No new taxes. Governor Shumlin has ruled out submitting a budget that raises taxes to mitigate an anticipated budget shortfall.
VPR reports that a select group of legislators received Shumlin’s latest no-new-taxes pledge straight from the lips of (soon-to-be-former) Administration Secretary Jeb Spaulding:
Administration Secretary Jeb Spaulding told the group that simply addressing this problem with new revenue represents a onetime solution to an ongoing problem. That's why Spaulding says the administration will present a budget that doesn't include any tax increases. Instead, the plan will reduce the growth rate in state spending.
But this is no real surprise, we were warned (or assured depending on your tax bracket) by Governor Shumlin almost from the start.
Frankly, he told us who he favored in 2011:
“The state of Vermont does not have the flexibility to do that [raise VT income taxes] because we all know New Hampshire is to our east and Florida is not far away and frankly my job is to take the 435 high-income tax payers in Vermont and grow that base, grow our customer base so that we have more revenue.” [added emphasis]
What will they suggest for now to close the budget shortfall? Maybe some old ideas are stored away — let’s see, yup, here’s a few in the bottom of this barrel — oh here’s a couple “winners”: Taxing break-open lottery tickets, the kind sold in social clubs and bars. Or maybe this one: fiddle with err … trade-off the “too generous” EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit) benefits to cover child care costs.
Maybe this one way down in the bottom: legalize casino gambling. Perhaps there could be floating casinos on Lake Champlain. In fairness that one wasn’t Shumlin’s, but it’s got to be from the bottom of the same barrel of make-the-poor-and-working-class-pay budget tricks.
NEXT!
for whom the election results were nothing but a resounding endorsement for the Republican agenda.
Admit one more to la-la land.
…Jeb Spaulding’s pleas for more state spending on education when he takes off the green eyeshade and becomes Chancellor of the Vermont State College system.
And he’ll be staring at his successor, sternly replying that we have to live within our means.
Because he is against everything the Democratic Party used to stand for. Don’t dare tax the 435 inconceivably rich people who can easily afford it and wouldn’t even know it’s missing. No, instead, decrease social services and increase costs of the ~626,195 Not-Rich.
Who do the Democrats represent? 435 rich people and NO ONE ELSE.
Has anyone heard rumors about who will be replacing Spaulding? In my mind, this will signal the true direction of Shumlin’s next term. I’d like to see someone more friendly to labor and the lower classes (though those are both sadly low bars when you look at Spaulding’s record).
it was a joke. A tax on break open tickets that is.
But the Shumlin administration dug the idea back up and it is lurching around Montpelier like a bad idea zombie.
http://vtdigger.org/2014/11/29…