VT Democrats Open 2024 Session with 10% Income Tax Hike
Happy New Year!
The Vermont Legislature returns to Montpelier on January 3rd, and the Democrat Supermajority’s first order of businesses in the House is a 10 percent state income tax hike. Of course, the bill is titled “S.56 – An act relating to child care and early childhood education” because, you know, “for the children,” but….
Sections 24 -27 lay it out clear that should S.56 become law, income tax rates will increase by bracket from 3.65% to 3.8% (a 9 percent increase) on those earning $42,150 or less, from 6.6% to 7.3% (an 11 percent increase) on those earning between $42,151 and $102,200, from 7.6% to 8.3% (a nine percent increase) on those earning between $102,201 and $213,150, and from 8.75% to 9.6% (a 10 percent increase) on those earning more than that.
According to the Joint Fiscal Office, this would mean an overall income tax increase on Vermonters of $125.4 million in 2025.
Oh, but they’re not done yet! This bill calls for another income tax increase – a “Supplemental Personal Income Tax Increase” -- in 2027 by brackets to 3.8%, 7.5%, 8.55%, and 10.05%, which would suck an additional $57.5 million out of working Vermonters’ wallets in 2028 on top of that.
What’s all this for, you ask? The complete hostile takeover of pre-kindergarten childcare – mostly small businesses run by women – by the bloated, corrupt, inefficient, ineffective but politically powerful public-school monopoly.
Yes, the same folks who for multiple decades were failing to teach our kids to read properly, are locking special needs students in “blue rooms” when they’re not physically pinning them to the floor, who are responsible for over a dozen years’ worth of declining test scores, walked out on kids and families during COVID, and who are more interested in cramming woke ideology down students’ throats than teaching them how to balance a checkbook (and here I think we can see why)… want to start the process of miseducating and indoctrinating our kids a few years earlier. And they’re generously willing to perform this service for just a few hundred million dollars a year. Maybe make it half a billion when all is said and done. Nice round number.
So, if you thought the new 0.44 percent payroll tax passed just last year that will start sucking $120 million directly out of working Vermonters’ paychecks this July, plus the anticipated 18.5 percent property tax increase would be enough to cover this early childcare nut, it seems you were grossly mistaken. After all, it’s not cheap supplying taxpayer funded childcare subsidies to families earning 575% of the federal poverty level. Which means, yes, if this bill becomes law Vermonters in the lowest income bracket will be paying 9 percent more in income taxes to provide benefits for people earning over $200,000 a year. Quit complaining poor folks. That’s “your fair share” according to the lingo.
2024 is an election year, and just so you know, S.56 was sponsored by seventeen of the 23 Democrat Senators, and passed the senate last year on a roll call vote of 24-6. Every Democrat voted for it, and one Republican.
Now it’s in the House, and you have a chance to let your Representatives know what you think about all this. Please do!
Rob Roper is a freelance writer with 20 years of experience in Vermont politics including three years service as chair of the Vermont Republican Party and nine years as President of the Ethan Allen Institute, Vermont’s free market think tank.
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Event Notice: TODAY! Rob Roper will be a guest on Sound Off! with Linda Kirker on channel 15, St. Albans, on Tuesday January 2nd, 7-8 pm.
Event Notice: Rob Roper will be speaking Milton Library on Saturday, Jan 13, from 10 am to noon about the issues we will be facing in the 2024 legislative session. Free and open to the public!