Vermont’s Sacred Cows

Just as Vermont farms are under threat from forces outside their control, so too are many of our sacred cows. Among them are post-employment benefits for teachers and state employees,… Read More

Governor Douglas Attacks Non-profit Salaries?

Burlington Free Press: My Turn Jan 31, 2009 So now we begin feeding on ourselves. Rep. Patty O’Donnell’s recent press conference calling for those in the non-profit sector earning over… Read More

The Price of Milk

Vermont agriculture is on a collision course with Vermonters’ expressed values.  On July 24th , it was reported that the UVM extension service has set up a hotline for Vermont… Read More

The Budget Overide

The budget impasse is over. Governor Douglas’ plan to shrink government by reducing the budget was repudiated and replaced with a legislative budget which does not go as far. It’s… Read More

Vermont in 2019, A Look Back at Today

Ten years ago, Vermont’s largest employer with revenues in the low billions was having severe difficulties balancing its budget. The imbalance was in the tens of millions of dollars and… Read More

A Strategic Overhaul of Government Agencies and the Tax code

Nothing works for ever. Things run down and need repair. Aspects lose their utility. Sometimes they must be overhauled. Vermont has reached that point in two critical areas. One is… Read More

We Have Opportunities

Vermont has options. In these perilous moments of great change when old things get brittle and break, savvy people design and build new things. There is opportunity in chaos for… Read More

The Vermont Bond?

Vermont state and municipal bonds are vetted and offered through the Vermont Municipal Bond Bank to larger markets where, typically, high-net-worth individuals and institutional investors then acquire them as a… Read More

Managing the Past?

If we are not guided by a vision for the future, we end up managing the past. The problem with simply managing the past is that opportunities pass us by… Read More

Book: The Lamoille Stories

—Howard Frank Mosher, author of Disappearances, Mary Blythe, and On Kingdom Mountain Every year on the Fourth of July, Jeeter’s wife Lou struts in the town parade wearing suspenders made… Read More

Controlling Health Care Costs in Vermont

Years of pecking away at a keyboard churning out op-eds in which I typically carp about aspects of society have come home to roost. Like many repetitive motion workers, I’ve… Read More

Vermont in America

The feisty independence of Vermonters is in our DNA. In our brief flirtation with nationhood, Vermont was, for fourteen years, its own Republic before it joined the original thirteen colonies… Read More