With inflation battering the peasants and long-term recession looming, the first priority of Vermont Democrats was to add hundreds of millions in new spending and then increase their own salaries so they can afford to live with their policies.
We wrote about the pay and benefits hike for elected officials back in May. The Dem majority was trying to fast-track it without public input. The bill was eventually passed and then vetoed by Gov. Scott.
The poverty-stricken legislature does not have enough votes in the State Senate to override. But they are working on it because, according to Chittenden Central Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky,
“… the bill was needed to ensure that more working Vermonters can afford to serve in Montpelier — something that she says is not true today.
“The barriers to service in the General Assembly are astronomical, which is why the demographics of the General Assembly do not match the demographics of Vermont,” Vyhovsky said. “And this is a problem. This is one of the reasons why we have such a difficult time meeting the needs of average Vermonters.”
She’s not all wrong. It is clear that the priorities of the legislature do not match the wishes of voters, but piling on salary and benefits will take an already overpaid body and turn it into a professional political project. It is also true that one of the priorities of Democrat majority legislatures is to turn them into full-time professional occupations. Raising pay and benefits will do that and the citizen legislature is anathema to the progressive project.
The Founders pictured people coming to serve for a few years out of duty to the interests of friends and neighbors and then, out of necessity, drawn back to the source of their means. Government service was a public service, not an occupation. You made your living farming or ranching or shipbuilding or lawyering, jobs that pay the bills just waiting for you after a stint serving the people.
But much like the news, once they figured out they could make money on it, truth and transparency went out the window.
Job one becomes serving the needs of the political cult and those that feed and water it regularly (lobbyists, special interests). The will of the people being a barrier to overcome every few years with fast talk and false promises, and lots of lobbyist and special-interest money.
To the progressive mind, elected office is a tenured position that starts the moment you adopt their priorities, retained until retirement or death when the latter is not in fact, the former.
Professional politicians are difficult to unseat. Paid professionals are even more so. This is not new, it is not news, and everyone paying attention knows it.
The goal is a permanent one-party state run by people who get paid a lot more than most to rob everyone else. And there are no examples of Democrat rule where this is not the case, nor are there examples where this formula results in prosperity for the people at the expense of the people in charge. It’s exactly the opposite.
That’s what Vermont Democrats are building, and I don’t think the “peasants” have the votes or the will to stop it. I’m not even certain they see the threat.
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