By Angelo Lynn
Editor’s note: Angelo Lynn is the editor and publisher of the Addison Independent in Middlebury, a sister paper to the Mountain Times.
Vermont Republicans running for election to the House or Senate have two ready-made campaign issues — inflation and high property taxes — and many are using it to their full advantage.
Flyers have appeared in mailboxes with suggestive headlines such as: “What did you think of your property tax increase this year? I was shocked, weren’t you?”
Then the mailings go on to suggest housing costs are higher, food is higher, heating bills are higher. Everything is higher, higher, higher. Vote for me, the postcards suggest, and they’ll fight to lower those costs.
Sounds good, right? Everyone agrees it’s better to have lower prices.
But let’s think it through for a moment.
First, take inflation. In an average year, inflation on many items goes up 3%-4%, even as the federal bank strives to keep national inflation close to 2%. So, just for starters, inflationary costs rise about 12%-15% every four years. And that’s not a bad thing. Wages go up as well (the minimum wage in Vermont is now $13.67, having gone up 49 cents from the previous year.) That’s just how the economy percolates, or crumbles, whatever your perspective might be.
The pandemic, of course, has been the main cause of the high inflation of the past four years. The sudden closing of many businesses at the height of the pandemic that first year, sent the economy into sudden withdrawal, which necessitated high government spending. That funding, from both Trump and later Biden, prevented an almost certain recession, but predictably spurred inflation. The pandemic was the worst the world has seen in a long time, which necessitated longer than usual economic stimulus.
This happened throughout the country and the world. Vermont state representatives or senators, be they Democrats or Republicans, had no say in the matter.
So area candidates blaming any other candidate, or their parties, for high prices on food and most other consumables is casting blame needlessly — and should be called to task.
High property taxes are another matter.
In Vermont, high property taxes are directly related to education expenses, which have soared in Vermont for several reasons: declining students in most schools, high health care costs, high labor costs because of a shortage of teachers and school staff, a higher incidence of mental health issues in school (blame the pandemic, smart-phones, fentanyl, Facebook, Instagram and Tik-Tok).
Also, voters should remember the Legislature’s role is to provide the money needed to pay for budgets local voters approve. So, if voters want to reduce school spending, they should start with their own school budgets — then again, most voters want their schools to provide the education their children and grandchildren deserve.
Darn. That complicates things, doesn’t it?
The problem with being against high spending is figuring out what to cut.
To that end, when candidates say they’ll reduce spending, voters should ask them to be specific in terms of what they’ll cut and how.
Can they affect the high price of food, or gasoline, or building materials? No.
Can they demand lower housing costs? No. The Legislature can reduce regulatory measures that add to building costs, as can town government, and that’s being done (or attempted), but it’s also stymied by others who don’t want what they might consider over-building in their backyard (nimbys.) And housing is created by private firms, most of whom in Vermont are beyond busy doing as many projects as they have workers to complete.
Democrats in the Legislature did recently tackle the high cost of childcare, passing a small payroll tax to help resolve a chronic shortage of childcare providers, and that’s shown immediate success and could, over time, reduce costs as more childcare providers equalize demand. More could be done to relax industry regulations, even if it might reduce the quality of care, and those are reasonable tradeoffs to debate.
One issue area Republicans are pushing is that home heating oil might skyrocket if legislation seeking to transition Vermont homeowners off fossil fuels fulfills their worst-case scenarios. They often fail to mention the legislation calls for adjustments to any anticipated increase if the downsides outweigh the benefits. The first step, the legislation mandates, is to study how the proposed solution might work, then move forward if warranted.
Such explanations, of course, are not nearly as exciting as simply calling — in a postcard mailed to voters — for lower prices and, in so many words, more money in voters’ pockets. It’s part of the game for candidates on both sides to suggest they can do better. It’s up to voters to demand specifics and call-out empty promises.
