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.
Thirty years ago I spent four days in the small Baltic nation of Estonia, attending a liberty conference. In the Soviet era (1940-1991) communist apparatchiks appointed in Moscow ruled the three Baltic countries as sham Soviet “republics”. The enterprising Estonians were shackled, and by 1946 more than one-quarter of the population had been deported to a Siberian Gulag, or executed, or had fled the country.
Two new reports on Vermont’s Renewable Energy Standard, one by the Department of Public Service and Sustainable Energy Advantage and the other by an organization called Brattle, confirm what we’ve been pointing out for a long time – Vermont’s so called green energy mandates are all cost and no benefit for the Vermonters who get stuck paying the bills. And those costs are huge.
Last week the Vermont Departments of Health and Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living (DAIL) released a comprehensive document, produced by a wide range of state officials, nonprofit organization employees, and volunteers. It’s titled Age Strong VT: Our Road Map for an Age Friendly State. (Read it at www.healthyvermont.gov/agestrongvt).
Last week WCAX featured Stand Your Ground Vermont , a citizen gathering in Rutland to battle street crime, with the city police down three officers and the prosecutors complaining how their hands are tied. This is a very encouraging report. I hope it leads to a Rutland Guardian Angels group.