[T]he first proposition came when Vermont Interfaith Action — a grassroots coalition of several dozen Green Mountain religious congregations — was seeking a way to help people squeezed by income inequality: Why not urge state leaders to tally up a budget that, for debate’s sake, reveals the real cost of all needed public services, rather than just start annual negotiations with an already pared-down plan?
Now introducing that idea at churches and synagogues through a “Building Vermont’s Moral Economy” campaign, the group is facing other questions. Take the Brattleboro parishioner who raised his hand to say he moved cross-country from Los Angeles, where residents convinced the nation’s largest local government to increase the minimum wage to $15.
Why, the man asked, wasn’t the Vermont effort thinking equally big?
“People are hungry for even more action,” replies the Rev. Debbie Ingram, the group’s executive director. “We try to address root causes and make change systemically. This is just a manageable first step.”
To take another, 30 representatives of spiritual and social justice organizations gathered this past Saturday for a “Summit on a Moral Economy” to strategize how to achieve their public policy goals.
“We know there are a lot of others who share our view that we need an economy that works for all Vermonters,” Ingram says. “We’re trying to bring together allies so we can understand what each other is doing and work collaboratively.”
But participants at the summit, co-sponsored by the Vermont Workers’ Center at Essex Junction’s Holy Family Catholic Church, found it wasn’t easy to settle on one solution.
“We had a very lively discussion about the enormity of the problem,” Ingram says, “and we realized we have to come at it from many different angles — from how workers are treated to government programs to how we invest more in the state for better paying jobs.”
Vermont Interfaith Action began its efforts last month by teaming with the Public Assets Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan Montpelier-based think tank, for a summer and fall statewide tour to explain how stagnant wages and cuts in state services are challenging more and more residents.
The percentage of children living below the poverty level, for example, hit 15.3 percent this past year — a rate topped only in 2010 during the depths of the last recession.
“We believe income inequality is the biggest problem Vermont faces today,” Paul Cillo, the institute’s founder, said during the tour’s first stops in Brattleboro, Burlington, East Arlington, Montpelier, White River Junction and, just last Friday, Danville and Middlebury.
The “Building Vermont’s Moral Economy” campaign is hoping to convince people to ask their legislators and other state leaders to report how much it would cost to pay for all needed services — not necessarily so that budget would be approved, but as a means to demonstrate the extent of the demand and to spark discussion on what should be done.
“Our clergy were the impetus for focusing on this as an issue,” Ingram says. “They were reflecting together on how many people come to their doors for charitable help, and the need is greater than the resources. They started saying, ‘Why is this? What’s wrong with our system?’”
“We realize when we decided to make this the first step that it is a bit technical and maybe seems policy-wonkish,” she continues. “But people understand what we’re talking about is a baseline of honest information so we can have a good, vital public debate.”
The group is set to elaborate at several more public meetings, including Oct. 25 at 1 p.m. at Rutland’s Grace Congregational United Church of Christ and Nov. 1 at 2 p.m. at Springfield’s First Congregational Church.
“One of the things I love about Vermont is people really want to take the bulls by the horns and move quickly, yet most understand we have to work one step at a time,” Ingram says. “Sometimes change has to be incremental — but we do intend to have more action.”
Kevin O’Connor, a former staffer of the Rutland Herald and Barre-Montpelier Times Argus, is a Brattleboro-based writer. Email: kevinoconnorvt@gmail.com
