This commentary is by Will Patten of Hinesburg. He is a retired business executive and author of the book, “Saving Capitalism, Vermont Shows a Way.”
Growing up, we baby boomers were steeped in the idealism of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and the minimalist hippie ethic. But Watergate, Vietnam and assassinations would turn idealists into cynical self-serving uber-consumers.
Our manufacturing economy transitioned to a marketing economy that taught us to always crave more. Supply now drives demand and consumption now drives 70% of the U.S. economy. We have been catered to during the past prosperous decades. The markets have provided us with cheap abundance, so we expect our governments to provide us with protection, education, recreation and transportation. Cheaply.
Now we live in a more resource-restricted time, and baby boomers are getting old. About 10,000 of us retire every day and live on fixed incomes. We rattle around in our large empty homes and complain about property taxes. But taxes are simply what is due and payable for the services we’ve received, and they won’t go down until we reduce some of the services they pay for.
It will fall to younger generations to perform the cost-benefit analysis underlying our town budgets and identify what we can no longer afford. I wish them luck. There will be challenges:
Much of Vermont’s charm derives from a culture of community, fostered by 251 small town governments for roughly 650,000 people. All but a few towns have their own police and fire departments, schools and road crews. That has to change. The challenge will be to regionalize services while maintaining our culture of community.
And let’s understand that a decision to regionalize services and consolidate school districts to save money is a decision to reduce the quality level of both.
As the climate deteriorates and our population shrinks, we’re going to need more resources to cope with hard times ahead, and that will require new taxes. Two Blue Ribbon Tax Commissions have recommended that we raise new revenues by taxing services and income. That will be a challenge.
The real estate tax is a wealth tax. It makes sense for baby boomers that have equity in their homes and land. But younger and first-time homeowners are paying an unfair tax on an asset that belongs mainly to a bank. If we have to stick with a wealth tax, it should only be assessed on assets that are easily converted to cash.
Hard times indeed.
