( – promoted by JulieWaters)

Or, why it’s OK to tax those who can afford it sometimes, but not others?

Updated with transcript

I was listening to the Mark Johnson show (http://www.markjohnsonshow.net/) yesterday when he was interviewing the Governor and they started talking about the budget bill. The Governor said that he hoped that the Senate would reinstate the tax on non-Medicare and Medicaid dental services and not raise the cigarette tax. Mark noted that it was surprising to hear a politician not supporting an increased tax on tobacco. Since the podcast is not available yet, I don’t have the Governor’s exact quote, but here is the gist of what he replied – because of the demographics of who smokes and who doesn’t, the tobacco tax falls most heavily on lower income Vermonters who can’t afford it. People are addicted to cigarettes, and we shouldn’t penalize them more. However, the people who are getting these dental services done can afford to pay the little bit extra for the tax on these services.

Here is the transcript from the show’s podcast found at http://blog.markjohnsonshow.net. The quote starts at 27:10. Emphasis is mine.

Mark – Do you want the Senate to put back in the tax you proposed on dentists?

Governor – The answer is yes and I’ll tell you why. Right now, as you know hospitals and most healthcare providers have an assessment on their bills that allows us to draw down Federal dollars and we then reimburse them for their share. Dentists in Vermont, many provide services to Medicaid and Medicare, low income VTers who need their teeth fixed too. Many of the dentists don’t. Under my plan, which is assessing that same assessment on dentists. Those who provide care for the poor will come out better financially than they are right now. Those who refuse, will pay the 3% assessment, and I think that’s fair. Now what the House’s proposal is instead is to ask the hard-working guy, man or woman in VT, who’s going to work – 9, 10, 11 bucks an hour perhaps – they’re going to stop at the store for a pack of cigarettes. They’re going to pay 20, 30 cents more for that pack of cigarettes and it’s going to come out of a working person’s pocket. I would rather – and this assessment on the dentists – I think it’s fair, and I don’t understand why the House didn’t support that particular provision. I think it makes a lot of sense.

Mark – I’m a little surprised to hear any politician advocating against a cigarette tax increase.

Governor – Let me tell you about the cigarette tax. People who smoke cigarettes have an addiction. We all know that as we make progress in reducing cigarette consumption, there tends to be more low income people who are smoking than higher income people. That’s just the way the numbers are. So, in my judgement, if you’re going to assess a tax, I think it should be assessed on people who can most afford it and I do not believe that the person who is struggling to make ends meet, who’s going to pick up their pack or carton of cigarettes on the way to work, who’s trying to make ends meet in a real tough economy, should be asked to pay more because they have an addiction. Let’s get them off their addiction, but I don’t think a cigarette tax is going to drive that.

Am I the only one who sees this logic as totally opposite the thinking that allows the Governor to say this about raising taxes on the wealthiest Vermonters with a straight face: (http://www.vpr.net/news_detail/90215/#)

“The state of Vermont does not have the flexibility to do that 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.”

Isn’t this the same lame excuse we got from Governor Douglas? We can’t tax the rich, because they’ll move out of Vermont. Plus, Florida – even northern Florida is 14 hours away by car, but I digress.

I thought the Blue Ribbon Tax Commission – setup by then Senator Shumlin – found that there was no evidence of this. Here is what was in the Executive Summary of their report: (http://www.vermonttaxreform.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/WEB-REPORT-2.pdf)

There is Insufficient Data to Claim that Vermonters are Migrating Due to High Taxes – Current Statistics Demonstrate an In-Migration of Income.  

Available data suggests that those entering Vermont earn more than those leaving.  Also, Vermont’s top tax bracket is populated by high-income events, not high-income earners.  While the data cannot determine something as subjective as why people are moving, it does demonstrate that definitive claims that the wealthy are moving out and about the effect of this migration are more complicated than currently assumed.  

On the other side of the argument, the Shumlin administration is willing to cut needed services to lower- and middle-income Vermonters, the elderly, persons with disabilities and other vulnerable populations in order to balance the budget. Here is Secretary of Human Services Doug Racine with the rationale: (http://vtdigger.org/2011/03/17/racine-proposes-competition-for-designated-agencies/)

“We have a problem,” Racine said. “How do we get through these difficult times, without hurting Vermonters. There’s nothing left we can do except cut services.”

The person who posted this on Green Mountain Daily (http://www.greenmountaindaily.com/diary/7536/shumlin-sits-on-a-tax) put it succinctly – “it makes your head hurt, doesn’t it?” Where are Lewis Carroll and Franz Kafka when we need them?

The Progressive Party legislators proposed an amendment to the tax bill to raise income taxes on the top two tiers of filers in Vermont in order to stave off some of the budget cuts in human services. It was defeated. (http://www.progressiveparty.org/blog/2011/tax-amendment-fails) There were legislators who agreed with this position, but not now or in this particular bill.

So, back to the top and the sub-title to this post – Can we get the Governor to explain why it’s OK to tax those who can afford it when they get a crown at the dentist, but not those Vermonters who have high incomes and pay little or no state income tax? (http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/03/23/business-vt-tax-bill_8370716.html)

Sen. Tim Ashe of Chittenden County said that when the miscellaneous tax bill makes its way to the Senate, he will seek to amend it to get the state to do a better job collecting taxes from the seven Vermonters who reported incomes higher than $1 million in the 2009 tax year and paid nothing in state income taxes. Data from the state Tax Department also show that more than 1,000 tax filers reported incomes higher than $100,000 but paid less than $1,000 in state income tax in 2009.

Or can we get the Governor to explain why we shouldn’t add a hardship to those who smoke cigarettes, but it’s OK to add hardships to those needing services and support because of disability, age or mental health issues?

I hope someone asks these questions.

Also posted here – http://joelgvt.wordpress.com/2…

(Cool. – promoted by odum)

I saw a word cloud comparison today between Obama’s speech and she-who-won’t-be-named. I thought it might be interesting to do the same for Shumlin’s 2011 Inaugural Address and Jim Douglas’ from 2009.

Shumlin – 2011

Douglas – 2009

One thing that stood out to me was the lack of action words that were in Peter’s speech like create, deliver, build, innovative in the Douglas speech. Also, for someone who was elected with the slogan Jim=Jobs, I had to look hard to find that word in his word cloud.

Enjoy.

( – promoted by GMD)

I took the unofficial results and put them into Tableau and came up with these vizualizations.

Results by Town

Results by County

To reveal new truths and new realities about the war, … you take a risk as an American when you do that. At most you’re informing your fellow Americans. It’s up to them to make a choice – to pay attention, to do something about it. … And the risk that you take when you do that, is that you’ll learn something ultimately about your fellow citizens that you won’t like to hear. And that is, that they hear it, they learn from it, they understand it, and they proceed to ignore it. Daniel Ellsberg, from an interview with Studs Terkel, 1972

The release of over 90,000 documents related to the Afghan War puts us back here again. What will we do?

The pundits tell us that there’s nothing new here. Really?

• Our money that is going to Pakistan is being funnelled to the Taliban in Afghanistan. That’s old news?
• The Taliban have weapons that can down US helicopters with deadly accuracy. That’s old news?
• We have killed or wounded far more civilians – women and children – than previously reported. That’s old news?
• The military has special forces units that specialize in “neutralizing” our enemies (and sometimes our allies). That’s old news?

I guess so, because our Congress just authorized more money for this quagmire.

I listen to Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! – not always the most uplifting hour of news, but because of listening to her show I do know that a lot of what is in these documents is not new news. But for the majority of Americans who have been spoonfed the sanitized version of what is happening in Afghanistan, this is their wake up call.

Our congressman – Peter Welch voted no on the recent authorization. Did yours?

Please find out. If they did vote for the authorization, call their office and find out why. Make them accountable for the fact that we are sending our treasure – money, materials, men and women (with over 1200 casualties) – half way around the world – for what?

To all the pundits out there who see nothing new here, a question. These documents paint a bleak picture of what’s going on over there and “winning” (whatever that means – see a discussion about this by James Fallows here) seems an impossible task. So, why do the pundits and our elected leadership keep pretending that winning is possible?

Jon Taplin on his blog writes:

I hope President Obama spends a good bit of his vacation reading the reports in detail. When he finishes, the realization that “victory in Afghanistan” is a mirage that has been chased by many an empire, but secured by none.

Let’s not ignore the 200,000 page elephant in the room this time around. Pay attention, do something about it.

( – promoted by Open Thread)

Received this email from Matt Dunne

I wanted you to be among the first to know.

Yes, I will enter the race to be Governor of Vermont in 2010.

We will make an official announcement tomorrow, but since the work of building our state’s future will be done by people like you, you are really the most important audience.

Here are the details:

What: Matt Dunne for Governor announcement

When:  10:45 am, Tuesday Nov. 3rd

Where: Tip-Top Cafe, 85 N Main St., White River Junction

The start of his campaign website is here.

http://bit.ly/DunneLaunch  

To hear the WSJ tell it (link) the economy was minding its own business and everything was great until Pelosi and Obama decided to spend every dime we have on stuff they don't care about.

We've never fretted over budget deficits, at least if they finance tax cuts to promote growth or spending to win a war. But these deficit estimates are driven entirely by more domestic spending and already assume huge new tax increases.

I guess they forgot that W. left the new President a steaming pile of junk and an economy about to crater.

I guess they forgot about the years the Republicans controlled Congress and never met a spending program/weapons system/war/invasion/tax cut they wouldn’t support.

Are there things I wish Obama would do differently? Sure there are. But to forget eight years of mismanagement and then throw up a headline like this one reminds me why I don’t read this rag – especially their editorials.