What Burton Actually Said (BFP)

There he goes again. Burton’s decision to move its manufacturing jobs to Austria led the governor to say that taxes need to be rolled back. But the CEO said nothing about state taxes, which are a very small component of business costs (and of course we have no idea how much Burton pays, although we do know they received $1.8 million in EATI/VEPC credits and were just awarded another $1.6 million in VEGI/VEPC "incentives").

The CEO did mention health care costs, which is ironic because Austria has a tax-based national health care system while the governor continues to resist such an approach for Vermont. For his part, the governor said we need more "choices," which ignores the fact that Austria spends half as much per capita as we do on health care (and gets better results).

Instead of listening to what the company said, the governor went immediately to his canned talking points. This bespeaks a lazy intellect and a rigid ideology that refuses (or is incapable) of seeing the world as it is. We need leaders willing and able to analyze real problems instead of trying to fit everything into prefabricated boxes. The former is about solving problems; the latter is about serving vested interests.

DOUG HOFFER
Burlington