| Editorial
Vermont
Economy Marches on Stomach, not Heart
By Tom Licata
"...If
this state cares anything about the people and their community they'd look
long and hard at what's happening here."
So said
Denise Ogurkis of Vermont Tubbs. 100 jobs were recently lost as this company
decided to leave Vermont ("Vermont
Tubbs to close; 90 jobs cut," June 11) due to its "overhead costs at
the Brandon facility [that] are much higher than they are at the Whitefield
[New Hampshire] plant."
Land
use, regulatory and tax reform are desperately needed to keep and grow
business in Vermont. Given that over 75 percent of Vermont is farmed, forested
or conserved, it's absurd to think that these necessary reforms would materially
disrupt our "bucolic paradise." Al From, CEO of the Democratic Leadership
Council said it best: "Growing the economy and creating jobs remain the
best ways to fight poverty, and neither is possible with a cocoon around
our economy." Vermont's private-sector job growth this past decade: 0 percent.
The
vaporous dream-world that Vermont's cultural elites live in was demonstrated
in Chris Graff's "Looking to the future of Vermont", June 18: "Residents
young and old worry about lack of opportunities..." Seniors in Franklin
County said, "It's not the cost of living; it's the cost of surviving."
Mr. Graff, a member of the Council on the Future of Vermont later opines:
"If people can live anywhere, they will live in the place that speaks to
their heart. ...Our goal as a council is to identify steps to ensure that
it always will."
To
Mr. Graff, et al, for now and for the foreseeable future, Vermonters would
rather you speak to their stomachs. Leave their hearts to the poets.
Tom
Licata, Burlington
The
writer is an independent candidate for the state Senate
Related:
Vermont
Tubbs Production Shifts to Brown Street Facility in New Hampshire
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