Editor’s note: This commentary is by Nick Clark, of Norwich, who is an at-large member of the Vermont Progressive Party’s Coordinating Committee and a Progressive candidate for state representative in Windsor-Orange-2.
When it comes to health care costs, education funding, and property taxes in Vermont, there is no budget crisis. There is a wealth inequality crisis. Consider:
Health care costs have been rising for years while education funding has stayed flat; school budgets have been level-funded across Vermont and many districts are fighting for salaries to keep pace with inflation. Educators are being transitioned away from simple and affordable VEHI plans. Premiums continue to rise with Trump’s repeal of the individual mandate. Gov. Phil Scott is pushing deep cuts to staffing and funding. The federal Republican tax bill is making all these issues worse.
Health care spending accounts for about 20 percent of our Vermont school budgets. This money is going to Blue Cross Blue Shield instead of going towards supporting students and staff. Phil Scott and others have exploited voters’ frustration with rising property taxes to blame teachers and teachers unions for these problems. It’s time we address the real driver of skyrocketing education costs: our market-based health care system.
The only way to lower costs, increase access, improve long-term patient and student outcomes, and end the tug-of-war over education spending and property taxes is to follow the Vermont Progressive Party’s plan of 1) single payer health care, and 2) a progressive income tax for education funding instead of a regressive property tax.
Gov. Peter Shumlin was given three price models for single payer health care and made his veto decision based on the most expensive of those three without consideration to the other two more affordable options. We cannot let the story end there. We should not underfund our schools because we cannot afford market-based health care; we should seek more affordable health care solutions instead. And we should seek a more progressive funding model for education in general:
The current property tax funding of education in Vermont is regressive: when you consider the median tax on homesteads as a percent of household income, those earning less than $137,500/year are paying nearly 3 percent of their income for education, while those earning over $300,000 are paying closer to 1.5 percent (nearly half of what everyone else is paying). Households earning less than $10,000/year are paying the largest percentage.
The homeowner portion of education revenue is currently about 40 percent. The majority of revenue comes from businesses and second homeowners – that wouldn’t change under the current proposal to shift to income-based funding. Of that 40 percent homeowner portion, roughly two-thirds of homeowners are already paying their education tax based on income under Vermont’s “income sensitivity” plan. What Progressives propose is making all homeowners income-sensitive, bringing those earning over $137,500 up to the same ~3 percent contribution as everyone else.
According to Sen. Chris Pearson and Sen. Anthony Pollina, most Vermont households would see a tax cut of roughly 10 percent under such a plan. This would make the system fairer, generate new revenue, and reduce the property tax bill for most homeowners. Combine this revenue-neutral plan with single payer health care, and we’ll have a more affordable Vermont – precisely what Phil Scott claims to we’ll achieve with more austerity.
The story doesn’t end there: we need to get corporate money out of Vermont politics if we want to meaningfully address the crisis of wealth inequality in Vermont and see these progressive, forward-thinking plans come to life. We need to see a bill, like S.120 from last session, pass into law so that Vermont political parties and candidates can no longer receive money from corporate interests.
Proudly, the Vermont Progressive Party and its candidates already refuse the culture and practice of corporate contributions in politics, and are working to end the wealth inequality crisis we are facing here in Vermont.
