Tinker Bell Lives
By Tom Licata 

Tinker Bell is the fairy in the play Peter Pan, who is revived from near death by the belief of the audience.  The Tinkerbell effect describes those things that exist only because people believe in them.  More on this later…

It was those same feelings of two years ago that drew me to the steps of our nation’s Capitol for the September 12th March on Washington DC.  Many interpretations have been given as to why some 100,000 Americans came from all corners of our country in peaceful protest.  My interpretation dates back to those feelings of two years ago.

For it was almost two years ago to this day, on October 7, 2007, that I founded what is now Vermonters for Economic Heath.  Statewide in both the Burlington Free Press and on radio, I advertised this fact and our website, found at www.vteh.org.  Our organization traveled the state and using facts and statistics, we presided over more than a dozen "Town Meeting Forums," presenting both Vermont’s and our nation’s dire economic condition.  All Vermont legislators were invited.  I’ve written numerous articles on this subject. Thousand’s of dollars of my personal savings were used to finance this venture.

What were those "feelings" of two years ago?  Here’s a portion of our website’s introduction on October 7, 2007:

"In The Gathering Storm, Winston Churchill’s stated purpose was "to show how easily the tragedy of the Second World War could have been prevented."  In Churchill’s time – as now - a storm was brewing but "people were viewing it and not doing anything."  In Vermont, an economic and demographic storm is brewing and like Churchill’s time, Governor Douglas, Speaker Symington, Senator Shumlin and others in Montpelier are doing little but viewing this coming tsunami.  Montpelier’s recalcitrant culture continues to ignore Vermont’s approximately $3.5 billion unfunded liabilities as well as our nation’s $50 trillion Medicare and Social Security deficit that will surely make its way back to Vermont.  And from the highest taxed state in the nation, what is Montpelier’s response?  Montpelier’s response is to "shuffle the chairs on the deck of the Titanic" through talk of increased income and other taxes that would continue its modus operandi of obfuscation and distraction.  Folks, look at the numbers and demographics; we’re not going to tax ourselves out of this hole!..."

If it’s still unclear to you what those "feelings" of two years ago were, let me summarize them in a statement: Duty to country and fear for family.

Famed investor Julian Robertson, in a recent interview, had this to say on this subject:  "I think that my solutions do cause some temporary pain in America and I think the only way we’re going to get that is for the American people to be masochistic enough to ask for that because we can be sure that the politicians are not going to ask that of us…but we don’t seem to be willing to ask sacrifice of really anybody here except our military and I think that’s sort of tragic."

A society cannot consume and not produce.  Just prior to our recession, Vermont’s private-sector job growth this decade was 0% while state government payroll and benefits and education spending rose some 70%.

Sacrifice includes challenging Vermont’s culture of environmental and land-use extremism; a kind of "Environmental McCarthyism."  And sacrifice includes challenging Vermont’s insular, bloated and monopolistic education culture that’s approaching 50% of our state’s budget.  The origins of Vermont’s economic decline can be traced back to the growing "fiscal and cultural cancers" of these two mainstays.

Vermont and our nation are being led down dangerous pathways by leaders who substitute wishful thinking for facts and economic realities.  If you believe that by wishing hard enough for something, it will come true; continue to vote for Montpelier’s fairytale-like political incumbents.  And, if you believe that Vermont’s economy can be revived from near death by this belief, Tinker Bell lives.

Tom Licata is the founder of Vermonters for Economic Health (http://www.vermontersforeconomichealth.org/).