Vermont Futures Project: right diagnosis, (mostly) wrong solutions.

by Rob Roper

The Vermont Futures Project, a project of the Vermont Chamber of Commerce, made a big splash last week by declaring our state ranks last for economic momentum. Smack! In a January 7^th op-ed, they write:

The Vermont Futures Project’s Competitiveness Dashboard shows Vermont trailing most states in economic outlook, cost competitiveness, and regulatory efficiency. Vermont ranks 49th in Economic Outlook and continues to struggle with slow economic growth, high costs of doing business, and a demographic profile that strains employers and public systems.

Yup. Testify, brother!

So, what’s their plan to fix this? I checked out their fifty page “Vermont Economic Action Plan,” and, while there is some good stuff buried in it and some truly sobering statistics, I was, well, disappointed by the fact that I was generally disappointed.

For example, the very first recommended action item in the report is “Elevate Vermont’s Achievements with a Renewed Relocation Marketing Campaign,” to help with Vermont’s demographic crisis. Um… what achievements? You just pointed out that Vermont has the most sluggish economy in the nation. Our housing market is atrociously unaffordable, the job market stinks, taxes are too high, our regulatory burden will discourage even the most dogged entrepreneurs from doing anything, we have a demographics crisis, and the schools your kids will go to are underperforming Mississippi. Hey, look what we’ve achieved! Move to Vermont! Good luck with this.

Advertising pioneer and guru Bill Bernbach once warned, “A great ad campaign will make a bad product fail faster. It will get more people to know it’s bad.” Take heed. Until you first create a “New & Improved!” economic product, don’t bother advertising.

But, of course, the Chamber wouldn’t highlight all those policy failures in a PR blast, so what brand of lipstick are they recommending we apply to our particular pig to attract new residents? “Vermont has a legacy of leadership and innovation, especially in social and environmental commitment.” And this is where they really lost me. They want to, “Leverage migration trends, such as climate migration and values driven relocation, to attract people who are motivated by social or environmental factors.” Yuck. And stupid.

Our so-called “legacy of leadership and innovation,” especially on the issues of environment and social justice,” is precisely WHY our economy is in the tank.

The Global Warming Solutions Act? Single Payer Healthcare? Defunding the Police? The list of disasters on these fronts is too long to list in this space! And the Chamber wants to entice more people who think these policies are still good ideas despite all evidence of abject failure to move here and, presumably, keep voting into office the last crop of such morons who moved here to push “green” and “woke” laws on a blindsided citizenry? Nope. This is doubling down on the problem, not proposing a serious solution.

In fact, and to this point, speaking of those sobering statistics I mentioned earlier, the report shares a chart on housing costs that details how “… the median price for newly built homes in [Vermont] was $616,500, of which $171,387 would be attributed to regulations.” (Emphasis added.) That is a freakin’ staggering number! And housing costs are the Chamber’s number one root-cause problem that needs to be solved. Yet our “legacy of leadership” on climate issues – think “net zero” building codes, Act 250 regulations and permitting, the push to ban development from 80 percent of Vermont’s land (aka reduce supply and creating scarcity for housing) — is largely behind that added cost.

We don’t need more people in Vermont who think this way, we need fewer. And the ones we’re stuck with need to be told loudly and clearly to sit the heck down and to shut the heck up while the economically literate amongst us solve the problems they’ve created. If you really want to attract people to Vermont who want to work (join our woefully depleted labor force and not suck on the teat of government welfare programs), the recipe is simple: let them keep more of what they earn.

That’s basically the product states with growing economies and populations are selling. No or low-income taxes. Cheap energy. Reasonable healthcare costs. And you can bet the added regulatory cost to build a house in those places is nowhere near $171,387.

This is the message I would encourage the Vermont Chamber to take up as the legislature resumes business. Aggressively. The majority isn’t going to want to hear it, but they need to. And, as I said at the outset, the Chamber’s report does mention some good ideas, but they are unfortunately buried.

It’s not until page 27, Efficiency Strategy #3 (following six other Expansion Strategy headliners, so this would be their 9^th action recommendation) does Vermont’s leading business organization recommend “Strengthen Vermont’s Business Climate,” by simplifying regulation and permitting, not raising taxes, etcetera. Good, but shouldn’t this be, like, the first thing a Chamber of Commerce is recommending? Maybe even the only thing at this point.

And then there’s “Efficiency Strategy #4: Improve fiscal responsibility….” Yes. Please do. And here they happily make mention of Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) as an example of implemented fiscal responsibility, which Vermont should very much adopt ASAP. Will the Chamber make a real push for this, or leave it in the fine print of page 28? What I hope and how I bet diverge dramatically here.

So, if you are a member of the Vermont Chamber of Commerce, consider giving them a call and asking them to turn up the tax and regulation cutting message and tone down the “green/woke” nonsense that got us into the mess we’re in.

Rob Roper is a freelance writer with 20 years of experience in Vermont politics including three years service as chair of the Vermont Republican Party and nine years as President of the Ethan Allen Institute, Vermont’s free market think tank.