Simple and fair

Posted by Paul Cillo on March 15, 2010 at 8:41 am

Montpelier should be trying to make the education tax system simpler and fairer.  But Republican Gov. Jim Douglas is proposing changes that would make the system more complicated and less fair: He’d increase taxes on middle-income Vermonters and lower them on wealthier ones.

Sound crazy? Then how about this: The Democratic-controlled House appears to be moving in the same direction.

Read Paul Cillo’s op-ed, from the Mar. 14 Times Argus and Rutland…

Challenges for Change: Keep the process open

Posted by Jack Hoffman on March 10, 2010 at 4:43 pm

Challenges for Change—the new government efficiency plan passed by the Legislature just before the Town Meeting Day recess—is getting off to a bad start. The Education Design Team, which has a little more than two weeks to come up with plans for pretty sweeping changes affecting how schools are run, held its first meeting on Monday behind closed doors. With good reason, school board members and others with a stake…

Tax cuts are a zero-sum game

Posted by Jack Hoffman on March 3, 2010 at 3:01 pm

A new report challenges the conventional wisdom that states can stimulate their local economies by cutting taxes. “The Zero-Sum Game,” from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, D.C., explains that the effects of broad tax cuts are generally cancelled out by the reduction in state spending and layoffs of public employees that typically result from tax cuts. The report also challenges the effectiveness of tax credits that…