VT Democrats will apparently never learn.
Go to any social media platform these days (Maybe not Bluesky. I’m not on it so don’t know, but this could explain quite a bit.) and you will see some version of a video of New York governor Kathy Hochul (D-NY) mocking her wealthy, tax-averse constituents with the 2022 taunt, “Jump on a bus and head down to Florida. Get outta town! Get outta town! You do not represent our values. You are not New Yorkers.” This will inevitably be juxtaposed with her March 2026 pathetic plea for all those moneybags to come back, values be damned, so long as you can “cut me the check,” because the rich took this tax and spend nutjob at her word, did the sane thing, and left.
Today, Hochel version 2.0 Campaign Mode says, “I need people who are high net worth to support the generous social programs that we want to have in our state.” Duh. But Hochul’s rap sounds about as tempting as an abusive spouse tearfully whining, “Come back, baby, I never realized how much I’d miss beating you.” I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict it won’t work. New York is screwed.
So is “let’s tax the richies” California. In the wake of a proposal to implement a 5% wealth tax on mega-millionaire, mega-taxpayers like Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Lary Page, and Peter Thiel, they all decided the weather was better (?) and/or family closer in places like Florida and Texas — which just happen to be income tax free. So long, Golden State. And we’re taking our gold with us. Good luck with that $21 billion budget shortfall!
It’s not just the mega-rich headline grabbers who are fleeing the groping, greedy hands of all these rapacious blue-state politicians. States like New York, California, are losing overall population due to eerily similar if you’re a Vermonter high-tax, high-spend, high-regulatory environments – a witch’s brew of welfare state policy choices that kills affordability not for the fleeing wealthy but rather the left-behind working classes. For example, when Governor Hochel, having learned her lesson that the beatings must stop, at least until after the next election, balked at another surcharge on wealthy taxpayers to pay for Democratic Socialist Mayor Mandami’s promised spending, he countered with a 9 percent property tax increase that would impact everyone. (Just 9 percent? Vermont’s Democratic Socialists shout, “hold my beer!”)
You’d think that with plenty of examples like these out there to learn from even the dimmest of dimwits would have learned by now not to stick their fork into this particular electrical socket. But if we’ve learned one thing about Vermont Democratic Socialist lawmakers over the years, it’s that they don’t learn. At least not where it comes to ideologically driven policy.
Rank and file Democrats led by Rep. Monique Priestley (D-Bradford), who is looking to make the jump to the Senate next election, and Rep. Esme Cole (D-White River Junction) tried to push legislation that would create two new state income tax brackets for households earning over $500,000 a year (3% increase to 11.75%), and over $1 million (5% to 13.75%). This would leave Vermont with the highest marginal income tax rate in the country, topping California’s 13.3 percent millionaire’s tax. Note the “half-millionaire” aspect of this tax increase because, well, because of decades of similar tax and regulatory policies we don’t have too many actual millionaires left in Vermont, our Senior Socialist Senator being an exception. Turns out rich people, unlike Leftie politicians, tend not to be stupid.
So, here’s some advice for those who want to soak the rich to pay for social programs: before you can tax the wealthy, you have to create an economic environment that attracts and/or grows them. To use an analogy, if you want to harvest tomatoes, you don’t salt the soil and block out the sun, you foster an environment in which they will thrive. You bring in nutrient rich dirt, water regularly, provide support stakes, pull the weeds that try to attack them, and you don’t get greedy and pick the tomatoes before they’re ripe, or eat the leaves, stem or roots ever. If you want the tomatoes, you need to love and care for the tomato plant.
Unfortunately, the majority of the politicians running our state today are products of the Bernie Sanders’ school of economics, the main principles of which are envy, hatred, and greed for other people’s money – the salt, shade and scythe of economic farming. We have the results to prove it: the lowest rate of economic momentum in the country, one of the highest tax burdens on working people, not just the rich, and a declining population because fewer people are willing – and too often simply not able — to put up with this.
Deep blue states like New York, California, and Vermont tax the crap out of high-income earners and have significant budget deficits and declining populations. Florida and Texas have no income tax but – teachable moment here — have budget surpluses and healthy population growth. The latter states have learned how to grow economic tomato plants and harvest juicy tax-filled tomatoes. The former states, ours included, repeatedly smack the tomato plant with a garden shovel and then wonder why it doesn’t produce fruit. (Yes, tomatoes are a fruit.)
Rob Roper is a freelance writer with 25 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.