millions in additional cost pressures that will come as a result of the override of my veto of the clean heat standard bill; an unsustainable $70 million increase in base budget spending over my recommendation; an eventual doubling of their own pay and benefits; and more.”
Vermont is in the top 4 for the highest tax burden, behind New York, Hawaii, and Maine. New Hampshire, on the other hand, is ranked 48th (WalletHub, 2023). Only Alaska and Delaware have lower total tax burdens, and the Granite State has been lowering business taxes and just axed its Interest and Dividends tax. Our total tax burden is going down. An idea not lost on everyone in Vermont.
Scott argued in his veto letter that the payroll tax is a regressive revenue source that will force low-income workers to contribute to child care subsidies for families of four with household incomes as high as $172,000 a year.
“If you are a lower-income Vermonter already receiving free childcare, you will have to pay a tax, with no added benefit to you, so that families with higher incomes get support,” Scott said.
He knew the veto wouldn’t survive, but kudos to him for making the case this time for a sliver of fiscal sanity in a looney bin of a state run by the Democrat majority inmates.
Taxing the poor to pay for childcare for the rich. But Demcorats are okay with the disparity. Proud is the word I’d use.
“That strong vote was a clear indication that we as a body recognized the need to do something, something significant about our broken child care system,” Brumsted said.
If it is broken, the government ruined it.
Aly Richards, CEO of Let’s Grow Kids, said in statement Tuesday that the override “is a monumental step forward for our state in addressing the ongoing child care crisis.”
“The legislation will result in a more affordable Vermont, increases access to quality, affordable child care for families, improves compensation and support for our essential early childhood educators, and provides much needed relief for child care programs in every corner of the state,” she said.
Did Aly have to get her snout out of the trough long enough to admire how much more taxpayer slop there will be in the coming years? And I guess she missed the memo on the already high tax burden. More affordable? No. A greater separation in wealth between the haves and have-nots? Yes. Just like everywhere else, Democrats are left in charge of the checkbook for too long.
HT | Vermont Public
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