Statement on Gov. Peter Shumlin’s 2012 State of the State Address

Governor Shumlin is rightly proud of the leadership this administration provided in the clean up after Tropical Storm Irene last summer.  He inspired Vermonters to rise to their best during one of the worst disasters in the state’s history.

And he is correct in making job creation the state’s top priority and in recognizing that investment now in education and public infrastructure are key to Vermont’s economic future.

We disagree with his comments about taxes, however.  Vermont is not a high-tax state: a typical Vermonter would pay higher taxes in about half of the other states. There is no evidence that lower taxes create jobs: between 2000 and 2010, despite the Bush tax cuts that saved hundreds of millions of dollars in federal taxes for the so-called “job creators,” the state had the worst decade for job growth on record.  And finally, several studies in the past year have shown that increases in tax rates have little impact on individuals’ decisions about where to locate.