[A]fter criticizing Gov. Phil Scott’s signature pledge to oppose tax increases, Christine Hallquist said Friday that she and the governor have similar positions on raising new revenue.
“I’m going to say we have the same general position on taxes and fees. However, I have a plan to grow Vermont, he does not,” she said in an interview on WDEV radio with VTDigger journalists Friday morning.
Hallquist, the Democratic nominee for governor, is generally opposed to raising taxes, but hasn’t gone as far as Scott did in his first two years in which he pledged to veto any increases outright.
“Who the heck is in favor of raising taxes?” she said Friday. “Nobody ought to be in favor of raising taxes, nobody’s in favor of paying more.”
Hallquist has said that categorically refusing to raise new taxes, as Scott has, is a “no brain activity,” and that the state needs a leader who is willing to make “strategic investments.”
She noted that taxes may need to go up to ensure that state funding keeps up with the pace of inflation. But she said that, generally, the “strategic investments” she intends to make as governor wouldn’t rely on tax hikes.
To execute a plan to pave the way for tuition-free public college, for example, she said she would follow the American Civil Liberty Union’s proposal to cut Vermont’s prison population in half over time.
“We’re spending $140 million on our prisoners, cutting it in half… it definitely can pay for a college education,” she said. Providing tuition-free higher education in Vermont would be a $30 million expense, she estimated.
Hallquist acknowledged that the plan and savings would need to be phased in over time.
“Like any other plan, you build the plan according to your revenue,” she said. “You put the plan in place, we’re going to free up $30 million over ten years, then you fund your education on that same ramp. It’s a dollar for dollar exchange.”
Since Hallquist won the Democratic primary on Tuesday, the Republican Governor’s Association, an organization that has been pouring funds into Scott’s campaign, has repeatedly attacked her stance on taxes.
In an email on Wednesday, the RGA singled out an appearance Hallquist made on MSNBC, during which she stated she “never said [she] was going to raise anybody’s taxes.”
“Unfortunately for Hallquist, her statement is incredibly false. For months, she has campaigned on imposing massive tax hikes on working families,” the RGA email said, specifically noting her support for a single payer healthcare system.
Cameron Russell, Hallquist’s campaign manager, said the RGA email shows that the group is intimidated by the campaign.
“They’re already taking clips out of context to try to paint Christine in a certain way,” Russell said.
Another email, which the group sent out on Thursday, includes an isolated clip of a July interview with Hallquist on WDEV. In the clip, it sounds like she’s agreeing to support an income tax increase.
However, Hallquist was actually talking about shifting the burden of paying for education in Vermont from the property tax to the income tax.
Hallquist says that as governor, she would champion a single payer health care system in Vermont, and form a coalition with other states to do so.
Russell would not speculate on the financial structure of the health care system Hallquist would support, but noted in other countries with single payer, residents pay far less than they do in the United States.
“I think it depends on how you define taxes. Do you call private health care premiums taxes?” he said.
In an interview with Vermont Public Radio on Wednesday, Scott did not say whether he would continue to categorically oppose new taxes and fees if elected to a second term.
The governor said he would make a decision on the matter when he rolls out his budget proposal in January.
