A Need for Vision.
By Robert Maynard

With election season upon us, one would think that we would be engaged in a serious debate over the direction our state is taking. In particular, one would assume that the Republican Party would be just itching to have such a debate. For quite some time now Vermont has been pursuing the Democratic Party's vision of a socially engineered society centrally managed from Montpelier. The result has been predictable.

Recently we learned that we have the highest per capita tax burden in the country, according to the U.S. Census Bureay.  Adding to our high tax burden is the fact that our cost of living is above average in just about every category (for the Burlington area, at least). Unfortunately, the average income of working Vermonters is not one of the areas in which we lead the nation.  When you combine the tax burden and high cost of living with the onerous regulatory climate, you have a situation where small businessmen and young people are fleeing the state in droves for greener pastures elsewhere.  Add to this the youth exodus plus the fact that we have the lowest birth rate in the country and the picture of Vermont's demographic future is bleak (See "The Empty Cradle" by Phillip Longman). In short, Vermont is hardly headed down the path of opportunity.

In spite of all this, the state GOP leadership is finding it hard to make the case for a change in course.

According to a July 11th piece in the Times Argus entitled Strategic planning nears climax as VT's political parties put last minute touches to candidate lineup across the state, "Republican and Democratic leaders continued recruiting candidates for legislative races Monday, with a week to go before the filing deadline, and the GOP candidly said it was a tough year to persuade people to run."  Perhaps that is because the party leadership’s call to action hopes for nothing more than slowing the Democrats down rather than offering an alternative vision.

The stated goal of party Chair Jim Barnett: "is that we maintain a margin that allows us to sustain a veto in the House....  If we can do that, I think we consider it a victory."  This is not the stuff that inspires people to charge into battle! As the article points out, such an assessment "... reflects how dispirited Republicans were when they were plunged into the House minority two years ago. They hold just 60 of the 150 House seats in the current Legislature and just nine of the 30 in the Senate."  Actually, the damage started four years ago when the GOP broke a two-election cycle trend of increasing seats in the Legislature.

The reason given by the GOP leadership for its recruitment woes: "I think there is a sense of apathy, probably partly to a degree because people think the state, generally speaking, is going in the right direction," Barnett said. "So there's not a lot of hot button issues to generate their angst or ire, which is what is sometimes necessary for prospective candidates to take the plunge."

Going in the right direction?? Not a lot of hot button issues?? The fact of the matter is that there are more hot button issues now than there were in the 1998 and 2000 elections when the GOP was winning races!  Since then the issues that drove candidates to run have not gone away, but have gotten worse.  In 2002 we had a small tax revolt that saw a record number of towns vote down their school budget.  In 2004 and 2005, Killington residents overwhelmingly voted to secede from Vermont and join New Hampshire.  Recently, the town of Dorset has staged a tax revolt and Winhall is considering one as well.  In spite of the high taxes, we have trouble matching federal transportation funds due to out of control spending and the Democrats/Progressives are still proposing major expansions of state government involvement in the areas of education and health care. Social conservatives are not at all happy with a whole host of issues that impact the family, many of which overlap the concern of fiscal conservatives.

The real problem is NOT a shortage of hot button issues, but a GOP leadership that continues to blur the differences between the two parties.  Those of us who have got our "angst or ire" generated, do not see a whole lot of difference between the two parties when it comes to overall direction.  After two elections in a row where a clear distinction was made between the parties (1998 and 2000), it looks like we are heading for our third straight election where "go along to get along" is going to be the rule.

If the GOP leadership expects to motivate people to run for office, or support those who are, they have got to do a much better job of making a clear distinction between themselves and the Democrats/Progressives. This "we want to go in the same direction except a little slower" just does not do the trick. Propose a new direction away from a socially engineered society centrally managed from Montpelier and toward an opportunity society and just maybe more people will be inspired to run for office or support those who do.

Robert Maynard is a native Vermonter who now resides in Williston. He has been active in the Vermont Republican Assembly, Citizens for Property Rights, Vermont Taxpayers Alliance, Vermonters for Better Education and FreedomWorks-Vermont.