What a Capital Gains Tax increase would do to Angel Investors
Leafing through a new Cato Institute monograph the other day, titled “How Wealth Fuels Growth: The Role of Angel Investment” by Chris Edwards, I extracted a few useful thoughts.
Climate Action Plan Wages War on Rural Vermonters
Just before the Vermont Climate Council voted to pass its Climate Action Plan under the Global Warming Solutions Act, member Sean Brown, who is also Commissioner Department for Children and Families, issued this dire warning for rural Vermonters:
This Is What Vote Fraud in VT Really Looks Like
The Brattleboro Reformer is reporting a story of potential voter fraud in regard to a vote on the closing of Windham Elementary School. The article states,
A complaint filed by two parents at Windham Elementary School claims three non-residents participated in a controversial vote resulting in the school staying open rather than closing.
Commentary: Everyone Should Hate Proposal 5
When the Vermont House of Representatives returns in January, one of the first orders of business they will take up is a constitutional amendment called Proposal 5 (aka Article 22). Proposal 5 is being sold as a statewide protection for women’s rights guaranteed under Roe v. Wade. This isn’t an accurate portrayal of what Proposal 5 would do. In fact, Proposal 5 is a legal mess that no one on either side of the abortion debate should be okay with.
Commentary: Vermont’s Four Plans to Defeat Climate Change
Since 2014 the climate change activists have created four public policy plans to achieve their objectives. Plan A – the carbon tax - bit the dust in 2018. Plan B –TCI – has just followed it into oblivion. Plan C is the Vermont Climate Council’s Climate Action Plan, avoiding a visible carbon tax (except for resuscitating TCI). When that fails, there’s Plan D: send the Conservation Law Foundation into court to sue the State for not shackling Vermonters with Plan C fast enough.
Two tax increases proposed to lessen pension crisis
When Vermont’s Legislature appointed the Pension Benefits, Design, and Funding Task Force, there was a good chance tax increases would be discussed at some point. Now, Vermonters have a little clearer idea of what those could look like.
3 States in 4 days: TCI collapse will leave Climate Council scrambling
The Vermont Climate Council is poised to recommend that Vermont join the Transportation Climate Initiative (TCI) as a partial funding source for their Climate Action Plan, due in December. TCI is a hypothetical “cap and trade” scheme for motor fuels that several states would have to sign onto to make viable. The Council pursued this policy avenue despite repeated warning signs that TCI was not popular within the New England/Mid-Atlantic region, did not have the support of a majority of state governments, and did not look likely to ever become enacted.
A Socialist Faces Reality
Here’s an intriguing quote from last Wednesday’s Weekly Dispatch: “Freddie deBoer considers himself a democratic socialist, but he’s come to a conclusion that very few of his fellow leftists have. “It’s time for young socialists and progressive Democrats to recognize that our beliefs just might not be popular enough to win elections consistently. It does us no favors to pretend otherwise,” he writes for The New York Times.
Hottest July ever recorded! (?)
In Nature Conservancy magazine’s winter issue I read a boxed feature labelled “July 2021 was the Hottest Month Ever Recorded on Earth”. I dug online into the meaning of that statement for about an hour.
Connecticut Governor Drops TCI
If you saw what happened in the Virginia and New Jersey governor’s races, you know that left-of-center politicians nationwide, and especially on the East Coast, are panicking about a similar voter backlash washing them out of office a year from now. Glen Youngkin, now governor-elect of Virginia, and Jack Ciattarelli, who barely missed knocking out New Jersey governor Phil Murphy, capitalized on what a lot of voters see as a tone deafness on the part of Democrats who are pushing highly ideological policies at the expense of their constituents.