by Stu Lindberg
I was once a longtime reader and subscriber to the Vermont Standard newspaper out of Woodstock. Rather than reading, my time now is mostly consumed by working, managing the payment on my families ever increasing tax bill and trying to stretch our dollars in the face of record high inflation.
Buying a real print newspaper for $3 dollars is now a luxury. A few weeks ago I thought I would indulge myself and pick up a copy while working in Woodstock. I thought I might find something new and enlightening in the editorial and commentary section.
What I found was exactly what I remembered when I stopped buying the newspaper back in 2020, More of the same scribblings and rants about the national partisan issues that have ripped our nation apart, specifically the fixation on the personality of former President Donald J. Trump. The paper reads like one giant advertisement for the Democratic party of the United States.
I was disappointed but not really surprised. For the media outlets that work in lockstep with the Democratic supermajority in Montpelier there is no better distraction than to beat the war drums loudly about DJT and the national Republican Party. It has been an effective strategy since 2016 and I fear it will continue to be so.
If you still have an open mind and have not surrendered all of your critical thinking skills to the hysteria of corporate mass media, I would like you to pay attention for a few moments to what your Vermont state legislators and senators have been doing to your less affluent neighbors.
Courtesy of Windsor County state senators Alison Clarkson, Dick McCormack, Becca White and a slew of their Democrat colleagues in the general assembly we are facing a minimum 14 percent increase in our property taxes, a $3.20 per gallon tax on home heating fuels, a 5.6 percent increase in electrical bills and a 20 percent increase in DMV registration fees.
In the last few years, the news stories of our failed public schools, the failed medical system, the homelessness and the staggering fentanyl crisis have taken a back page to the detriment of an informed citizenry. For those of us that are informed we are really wondering where all of our hard earned money is going and what exactly is it that our elected representatives are trying to accomplish?
The author is a Cavendish resident.