Editor’s note: This commentary is by Tony Redington, who is a transportation policy development and research specialist. He lives in Burlington and is a member of ACLU of Vermont, the Vermont Natural Resources Council, the National Association of Railroad Passengers and the Council of Vermont Elders, among others.
[G]ov. Phil Scott touts three numbers underlying Vermont budgeting policy, but there are other numbers just as important to a realistic and fair approach to a Vermont government budgeting. In a real sense the state and our other government outlays tell us who we as Vermonters are and what our community values. Looking at a different set of three numbers than Gov. Scott reveals a substantial unmet need for government services, and a ready source of funds by adopting taxation approaches simply copying that of the average modern nation.
The Gov. Scott approach continues many years of slowly starving Vermont government and its services to its citizens. It is not very hard to find out that is the case, and how most modern nations deal straight up with the problem by use of the key solution: taxation.
Gov. Scott points to estimates of each Vermont day: six less workers, three less students and one baby born with opioid traces. Gov. Scott says these numbers keep him awake at night and they get factored into just about every budget decision. The governor, legislators and policy leaders point to various sources for data, but the thrust of Scott’s numbers really are not in dispute. An easier source for working age population, the young and the old can be found in the official state population projections from 2010-2030. An average of the two projection scenarios gives these two important Vermont numbers that each day: 12 more senior residents, and 10 less young and working age residents. Census estimates from 2010-2016 show a slight decline in total Vermont population, but senior growth in the official estimates (one “no growth,” one “significant growth in overall population”) about doubles in either of the scenarios.
“Growing” Chittenden County shows a doubling of seniors from 2010-2030 even as age 0-19 and age 20-64 groups decline. Chittenden County “grows” about 1,000 seniors yearly now while non-senior population declines about 200 people. The seniors’ move toward a quarter of Vermont population really comes as no surprise, as former Republican Gov. Jim Douglas during the last decade played Paul Revere regularly on what has become the current actuality of seniors growth compared to non-seniors.
Clearly income restrained seniors’ needs for housing, health and transportation increase directly in the proportion to their numbers, and obviously services needed increase with advancing age.
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Those two population numbers — senior populations growing 12 people per day and non-senior populations declining 10 people per day – give a different slant on Vermont government demands and needs. Clearly income restrained seniors’ needs for housing, health and transportation increase directly in the proportion to their numbers, and obviously services needed increase with advancing age.
So we have two numbers—12 and 10, both related to population. Let’s substitute a third number, nine, for Scott’s one-baby-born-daily-with-opioid evidence. The number nine is the percentage an average developed nation devotes of their gross national or state product to government above the U.S. level of 37 percent (see Wall Street Journal, June 13, 2017). Let’s put that in perspective. What if Vermont were to increase its proportion of gross state product devoted to the government, currently $31 billion (2016), by the level of nine percent, to that of an average developed nation, and all that money were made available to Gov. Scott and the Legislature. (In reality this 9 percent increase would be shared among the local, state and federal governments.) So, nine percent of gross state product amounts to about $2.7 billion, and the current budget worked out in Montpelier amounts to about $1.8 billion total in the general fund. Gov. Scott argued with the Legislature over saving $26 million in teacher health care — talk about an empty debate!
Gov. Scott — and so far the Vermont Legislature — see through a prism with no growing senior population (it goes from 12 percent of the Vermont population to 24 percent during the 2010-2030 period). And second, Gov. Scott — and so far the Vermont Legislature — ignore the practice of the average developed nation to deal with the needs of its citizens by allocating more in the form of taxes to the public sector by an average nine percent. A second reputable source, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, provides a seven percent differential for the U.S. versus the median developed nation product devoted to government — still $2.4 billion, also double the state general fund.
In actuality, the policy group Public Assets with its recent “One Vermont” policy recognizes the nine percent more of gross state product available to the public sector, the 10 less under-65 population daily and 12 more seniors daily by calling for increased taxes, increased services and tax reform in a single, though modest package. And, surprise, the leading senior lobbying group, Council of Vermont Elders, signed onto this spring to a coalition of groups supporting Public Assets’ “One Vermont” proposal. COVE clearly appreciates the paramount importance of nine percent underspending of gross state product on government, 10 daily non-senior population decline and the reality of 12 daily increase in Vermont seniors.