To The Editor:
It’s hard to imagine how a national party that makes so much noise about standing up for conservative Christian values can be so mean-spirited about making allowances for people of modest means. It’s backwards from what the scriptures suggest. Our greedy global culture is destroying the earth, and people know it in their bones. A large part of the growing gun violence arises from people with bad impulse control feeling the groundswell of fear that we’re getting close to losing the world -- so what difference does it make?
We generally have more respect for the little guy here in Vermont. But the real point is that our national economy is built on a back ass-wards principle, the trickle-down hoax of Milton Friedman. It doesn’t work now and never has. The only fair way to set up an economy is for those who have the most to contribute the most. And for those who make the laws to always start from how their work is going to impact the millions of people who are struggling from paycheck to paycheck. It would make a lot of sense if all of our elected officials had to live on the median income and fill their own gas tanks in their own cars after they bought groceries and paid the mortgage. That would be American.
The thing that stands out is that multinational corporations base their pricing on the kind of salaries tech workers in their 20s and 30s expect to make. With no regard at all for the people who struggle week by week, or those who have ended up on the street because of their ever-increasing profits. Oops. It’s taboo to talk about price controls, isn’t it? Well, tickets to the first Superbowl were about $106 in today’s money. Tickets to this one averaged $6,800. That’s what’s wrong with our economy. That’s what trickle down nurtures.
The single idea that sums up what America is really about is the concept of the level playing field. The property and education tax legislation in Vermont should be scrapped. Hopefully, every district that has rejected their school budget will reject the next one too. It’s the wrong way to do things. So-called free primary education simply costs those who can afford it least the most. That is a regressive tax. It’s the wrong way to do things.
I’m calling on our representatives to go back to the Legislature and say, “We have to scrap this way of doing things. And make a new way, that works for everyone. “Yes, I get a prebate on my taxes. With the new plan, the government will have to give out more prebates. And then they’ll want to raise the taxes again. And if they don’t give out more prebates some people will have to sell the homesteads they’ve worked all their lives for. And some of those houses will sit empty. As some have pointed out, no one should have to pay more taxes because they have a rich neighbor.
We’re told that the values of our houses have grown astronomically, but our incomes certainly haven’t. Especially for those who are retired and trying to live on Social Security. I’m glad the UAW got a nice raise, but just the raise, by itself, is more money than I’ve ever made per hour in my life. Good for them, but the big picture? Not so nice. And the Donald will just make it worse.
For The Valley, we probably need to close at least one school. And cut down on administrators. And we don’t need to spend $50,000 to make a study. Hold a special election and let the people decide what school has to be put on standby. At least until there are more students and the whole system of financing education is rebuilt with the real needs of real people kept carefully in mind.
Jim Dodds
Waitsfield
