It’s the usual suspects talking down Vermont while wheedling for a tax break.
A “study” conducted by Art Woolf on behalf of the Vermont Chamber of Commerce and an assortment of Vermont retail associations has concluded that the state’s sales tax is driving eastern Vermont shoppers to New Hampshire. Of course the “report” doesn’t fail to take a swipe at other environmental initiatives practiced by Vermont:
The study acknowledges that other factors – Vermont’s bottle deposit bill and strict land use provisions in Act 250 -may also be to blame, but it says sales tax disparity between the two has been the principal driver in the trend.
Of course no mention is made of the shared services enjoyed by all Vermonters that are funded through sales taxes; nor of that unquantifiable “quality of life” that most people seem to agree favorably distinguishes Vermont from New Hampshire.
But, what a coincidence! Today was also the day that
state Attorney General William Sorrell is set to release the findings of a “healthy weight initiative” and is expected to recommend a penny-per-ounce excise tax on sugar-sweetened drinks…
Among the retail associations co-sponsoring Woolf’s “study” are the Beverage Association of Vermont and the Vermont Wholesale Beverage Association. These are the folks that make pretty darn sure that our kids never lack opportunities to hold up their end of that retail market. Someone should ask these guys how they plan to offset the future tax burden represented by lost productivity and health issues as our sugar-addicted children grow into obese adults.
For me, the issue is not so much the regressive nature of any sales tax. Personally, I’m all for raising income taxes on the top 1% of earners, since they are reaping the most benefits from all the consumption that goes on beneath them; and then raising the threshold for income tax liability considerably for everyone else who is stuck in the broad consumer class that supports the ultra-rich.
What gets me is the way the sugar industry (represented in this case by the Chamber and beverage associations) works both sides of the street so thoroughly, making out like bandits while conceivably doing more damage to our national health than alcohol and drugs combined.
are regressive to ‘the poor’. But later in life health care costs and obesity… are not. Society gets to pick up the tab because the costs are spread across a wide range of folks – from insurance premiums to medicare and on…
Of course, when insurance companies actively invest in fast food companies (PDF here: http://www.thebostonchannel.co… – they have a vested interest in making profits from visits to the doc.
If the $$ is so much greener over there in NH (and southern NH has become as much a suburb of Boston as parts of MA) – I’m wondering why these smart financial types aren’t doing what all their studies suggest… they should be putting their $$ where their mouths are and packing it in. If it makes so much sense to operate like NH… one would think it would make sense to take their families, $$, houses, etc. and set up shop across the river.
Do I detect a little false-equivalency here?
Corporations are great at reinforcing their right to do wrong by playing the martyr for individual liberty card.
I heard this story repeated over and over on the “news” – and became somewhat despondent. The Chamber of Commerce, for bejesus sakes, sponsored this so-called study — the same folks who just Swift-Boated the President and the Democratic party in the November mid-term elections. Whoever wrote the story that went out for public consumption definitely had a point of view — but they absolutely did not have any “news.”