This commentary is by John Bossange of Burlington, a retired middle school principal who now volunteers on a number of nonprofit boards in the Burlington area.
Last November, 112,704 Vermonters voted for President Trump. I believe most of these Vermonters did not endorse the “Big Lie” of massive voter fraud, causing a rigged and stolen election.
As disappointed as the election results were to Vermonters who supported President Trump, my guess is that most were able to see through the “Big Lie” and accept the facts given to us from the courts and election officials from all across America.
Vermonters are also a fiercely independent lot, most likely not influenced by weird QAnon conspiracy theories and unlikely to fall prey to falsehoods advanced by selected media sites about others, the state of our nation, and our democracy.
However, I’m far more concerned that Vermont Republicans who supported President Trump did so believing in the “Other Big Lie”: that lowering taxes and mandating less governmental regulation is good for business, will improve the economy by creating more jobs, eventually shrink the size of government, and put more money in your pocket.
Never, in the history of the country, has this scenario worked for America. Yet, this myth has endured, promoted by Republicans time and time again. Even in the face of massive debt, a loss of job opportunities, a disappearing middle class, and a cruel accumulation of wealth by the very rich, I’m afraid the “Other Big Lie” continues to resonate with Republicans in Vermont.
This is the same lie responsible for burying the nation in debt and depression under the previous presidencies of Coolidge and Hoover, and resurrected again by President Reagan. Who can forget President Reagan’s campaign promise in 1980 to “increase defense spending, cut your taxes, and balance the budget?”
Reagan’s historic increase in our national debt of 142% was by far the greatest ever, far exceeding the second-largest debt increase of 58%, achieved by President George Bush’s tax cuts in 2008. President Trump was well on his way to doing the same, increasing the national debt again by 33% in just four years, fueled primarily by his 2017 tax reduction for corporations that went from 39% to 21%.
All three Republican presidents issued a series of massive tax cuts for both corporations and individuals. Some of us actually saw a bit more money in our paycheck. But for most, when compared to the wealthiest 1%, our gains were trivial.
With less regulation to accompany these Republican tax cuts, there are now over 600 billionaires in America. The three wealthiest (Gates, Bezos and Buffett) own more than the bottom 50% of all Americans. In fact, since the Reagan years of 1982, the three wealthiest families (Waltons, Mars Candy, and Koch brothers) have seen their net worth grow by 6,000%, while the median household income of Americans has actually decreased by 3% over the same time period.
Do Vermont’s Republicans really believe this is good policy for Vermont and for America? I’d like to hear Vermont’s Republicans take a new position. I’d like to see them turn away from the “Other Big Lie” given to us from the Republican voices in Washington, D.C., and return to a more sensible, realistic approach to improving the economy for all Vermonters.
Who would not like to pay less in taxes, see less regulation, have smaller governmental agencies, less bureaucracy, and have less money taken from your paycheck? Those are the “feel good” questions we should not be asking anymore. It’s not 1930, when we tried living by the “Other Big Lie.” It didn’t work then and it doesn’t work now.
In Vermont, taxation is the price we pay to sustain our communities and wonderful state. We need some regulation to create equal opportunity and we need governmental agencies to ensure fairness for both individuals and for smaller businesses here in Vermont.
But most of all, we need help. We need a fair national tax structure, which does not allow for the consolidation of money to go into the hands of a few, often untaxed, hidden overseas, and leaving states like Vermont in financial stress.
The tax reforms being designed right now by President Biden to raise the corporate tax rate back to 28% and raise the tax bracket for those with incomes over $400,000 back to 39.6% will return trillions of dollars to the treasury, enough to pay for the American Rescue Plan. Regulations to close tax loopholes will provide additional trillions to fund other initiatives, like rebuilding our infrastructure, supporting struggling state budgets like ours, and begin buying down our national debt.
But most importantly, Republicans in Vermont need to acknowledge the myth of the “Other Big Lie,” speak the truth, and help to lead the way to a common-sense approach for true economic growth and stability.
A century ago, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes reminded the nation that: “Taxes are the price we pay for civilization.” He was right, and if alive today, he too would challenge the “Other Big Lie.” It’s time for Vermont’s Republicans to speak up. Change begins at home. Let the conversation begin.
