Editor’s note: This commentary is by Jeremy Hansen, who is vice chair of the Berlin Selectboard and assistant professor of computer science at Norwich University.
[N]ot so long ago, many people believed that tomatoes were poisonous. As tomatoes are in the same family as deadly nightshade, it’s not really surprising they thought that both plants bore poisonous fruit. If the “common sense” is that something is harmful, most people are not willing to challenge that wisdom and test things for themselves. After all, a bite of that juicy fruit could mean any one of a number of poisoning symptoms: stomach cramps, vomiting or death. Of course, people who actually ate the tomato suffered none of these.
The state of Vermont allows cities and towns a single way to raise money to pay for essential services like police coverage, fire protection and highway maintenance: property taxes. Health care costs for town employees going up? Property taxes go up. Police cruisers need replacement? Property taxes go up.
As a person who likes to make decisions based on evidence, I was interested in finding data that would prove any good or bad effects on economic growth.
One option several towns and cities are currently exploring is the local option tax. A local option tax provides a different source of revenue for the town that’s not strictly tied to the property owned by town residents and businesses. However, some people believe that local option taxes are poisonous. This seems to come from an article of faith among some that taxes are bad. All taxes are bad. Period. By extension, that must mean that local option taxes are bad, too, because it contains the word “tax.”
The conclusion of anti-local option tax people is that a local option tax harms economic growth. A year or so ago, I didn’t know if this was true or not. As a person who likes to make decisions based on evidence, I was interested in finding data that would prove any good or bad effects on economic growth. I was surprised to find that there have been few studies of local option taxes, and none seemed to apply to Vermont. At this point, I did my own analysis on the towns that have enacted local option taxes. I found no negative impacts on economic growth. In fact the data shows that, compared to the rest of Vermont, economic growth in those towns improved after adoption of a local option tax!
While the emotional reactions to local option taxes have been to conclude without evidence that they are poisonous and harmful to the economy, those towns that have exercised their local control and tried them have all discovered them to be valuable and non-harmful tools to help reduce their property tax burden. Montpelier and Barre voters should be courageous enough to go with the informed choice and support the local option taxes on the ballot on Town Meeting Day.
