It's been a frequent observation here on GMD and elsewhere about how much Jim Douglas is really one of the worst spokespeople we currently have to promote the state of Vermont, simply because he seems to never miss an opportunity to let everyone know how awful it is to live here. It seems that not a day goes by where he's complaining about the tax burden, the regulatory climate, and a plethora of other things. I often joke that even though things are pretty decent for me personally, I'm thinking of moving away just because Douglas' blather is rubbing off on me, and maybe things are pretty bad for me here and I just haven't figured it out yet. I can't think of a better way to attract businesses and skilled workers than to tell them how bad it is here, can you?
In yesterday's Seven Days, Jon Margolis took a look at this phenomenon echoed by Douglas and his allies, and came to the conclusion that it's a big lie. Go below the jump for more.
Margolis op-ed' piece is called “What's So Bad About Vermont?” Like many of us, he's made that same observation:
You’ve no doubt noticed how awful life is here in Vermont. Awful and getting worse, what with wages so low and prices so high — especially the sale price of a nice house, or the rent on a decent apartment. You’ve noticed because the newspapers and the radio and television keep telling you. Across the political spectrum, important people keep proclaiming our woes, especially Gov. James Douglas, who has made “affordability,” or lack thereof, the dominant theme of his tenure.
Then there are all these fancy reports concluding that Vermonters are in a terrible fix, barely able to survive after paying their bills or — increasingly — unable to pay their bills. These reports come from prestigious organizations. They are artfully bound and printed, and have well-designed graphs and full-color illustrations. They are chock-full of statistics. They have endnotes. Ergo, they must be true.
Or so seems to be the assessment of Vermont’s news media, which transmit the conclusions of the reports, usually on the front page or at the start of the broadcast, as though they were unassailable truth.
They are not. They are politics.
He then points out the falsehoods in the myths, such as that we have an ever-shrinking population, or the BIG doozy we hear all the time: we're the most heavily taxed state in the nation. The latter is a good example of how out-of-touch Douglas is (as he was last year when he was complaining the legislature “spent too much time” on global warming while at that very same time his own commission on climate change was practically screaming how important it was and the challenges and opportunities it presents). Once again, the state's very own Joint Fiscal Office's tax study (h/t to Doug Hoffer) last year blew that one out of the water. From page 7:
Summary Findings – Individual Taxpayers
The individual taxpayer case studies suggest that among the 12 comparison states Vermont as a highly progressive overall state tax structure. This is largely the result of relatively low taxes on lower-income taxpayers and relatively higher taxes on upper-income taxpayers in Vermont. Driving this finding is the individual income tax, which comprises a majority of the overall tax liability calculated for most taxpayers. Although many of the other comparison states have progressive tax structures, Vermont’s tends to be the most progressive. Washington and Florida demonstrate the most regressive traits of state tax systems among the comparison states. The trend for some states is less obvious, most likely the result of mixed tax policy goals and actions. The difficulty in drawing unambiguous conclusions when analyzing comparative state and local taxation is among the most important findings of this study and is illustrated by the fact that for each of these conclusions, outliers among the case studies contradict these assumptions. Key findings are summarized below:
• Total Tax Liability – For 19 of the 24 individual tax case studies, Vermont ranked ninth or lower in total tax liability among the 12 comparison states. The highest Vermont rank was sixth out of 12 for three of the cases.
• Income Tax Liability – Income tax levels for Vermont taxpayers ranked in the middle or lower half among the comparison states for nearly all of the case studies. Vermont ranked sixth or lower among the 12 states in income tax liability for 20 of the 24 case studies. Theonly cases where Vermont ranked higher than sixth are those where most of the states
have tax liabilities that are nearly identical, and the rankings are not indicative of significant differences between the states compared and analyzed.
• Sales and Use Tax Liability – Vermont ranked ninth among the 12 comparison states in sales and use tax liability, up from 10th a decade ago. Although Vermont’s tax rate fell in the middle of the 12 comparison states, its low actual liability is due in part to a relatively smaller tax base and limited use of local option sales taxes.
More than likely he was too busy complaining to bother reading it. Not only are we not the highest, we have one of the most progressive tax structures in the country (which will always give the folks at VT Tiger something to whine about). Hardly sounds awful to me,
Now, back to Margolis. He's not dismissing the fact that life is not increasingly harder for a number of Vermonters. But the point he makes is that it's getting that way everywhere in this country, and for Douglas and his ilk to pass it off as some problem unique or more prevalent in Vermont is a lie:
Asked for evidence that Vermont is less affordable than other states, Jason Gibbs, the governor’s spokesman, obliged with emailed links to several government and private studies about health care, taxes, housing, utility rates and the economy. The information was interesting and informative. It did indicate that some necessities cost more in Vermont than in much of the country. But not all of them, and these costs are usually not higher than elsewhere around our region.
The Northeast is generally more expensive than most of the rest of the country. It’s old. It’s cold. It’s crowded. Its people believe in, and insist on, a fairly high level of public services. Nothing in the information Gibbs sent me provided a persuasive case — much less conclusive proof — that Vermont is unusually unaffordable because of anything the state government does or doesn’t do.
In fact, the preponderance of the evidence — the statistics on economic growth, median income, poverty rates, health coverage and education levels — suggests that Vermont is one of the more prosperous and livable states.
There' definitely an agenda here, but it's not about “affordability”. As Margolis reveals, its about loosening regulations. It's either always about that or lowering taxes, consequences be damned. No wonder Douglas is endorsing John McSame… his economic plan is more of the same-ol' same-ol' GOP groupthink that's helped decimate the middle-class for the last 20 years.
Now, regardless of the prospects of the next guv's election, we need to keep hammering these points home. Jim Douglas is out-of touch (except, of course, with certain business interests), pushing the same old failed policies from the GOP playbook, is creating horrible PR for the state, and at the heart of it, cannot be trusted to tell the truth.