Issue Position: The Economy

Issue Position

This graph really says it all. Vermont has been swept along in the national trend of the highest incomes reaping more and more benefits and the lowest incomes steadily losing even more ground. Many of the causes are federal policies including tax, trade, and banking regulations.

Here in Vermont we don't ride quite as high on the crest of the wave or hit bottom quite as hard as the rest of the country. But you can see from the graph that this growing inequality is not fair, it is not growth oriented, and it is dangerous.

Our congressional delegation is working hard to correct these inequalities, but frankly they are drowned out by the big money of the Citizens United ruling and other undemocratic laws.

Our job in Vermont is to do what we can to reverse this harmful inequity. One step was increasing the minimum wage, moving it closer to a livable wage. This puts money directly into worker's pockets and the local community. Another step is to increase investment in Vermont -- supporting small businesses and farms, increasing energy efficiency, and building infrastructure, to ensure that money earned in Vermont is recirculated in Vermont.

We need to re-examine our regulations, including Act 250, to ensure that the are updated to work for us in the 21st century. Regulations are also there to protect us from groundwater contamination from fracking, from the environmental and economic destruction that has occurred in strip mining states, and from the sprawl of dying malls. But the same regulations should not prevent safe and clean businesses from opening here.

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