This commentary is by Kris Bierfelt, a freelance copywriter in Middlesex.
Don Keelan’s latest op-ed on behalf of Vermont’s mega rich, “Please don’t leave Vermont,” says the quiet parts about the ultra wealthy and their sense of entitlement so very loud that he’s scored a point for the opposition. It was the first I’d read any details about H.827, Rep. Emilie Kornheiser’s proposed wealth tax bill, but Keelan has convinced me that hers is a righteous cause.
He relies on unfounded assertions, uncited stats, anecdotes and boogiemen to suggest that tax flight is a thing, but it was his indignant belief that the ultra rich deserve even more advocacy on their behalf — tax exempt advocacy, no less — that just about broke my brain. And I’m not even a Democrat.
By 2030, 25% of Vermonters will be 60 or older, according to a March 6 Seven Days article. We’re already the third-oldest state in the nation. Across Front Porch Forum, I’ve seen neighbors who live on fixed incomes expressed genuine anxiety that they couldn’t absorb potential ~20% property tax hikes tied to school budget proposals, regardless of how they felt about the merits of those proposals.
Meanwhile, GOP legislators, pundits and the Republican nominee for president recently drew fire for their plans to cut Social Security and Medicare.
But who will think of the folks with tens of millions of dollars in real estate and other assets?
A few months ago, a local mom shared a goodbye message on Front Porch Forum. She and her family were moving out of Vermont. She didn’t “change her legal residence” because one of her other homes is in a more tax advantaged state.
After months of unsuccessful attempts to find and sustain affordable, reliable child care, she saw no choice but to leave Vermont for somewhere that offered a better shot at success for her young family.
But the richest of the rich — is no one looking out for them?
Despite many Vermont nonprofits, as Keelan writes, being “barely able to function without help from the generosity of Vermont’s wealthy,” he bemoans the fact that, “rarely, if ever, are the nonprofits in the forefront advocating for the wealthy when they come under attack for their wealth.”
“Under attack for their wealth”! Pity the super rich, for they feel insufficiently insulated from scrutiny — even after all that tax-deductible charity! They thought philanthropy was a protection racket.
Years ago I was involved with a nonprofit whose CEO praised an employee for always bringing in extra sugar packets to help stretch the office supply budget. It was a comparatively well-funded nonprofit. Some of New England’s wealthiest families were on our board. A box of 1,000 sugar packets is $40 from Walmart in 2023 money and would have lasted months, but stealing condiments from Dunkin’ was unofficial company policy.
The audacity of Keelan to suggest that nonprofit staff ought to take focus away from their missions, spend less time working with audiences and clients, less time working with legislators, less time hunting for nickels and dimes in every line item, less time than that which they already spend courting and sometimes coddling donors.
The super wealthy have lobbyists to speak for them. They have think tanks and policy analysts. They have legal teams and media outlets. They arguably have judges and legislators.
They have Don Keelan, a man who would like to erect monuments “to honor the rich” at Vermont welcome centers. (Would dangling the possibility of a monument entice these theoretical would-be exiles to stay? Surely there’s an arts nonprofit champing at the bit to take on such a noble project.)
Gov. Phil Scott says “there just isn’t any money,” but now Keelan’s got me thinking.
As for his vague reference to the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board’s vague reference to a Cornell sociology professor’s work debunking the idea of tax flight? Well, lemme just Google that for them. Here’s an excerpt from an October 2023 article in The Financial Times. You can imagine why they’d rather gloss over the citation.
“In his book, ‘The Myth of Millionaire Tax Flight,’ the Cornell sociologist Cristobal Young writes, ‘People almost never move when they are at the advanced career stage — a time when they are most likely to face a millionaire tax.’
When most people are at their earning peak, he explains, they have families and have put down roots in an area. They have business and social contacts and are linked into networks. ‘Top income earners, in other words, have often accumulated significant human, social and cultural capital where they live.’
Indeed, one of the oft-made comments about people who actually do follow up on their threats and go into tax exile is that they give up an awful lot to save a little of something they already have more than enough of.
So, should we care about rich people’s threats to leave over tax rises? A bit, perhaps, but probably not as much as they think we should.”
For goodness sake, won’t someone, at long last, think of the billionaires?
I sure am now.
