|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
by Elizabeth Brown
I am a working Mom, so concerned about our State that I could no longer sit on the sidelines. Running for the House of Representatives is not a small decision for me and my family, but it is one that we feel strongly about.
I chose Vermont to be my home in 2000. Beyond its beauty and endless playgrounds, I found Vermonters to be warm and welcoming, but also independent and self-sufficient; more than willing to support strong communities and help neighbors in need. Vermont was safe. I never knew where my house key was. It felt affordable. Vermont was a place where you lived within your means.
I think many of us are questioning: what happened? And when I say many, I mean most of the people I speak with, and most of the people I overhear in the grocery store, library, soccer sidelines or gas station. Our near-term affordability issues are affecting nearly all. People are stressed and scared for the future. With Vermont government spending up 46% since 2019 and income up 10% at most, they should be.
Questions that need answers:
How is it that our legislature is promising affordable housing while at the same time approving a yield bill that is causing our property taxes to skyrocket?
How is it that our legislature put our schools, our kids, and our towns in a position where we were pitted against each other, knowing this train wreck was a decade in the making, then failed to engage with the voters to acknowledge it?
How is it that our legislature is passing bills that will double your home heating and electric bills when so many Vermonters are struggling to make ends meet?
As a candidate, I won’t profess to have all the answers, but I do have one attribute desperately needed: accountability. I have been watching the past few legislative sessions with interest, at first, and then with anger. We are playing with people’s lives and livelihoods. Call me the voice of reason candidate. The candidate who is ready to use the skills acquired over 20 years in business to make sure the same rigor is applied to our laws and our budgets. Out of touch is what I hear. Non-responsive. Our current legislature is focused on passing bills to suit the needs of the special interests, lobbyists and activists, “voting the party platform,” and is disconnected from its constituents. They take pride in the quantity of bills, and not what is most critical in solving Vermont’s most substantial current challenges. All of this busyness means that we are kicking the can down the road on the issues that incumbents have been promising progress on: education,housing, affordability.
Real strategy means focusing our efforts on the burning issues that are imploding in front of our eyes. Prioritizing these to stabilize and grow our communal and fiscal strength and sustainability, we will be better equipped to extend the kindness and connections Vermonters all care about and to broaden our environmental reach.
This election year, take politics out of our Vermont government and remember our roots. We are neighbors with more common ground than our politicians want us to know. We’ve always been Vermonters helping Vermonters. But let’s do this the right way. Let’s be reasonable about what Vermont and Vermonters are fiscally capable of. I am an issues-driven candidate and will represent all Vermonters regardless of political affiliation to implement sound and responsible fiscal solutions.
Elizabeth Brown is a Democratic Candidate for the Washington-Chittenden (Waterbury, Bolton, Huntington, Buels Gore) District of the Vermont House of Representatives. You can learn more about her at: www.elizabethbrownforvermont.com
Discover more from Vermont Daily Chronicle
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Categories: Commentary, politics
What is your plan for reversing the illegal gun laws that will cost the citizens money in lawsuits, creates huge carbon emission increases, punishes regular people for a god given right, and destroys Vermont tradition and culture?
Commendable, but many have left or r leaving too. When you see a fire, there r few who run in except emergency responders. Life is too short. I guess.
Elizabeth, good luck as we need sensible politicians no matter their party affiliation. However, be aware that Jill K will try to bend you to her will through your committee assignments & other means. Be strong and you, along with other moderates, may be able to make a real difference.
Unfortunately, she is running as a candidate in the party that caused all the problems in the first place. If she wins, she will be told what to say and do by the dem/prog machine in Montpelier. This is the reason nothing changes for the benefit of the Vermont citizens. Elected another democrat, get the same results. Her intensions appear to be sincere and maybe I’m wrong but moderate democrats are still democrats.
Hi Elizabeth, I wanted to reach out and tell you how much I enjoyed your letter in the Vermont Daily Chronicle. Over the years I have grown so discouraged about the issues you raise. I am glad you are running for office and I appreciate you putting yourself “out there” in discussing these sent issues. Kindly, Aaron Kindsvatter
Our resurrection from current mess can focus on voting for other than the democrats/progressive’s who’ve created the mess — AND converting those who get elected to —-REPRESENT US—- rather than their party and its agenda. Elizabeth Brown might be a convert to good sense and obstruct the agendas of her party?
Might be? That is the problem. I Can’t trust Vermont republicans, democrats, or independents. After fifty years maybe it is just time to move along to greener and cheaper pastures. In all those years, the only good governor was Snelling.
If elected, Elizabeth will be a gift to Vermonters and the best thing that could happen to the Democratic Party. Thanks. for stepping up Elizabeth. Hoping you get in there for the sake of VT.
Ms. Brown, You are running as a democrat but sound like a republican. If you really care about Vermont and its people, you will set yourself apart from them because you have a different vision of where Vermont should be going. A path of less government and affordability for all. You will be lumped in with the other Dems and will loose against name recognized incumbents. If you do get in and don’t vote along party lines Jill K will go after you and give you the worst assignments or get you redistricted. I know this I’ve seen it happen with one of our house representatives, Samantha Lefebvre. She was removed by Jill K so now we have only one house representative in Williamstown in Orange County instead of two.
Best scenario is to flip seats so they loose their supermajority. To run as a republican and recruit people to become republicans and kick out the Jill K’s if you want a livable Vermont that’s free again. Don’t be controlled. It can be done. Good luck.
Re: Best scenario is to flip seats so they [lose] their supermajority.
Not necessarily. If Elizabeth votes her conscience, as it is somewhat vaguely described here and on her web site, she will be countering the supermajority’s strangle-hold on Vermont’s legislature as well as she would by switching parties.
Elizabeth: I’ve asked questions, similar to those below, of the representatives in my district, and they have, to date, refused to engage – likely because I oppose their policies and don’t vote for them. But if you’re offering a more ‘transparent’ governance, will you take some time to discuss the following points gleaned from your web site with me here on VDC? After all, we all want what’s best for ourselves, our families, and our communities. But, as they say, the devil is in the details.
If you don’t mind, and if Guy Page will agree, would you be kind enough to elaborate on each of the points below in a separately published article designated to each one?
Re: • Government spending is up 46% since 2019. About 22% of that can be explained by inflation.
What do you mean by ‘inflation’? I know it’s what happens when the money supply increases disproportionately to available goods and services, i.e., supply and demand. But can you explain why the money supply increased, and how you propose to bring it into balance?
Re: • We need to re-assess the competing interests of renewable energy and affordable home heating to achieve an affordable balance for Vermonters.
What is your understanding of Climate Change and its relationship to CO2?
Re: • Education funding reform has to be the number one priority.
Do you think parents should be able to use a proportionate share of their education tax dollars to choose the school, be it public or independent or homeschool, that best meets the needs of their children? If so, how would you implement the process?
Re: • The current system penalizes small to mid-size businesses.
How so?
Re: • I will support efforts to attract and develop the right kind of industries and business types to create economic resiliency while remaining true to our Vermont roots.
What examples of ‘the right kind of industries and business types’ do you have in mind? And what policies do you propose to ‘attract and develop’ them?
Re: • We need to take care of our forest, fields, rivers and streams, and support our culture that distinguishes and sustains us.
When you describe forests, fields, rivers and streams as ‘ours’, what do you mean? What is your position on ‘private property’?
Re: • I want Vermonters to be healthy. Let’s make HEALTH a human right.
Do you mean a ‘human right’, as enumerated in our Constitution?
Again, and if Guy Page will agree, would you be kind enough to elaborate on each of the above points in an article designated to each issue? In this way we can have a specific ‘give and take’ without overlapping and inadvertently confusing specific points of view with others.
Thank you for your consideration, Elizabeth, and I look forward to carrying on this ‘conversation’.
Here is the recipe change for Vermont, it’s not what many would initially think.
https://choiceclips.whatfinger.com/2024/06/06/tucker-president-bukele-saved-el-salvador-he-may-save-the-world/
Oh, I am strongly opposed to the title, Bukele is not going to save the world, and he would be the first to say that. Can you see the humility, lack of pride in this interview?
TGBTG
Neil: Thank you for referencing this interview with El Salvador’s President Bukele. Everyone should watch it.
And the Whatfinger title to the interview should not be discounted. The reference is clearly to what we call ‘Democracy’s Laboratories’. By setting an example, El Salvador may very well be saving the world… at least to the extent that we’re able to see its example before it’s ‘cancelled’ or ‘gaslighted’ or ‘censored’.
As enlightening (and refreshing) as President Bukele is, and as successful as El Salvador’s transformation is, both Bukele and Tucker Carlson danced around the specific political environment that incentivized El Salvador’s positive processes and outcomes. It’s not Democracy. It’s not Leadership. It’s the synergetic incentives created by the will of the people. It’s the ‘free market’. This prospect, that has proven itself over and again, and has been articulated as well as anyone can by Milton Friedman, is obvious. Specifically, these are the three precepts El Salvador’s President Bukele followed.
1. “Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property. When government — in pursuit of good intentions tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the costs come in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player.”
2. “The key insight of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations is misleadingly simple: if an exchange between two parties is voluntary, it will not take place unless both believe they will benefit from it. Most economic fallacies derive from the neglect of this simple insight, from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.”
3. “The great virtue of a free-market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another.”
If El Salvador can do it, Vermont can do it. Hopefully, Elizabeth Brown will watch this interview too.