Cutting our commitment
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The message couldn’t have been clearer this week from three former officials of the Vermont Agency of Human Services. They said budgets proposed by both the administration and the Legislature would result in cuts to services for many of the state’s most vulnerable citizens. Read more
Savings could mean more cuts
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Vermonters who rely on services from the Agency of Human Services got a reprieve last week when the Vermont House passed its version of the fiscal 2011 budget. But they shouldn’t relax just yet. The Challenges for Change bill still holds the potential to take back what the House restored. Read more
Becoming Arizona
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All eyes have been on Washington for the last few days as the U.S. finally took a step toward creating a health care system than any civilized country ought to provide. There is still a long way to go, but at least it’s a start. Read more
Where to find $195 million
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A sales tax on household services in Vermont could generate up to $195 million in revenue. That’s according to testimony given by phone by Michael Mazerov, Senior Fellow at the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities, at the March 16 meeting of the Blue Ribbon Tax Structure Commission in Montpelier. Read more
Simple and fair
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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. Read more
Challenges for Change: Keep the process open
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. Read more
Tax cuts are a zero-sum game
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. Read more
The Mystery Is Why, Not How
On Town Meeting Day, voters in many Vermont communities are confronting school tax increases that are bigger than the increase in overall school spending or the increase in per pupil spending. One explanation from critics of Vermont’s education funding system is: Well, that’s Act 60 for you. Read more
Let’s hear the alternatives
Voters in Oregon bucked conventional wisdom last month and chose to raise taxes rather than accept deeper and more damaging cuts to the state budget. The Legislature had approved the package of tax increases on corporations and on households with personal income of $250,000 or more ($125,000 for individuals). Read more
The governor’s ‘tax relief’ sleight-of-hand
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Ever hear of the con game pulled on bartenders in busy pubs? A guy strikes up a conversation with a bartender at one end of the bar and says he can make a $100 bill disappear and reappear. He asks the bartender to take $100 bill out of the cash register. Read more