Our mission is to cultivate peace and prosperity by promoting policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited, constitutional government, and individual liberty.
The Ethan Allen Institute is Vermont’s free-market public policy research and education organization. A “think tank.” Founded in 1993, we are one of fifty-plus similar but independent state-level, public policy organizations around the country which exchange ideas and information through the State Policy Network.
Once again, Vermont’s future is the topic of an initiative by a high-powered collection of partners, this time under the auspices of the Vermont Chamber of Commerce.
A good case can be made that today is an apt time for another Futures report, hopefully free from interest group agendas. That’s because demographic trends, the COVID pandemic, a crippling flood, billions of federal dollars, a soaring homelessness problem, and the belief in a global climate emergency have put a lot of forces into motion to seek the driver’s seat for the state’s future.
In the wake of American Independence, the 13 former colonies set out to fashion constitutions for their new states. So, too, did the freemen of the New Hampshire Grants, the Republic of Vermont.
At the founding convention in Windsor in 1777, the most popular constitutional model was that of Pennsylvania, adopted the preceding year. Historians refer to Pennsylvania’s as the most radical of the First Wave of constitutions, because it championed democratic rule by the people, exalted legislative power, and gave short shrift to separation of powers and checks and balances.
Last week Gov. Scott held a news conference where he announced several steps he’s taking to assist Vermonters who have lost their vehicles to flood damage and presumably didn’t have insurance protection for the loss.
The Wall Street Journal reports that “The press is cheering a group of Montana children who prevailed this week in state court with a radical new legal theory on climate change.”