By Guy Page

Two weeks ago, VDC-TV aired a Friday at Four episode called “Housing for Me, But Not for Thee.” We reported on some large, beautiful rural homes occupied by powerful legislators who want other Vermonters to live in cozy spaces like the Taylor Street, Montpelier housing complex that doubles as a climate-friendly bus stop. 

Social Media Director Paul Bean and I flipped the script last Friday with “Taxes for Thee, But Not for Me.” We looked at special tax breaks for electrical vehicle drivers and a group of local educators. 

Guess who’s picking up the check?

You can watch it by clicking on the YouTube video at right, or just read below for the more-or-less-followed script for that segment. 

Going back to antiquity, you could always tell who were the real favorites of kings and queens: they didn’t pay taxes. While the peasants, serfs and craftsmen paid the king and the priests for everything, the children and favored nobles somehow never had to pay. 

Some things never change. Just as the Sheriff of Nottingham could stiff the toll collector to ride his horse across a bridge, electrical vehicle drivers don’t have to pay for the upkeep of Vermont highways. In fact, they never have. And despite language that seems to fix that in this year’s transportation bill, they still don’t. 

And at least until Vermont EV ownership gets to 15% of all cars and light trucks, they never will. 

We are told by climate hawks that it is Vermont’s duty and honor to be the shock troops in the great global war on climate change. Get a blanket, as Mark MacDonald (D-Orange, seen above), the senator who has compared the battle for climate change to World II, once said on the floor of the Senate.

EVs are to this war what the Sherman tank was to WWII. You need a lot of ‘em. But lawmakers know we don’t want to pay top dollar for cars that run out of juice too soon. So they stack subsidy after subsidy – state, federal, point of sale subsidies worth many thousands per car.

It’s still not enough. So for as long as EVs have been on Vermont roads the Legislature has been unwilling to do to EV drivers what they do so easily and willingly to the rest of us: tax them. 

I’m talking about the highway usage tax. I used a gallon of gas to get from my house to Bean Chevrolet. Every gallon of gas sold at the pump in Vermont includes a state gas tax producing revenue for the Department of Transportation to build and maintain the state roads and the bridges.

And that’s fine. My Rav 4 beats up the highway, it should help fix it. 

But EVs beat up the road, too. And they don’t have to fix it. They don’t use gas, so they don’t pay the use tax and somehow, the Legislature has just never gotten around to figuring out a substitute.

Until this year. But, not really. The Legislature’s annual T-bill, the big bill that covers all things transportation in Vermont, assesses a $45 “annual electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure fee.” Okay, $45, not as much as the $200-$350 most fossil-fuel burners pay in road usage tax every year.

But it’s a start, right?

Wrong. Because the last clause in that little section of the lengthy T-bill says: “The annual and biennial EV infrastructure fees shall be allocated to the Transportation Fund for the purpose of increasing Vermonters’ access to electric vehicle supply equipment charging ports.” 

So the money they’re collecting for EVs? It’s not for road usage at all. It’s to subsidize the construction of the EV version of the gas pump.

It’s just one more proof that in Vermont, the most favored child of the King – i.e. the Legislative supermajority – is the renewable power industry. 

Wonder why the Legislature is poised to override a gubernatorial veto of the Renewable Energy Standard that could save ratepayers at least half a billion in the next 10 years? 

Because they’re the King’s favorite, that’s why. They’re why you’re paying the road usage tax for EV drivers.

Educators – another favorite child

Another favored child of the King is the educator lobby. How else to explain why the Legislature votes for a double-digit property tax increase and creates whole news taxes for us to pay, despite declining performance to a declining number of students?  

This weekend I learned of a local example of education-related Taxes for Thee but not for Me. [I repeat: a local example. Not statewide.] Faced with the .44 percent payroll tax for childcare, a percentage of which is assessed on employees, the Windsor Southeast Supervisory Board decided they would just pick up the tab and pay the whole thing. No childcare tax for supervisory union employees. 

If the school board was a private company I’d say that’s mighty commendable. A smart, loyal way to tell good employees how valuable they are.

But they’re not private, for-profit companies. Their revenue comes not out of the school board’s non-existent profit margin, but out of the pockets of taxpayers. 

They’re the same taxpayers looking at double-digit property tax increases. And, beginning July 1, the same taxpayers who will be paying the payroll tax: their own, and, if the decision holds, the WSSU employees. 

Someday soon, we’ll air an episode called “Lawsuits Against Thee, But Not Against Me,” a headline straight out of the files of the Office of Headline Redundancy Bureau. The point is that the Legislature is weaponizing our courts to sue the bad guys – manufacturers, fossil fuel producers, and pregnancy resource centers. Even the State of Vermont if it fails to meet carbon reeducation goals. Not surprisingly, the Legislature has shielded from lawsuits the third and perhaps most highly favored child of the King, the abortion/transgender services industry that once employed Speaker of the House Jill Krowinski as a senior VP for Planned Parenthood of New England.

Stay tuned…..you can watch all episodes of Friday at Four at the Vermont Daily Chronicle YouTube page. While you’re there, please subscribe to and like our page. It costs you nothing and helps us greatly.

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