[lbo-talk] Armed Insurrection in Vermont?

Westrich, James james.westrich at umassmed.edu
Fri Jan 9 14:40:00 PST 2004

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OK, what is shameful here (ok the whining of priveleged Killington residents is shameful but Dean?)?

This uses convoluted cost/benefit analysis (add up all the property, sales, room, meal taxes as costs and ONLY look at direct state spending as benefit) first. It gets worse from there. Of course, a privileged resort/vacation community like Killington is goint to collect a lot of room/meal taxes--that is the whole point of "beggar thy neighbor" taxes and precisely the reason they are popular. Also, it is not the people of Killington that are paying these taxes but "southerners".

Now, living in vacation/resort community like Killington jacks up property taxes, obviously. Then state education distribution schemes mean that property taxes in Killington support poorer school districts (like Dummerston!)-- again, that is the whole point. That Dean had anything to do with that progressive redistribution would of course be to his credit.

Dean's tax havens for reinsurance biz (and his footsy with Enron) is shameful. His health policy is relatively shameful as well (Vermont is very progressive on health care issues and Dean has been holding hard on the reins of progressive health reforms is shameful in calculating way as well.

Jim

Joe: "He's a fine figure of a man, ain't he, Hoss?" Hoss: "He sure is...just rugged enough to keep from bein' pretty!"

-- Bonanza

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