To my eye, the big news out of Town Meeting Day, our annual orgy of Vermont exceptionalism, was the overwhelming acceptance of local school budgets. According to the Vermont School Boards Association, 220 budgets were accepted and only 16 defeated — close to the state’s average for the past decade.
The obvious interpretations:
1. Vermonters are willing to pay for a public sector that is accountable and meets their needs.
2. Despite the constant mewlings of political figures from Bruce Lisman to Peter Shumlin and the incessant propagandizing of Vermonters First and other champions of far-right rhetoric, Vermonters are not “taxed to death” and don’t believe that their taxes are too high.
3. Despite constant mewlings about the failure of public education, Vermonters are satisfied with their local schools.
4. If you do the right thing, even if it costs money, the voters will back you up.
With Vermonters continuing to pass virtually every school budget set before them, I don’t see how you can draw any other conclusion. Vermont is a liberal state that believes in a well-funded and effective public sector — even more so than its often timid political leaders seem to believe.
The oft-rumored Great Vermont Tax Revolt has once again been called off, for lack of interest.
And, if there were referendums on Town Meeting Day about ‘not cutting’ the programs for low income people Shumlin wants to cut, I’ll bet those would pass too. Or this: “Do you want to see a Vermont that caters to the very wealthy at the expense of you and your neighbors, and your children’s education?”
It’s not just the current (or past) Governor and our pathetic right wing that needs to hear what Vermonters are willing to pay for; the legislature is also constantly carping about reducing the costs and never talking about improving the outcome.
It seems that, 5 minutes after they arrive in Montpelier, our reps start to want centralized control of the budgets. (I’m not sure what happens to them…maybe it’s a communicable disease.) So it’s possible that the calls to control costs are really just a cover for demanding total budget control. Nonetheless, the message is clear: VT is strongly in support of our local schools with locally controlled budgets, delivering high quality outcomes, and are willing to vote the taxes to pay for it.
Actual research by competent people that know how to do these things have proven that raising taxes does NOT cause rich people to flee.
‘Democratic’ Governor Shumlin is just lying to protect his rich ‘democratic’ buddies from paying their fair share of the cost of running Vermont. Shumlin would rather take money away from the incredibly poor in order to protect the insanely rich.
How is Shumlin a ‘democrat’ again? He’s farther right than Douglas.