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Having read enough of this forum, you'd have to go to Vermont and talk to actual people to get a real answer. You're gonna get some crazy answers on here.
Signed,
The guy from RI with one of the actual worst tax burdens in the country.
amen brother. people here act as if Vermont is at the bottom of the list in every category and the other 49 states are thriving.
surprised that vermont isn't at the top of the tax pain list? it isn't even close. it's actually pretty average.
then you get people here telling prospective movers to stay away because there are no jobs here. again check the stats.
there's an odd bunch here and they aren't at all representative of the people I've met here in Vermont. they're people who aren't happy with their lives and blame others for their disappointments. the politicians...the flatlanders...unfriendly people ...etc. all to blame. if it wasn't for these people interfering with their lives, our resident complainers would be flourishing now.
I've never lived anywhere where people are happier than here.
there's an odd bunch here and they aren't at all representative of the people I've met here in Vermont. they're people who aren't happy with their lives and blame others for their disappointments. the politicians...the flatlanders...unfriendly people ...etc. all to blame. if it wasn't for these people interfering with their lives, our resident complainers would be flourishing now.
I've never lived anywhere where people are happier than here.
This reflects my experience, too. I think many criticisms on this forum are comments on the Burlington area. While it is the state's most populated area, it is not representative of the state as a whole. Still, even Burlington seems to me very desirable compared with many other places outside Vermont -- according to my own needs and wants but obviously not everyone's.
Looking at studies, I believe Hawai'i ranks as the "happiest state." But what is that based on? Is it things that would make you or me happy? Perhaps. I have friends who moved here from Hawai'i. While they loved the land and people there, they were unable to earn a decent living. In Vermont, they are doing much better that way. Here they have found a balance between doing what they enjoy and having what they truly need. I don't doubt there are people in both states, and all the others, doing the same.
(Okay, according to some criteria, Louisiana is the happiest state, then Hawai'i, with Vermont at #18. Frankly, the weather alone in any of that list's top four states would send me running. In fact, in the case of Florida, it did!)
When I have a bad experience, especially involving loss and/or an extended low time, I notice my tendency to blame the context surrounding my situation. My surroundings are a factor, of course. But to blame anything entirely on certain groups or policies is stereotyping, plain and simple.
Everyone's values and priorities vary. I don't romanticize poverty and would never wish poverty on myself or anyone, individually or as a group. Still, for example, I value a more intact natural environment and whole locally-grown food WAY more than I value the opportunity to earn more income or go shopping -- as long as I ALSO can meet my needs for sustenance and fun. I will pay considerably to live in accordance with my values. Heck, I do, and I consider it a privilege.
Hawaii is one of the more expensive places to live as well, simply for the fact that it's an island a couple thousand miles from any other part of this country. I could never live in Louisiana or Florida myself. I couldn't take the weather for one. Then on top of the heat and humidity, there's the nightly thunderstorms and the severe threat of hurricanes. The northeast is great because natural disasters are few and far between and they aren't anywhere near as severe as anywhere else. Animals and bugs here aren't really that dangerous when compared to elsewhere (went swimming in the gulf when I was a kid and had to shuffle our feet in the water because of stingrays).
One of the things I hear all the time is about how bad the roads are. My last trip up there a couple weeks ago, we went all over the place, including a brewery that took several dirt roads to get to. Those roads were in far better condition than the majority of roads in Providence and my taxes are about the same as they are up there. We have a state that's unfriendly to business. We have a government that can't seem to do things right (I'm not voting for any old school RI politicians this year, putting in all new people). Our governor is out of touch with the people of this state. We're the second most densely populated state in the country, which doesn't necessarily bother me, but we have a lot of people here who are just plain rude. And while I'm sure VT has that same issue, the fact that there are fewer people makes it better. The congestion everywhere is ridiculous because everyone has to drive everywhere ("the bus is for poor people" is the mentality here). Finally, we don't have the natural beauty of VT except in places that get so congested with tourists that it's difficult to see that beauty.
While all this happens, I don't blame the people coming to RI. I don't blame people who want to change the government. It's my duty to get involved or get out. I want out, not because I dislike RI, but because I need a change of pace. Southern New England has that "rush rush" feel that starts around Philly and goes up through Boston. I'm tired of that. I need a change of pace and I'm willing to pay for it.
I'm tired of that. I need a change of pace and I'm willing to pay for it.
Here is where it gets difficult for some people.
You've been to Vermont and realize it's what you want. Many of us who moved here were very familiar with Vermont before we got here, we had a good grasp of the vibe and realized you can't get it anywhere else. Yet if we were to put that vibe into words, we'd find ourselves accurately describing, Boulder, Ashville, Madison and dozens of other places. You really can't know what it is until you spend time here, but it's the intangibles.
When I see threads written by people in Georgia or Florida saying they want to move here because they're sick of heat and congestion I truly believe most will be disappointed because there are a heck of a lot of places between here and there that are cooler and less crowded while being MUCH cheaper. Many of those places are pretty too.
In Vermont you are paying for the intangibles which are hard to explain and they aren't for everyone even if you could put them into words. You are paying for the whole artsy, laidback, slightly hippieish, environmentally conscious, relaxed atmosphere. You're paying for people rarely honking at you or giving you the finger. You're paying to live with people who don't care about how big their houses are or what they drive.You're paying for not sitting in your car watching hundreds of headlights driving at you and hundreds of red brake lights in front of you. You're paying for not having to leave the house at 5 am to beat traffic.
Basically, you are paying for the whole vibe package Vermont offers and if it's not really you're thing, you'll feel like you are paying too much and that's totally understandable.
Last edited by quickdraw; 07-17-2010 at 09:42 AM..
Basically, you are paying for the whole vibe package Vermont offers and if it's not really you're thing, you'll feel like you are paying too much and that's totally understandable.
Very well put.
That plus the rewards as I've exercised my sense of responsibility to work for the community where I live have made Vermont my home, something I've never called anywhere else -- including where I was born and grew up.
"My feeling is, in accordance with Mr. Justice Holmes, that taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilized society. The taxes we pay are what we need to support the important work of our government, including the judiciary, the legislature, law enforcement, highways, parks, education at all levels, other public services, and the support of those who don't have the ability to support themselves."
The esteemed Justice Holmes was covering the gigantic bolus of horse excrement with butter. "Civilized society" has little or nothing to do with taxes. I live in a county where the property taxes are minimal, and the people here are not only just as civilized as elsewhere, they are more so. I can think of few other places where adults are routinely addressed as "Sir" and "Ma'am." I can think of few other "civilized" places I've lived where the greeting between drivers is a friendly wave instead of a one-finger salute anda blast of the horn.
What do taxes support? Civilization? Maybe back when Justice Holmes spoke there was still a modicum of validity to the statement, but not now. Taxes increasingly support an overbearing regulatory system that enforces the will of the special interest groups and lobbyists for big business, to the detriment of the average citizen. The proper counter to Justice Holmes polemic is: "The business of government is increasing the size and power of government." It has ever been so, and will be so in the future.
The fundamental PURPOSE of government is a simple one. PROTECTION of the citizenry. It is the very reason that cavemen submitted willingly to the thuggery of the strongest in their tribe. The payoff was that the thugs protected them from other thugs. THe thugs are smarter and less physical now, but they are thugs nonetheless.
Many of us witnessed how the government of the Soviet Union attempted to shoulder the burden of completely supporting a population, by removing decisions from individuals and placing those decisions in the hands of people who were government professionals. The Soviet Union fell. China tried a similar tactic, and then it's leaders saw that more could be accomplished by loosening the reins and allowing some free enterprise. Rather than failing like the Soviet Union, it has flourished.
On a state and local level, it is a repeat performance. California is the state with the highest amount of regulation and "civilized" services, and it is the first to fail in economic hard times. In good times, governments and professional lawmakers have little concept that the sources of funding are not ever-flowing and never-ending. In contrast, those who have a primary job of working with their hands and running their own farms and businesses have a far greater appreciation of the balance that is needed.
Vermont was forced into a major mistake a number of years back. Reapportionment of the legislature wrested control of the state government from a conservative group of small town farmers and gave it to a group of lawyers and popularity contest winners from the cities. Whereas the farmers HAD to be neighbors and HAD to be accountable to their constituents, the new crop of legislators had no such checks and balances.
When folks from out of state came in with new ideas that tickled the fancies of the city dwellers, they got elected. When great new social programs were proposed, they got approved. When taxes were raised, it wasn't a particular burden to them.
Compare the idea of taxes being something taken out of your paycheck to the old way, where if you couldn't afford to pay or wanted to avoid the cash outlay, you worked on maintaining and improving the roads with your own hard physical labor. Was that society any less "civilized?" I think not. It WAS more realistic and provided a greater experience of logical consequences.
I left Vermont to find work. I left south Florida for Alabama for a number of reasons. One of them was a feeling of impotence when seeing the mis-use of tax money. I doubt that Justice Holmes had the following story in mind when he was talking about the cost of civilization:
About the second year I lived in one city in south Florida, I noticed that the grass on the median of a street near me was not being properly fertilized, watered, and tended, and it was turning to weeds. Soon after, the city came in with bulldozers and a whole crew of men, and removed and replaced the curbs, changed out the soil, and planted some very nice small trees and bushes, and re-sodded the median, making sure to put in a sprinkler system so that the new landscaping wouldn't die. I thought "Gee, that was a fairly expensive fix, but it should last for years and it looks really nice."
Four years later, they ripped everything out (including the trees that were just getting to a nice height) and replaced all the plants and grass. The council had latched onto some sort of matching grant for beautification that they couldn't pass up. The new plants weren't as hardy and the median started to look a little ratty, but was OK.
Then the city imposed a watering ban, because it was the politically expedient thing to do. Never mind that south Florida has rainfalls comparable to the Pacific Northwest, a "water emergency" was declared. The real reasons were twofold - a diike on the south side of Lake Okeechobee was declared "marginally safe" and AT THE END OF THE RAINY SEASON, the water was drained to the sea to remove pressure on it, creating an automatic shortfall of usable fresh water, and the second reason? People living beside the ocean in multi-million dollar houses were finding salt water was beginning to intrude into their personal sprinkler system wells.
The end result? The city condemned the expensive landscaping to death by cutting back on the water to where the weeds started to take over and the plantings died. When I left, the street looked much the same when I had arrived. Just how much "civilization" was purchased with the tax dollars invested in those projects?
The "hard" choices on what to cut back on to reduce tax burdens only come because of the "easy" choices that were made that increased taxes.
Never forget that unchecked government is NOT your friend. It is the drug dealer that suckers you in and then demands increasing payment. It is the leech of a family member that wants a cut of any good fortune you may chance into and the gains of every bit of hard work you have sweated. In return, it promises to make the streets in front of the mansions beautiful, make parks that will close at dark to keep out undesirables, and pave your roads with the cheapest recycled materials possible to help employ all the state road workers.
"My feeling is, in accordance with Mr. Justice Holmes, that taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilized society. The taxes we pay are what we need to support the important work of our government, including the judiciary, the legislature, law enforcement, highways, parks, education at all levels, other public services, and the support of those who don't have the ability to support themselves."
The esteemed Justice Holmes was covering the gigantic bolus of horse excrement with butter. "Civilized society" has little or nothing to do with taxes. I live in a county where the property taxes are minimal, and the people here are not only just as civilized as elsewhere, they are more so. I can think of few other places where adults are routinely addressed as "Sir" and "Ma'am." I can think of few other "civilized" places I've lived where the greeting between drivers is a friendly wave instead of a one-finger salute anda blast of the horn.
What do taxes support? Civilization? Maybe back when Justice Holmes spoke there was still a modicum of validity to the statement, but not now. Taxes increasingly support an overbearing regulatory system that enforces the will of the special interest groups and lobbyists for big business, to the detriment of the average citizen. The proper counter to Justice Holmes polemic is: "The business of government is increasing the size and power of government." It has ever been so, and will be so in the future.
The fundamental PURPOSE of government is a simple one. PROTECTION of the citizenry. It is the very reason that cavemen submitted willingly to the thuggery of the strongest in their tribe. The payoff was that the thugs protected them from other thugs. THe thugs are smarter and less physical now, but they are thugs nonetheless.
Many of us witnessed how the government of the Soviet Union attempted to shoulder the burden of completely supporting a population, by removing decisions from individuals and placing those decisions in the hands of people who were government professionals. The Soviet Union fell. China tried a similar tactic, and then it's leaders saw that more could be accomplished by loosening the reins and allowing some free enterprise. Rather than failing like the Soviet Union, it has flourished.
On a state and local level, it is a repeat performance. California is the state with the highest amount of regulation and "civilized" services, and it is the first to fail in economic hard times. In good times, governments and professional lawmakers have little concept that the sources of funding are not ever-flowing and never-ending. In contrast, those who have a primary job of working with their hands and running their own farms and businesses have a far greater appreciation of the balance that is needed.
Vermont was forced into a major mistake a number of years back. Reapportionment of the legislature wrested control of the state government from a conservative group of small town farmers and gave it to a group of lawyers and popularity contest winners from the cities. Whereas the farmers HAD to be neighbors and HAD to be accountable to their constituents, the new crop of legislators had no such checks and balances.
When folks from out of state came in with new ideas that tickled the fancies of the city dwellers, they got elected. When great new social programs were proposed, they got approved. When taxes were raised, it wasn't a particular burden to them.
Compare the idea of taxes being something taken out of your paycheck to the old way, where if you couldn't afford to pay or wanted to avoid the cash outlay, you worked on maintaining and improving the roads with your own hard physical labor. Was that society any less "civilized?" I think not. It WAS more realistic and provided a greater experience of logical consequences.
I left Vermont to find work. I left south Florida for Alabama for a number of reasons. One of them was a feeling of impotence when seeing the mis-use of tax money. I doubt that Justice Holmes had the following story in mind when he was talking about the cost of civilization:
About the second year I lived in one city in south Florida, I noticed that the grass on the median of a street near me was not being properly fertilized, watered, and tended, and it was turning to weeds. Soon after, the city came in with bulldozers and a whole crew of men, and removed and replaced the curbs, changed out the soil, and planted some very nice small trees and bushes, and re-sodded the median, making sure to put in a sprinkler system so that the new landscaping wouldn't die. I thought "Gee, that was a fairly expensive fix, but it should last for years and it looks really nice."
Four years later, they ripped everything out (including the trees that were just getting to a nice height) and replaced all the plants and grass. The council had latched onto some sort of matching grant for beautification that they couldn't pass up. The new plants weren't as hardy and the median started to look a little ratty, but was OK.
Then the city imposed a watering ban, because it was the politically expedient thing to do. Never mind that south Florida has rainfalls comparable to the Pacific Northwest, a "water emergency" was declared. The real reasons were twofold - a diike on the south side of Lake Okeechobee was declared "marginally safe" and AT THE END OF THE RAINY SEASON, the water was drained to the sea to remove pressure on it, creating an automatic shortfall of usable fresh water, and the second reason? People living beside the ocean in multi-million dollar houses were finding salt water was beginning to intrude into their personal sprinkler system wells.
The end result? The city condemned the expensive landscaping to death by cutting back on the water to where the weeds started to take over and the plantings died. When I left, the street looked much the same when I had arrived. Just how much "civilization" was purchased with the tax dollars invested in those projects?
The "hard" choices on what to cut back on to reduce tax burdens only come because of the "easy" choices that were made that increased taxes.
Never forget that unchecked government is NOT your friend. It is the drug dealer that suckers you in and then demands increasing payment. It is the leech of a family member that wants a cut of any good fortune you may chance into and the gains of every bit of hard work you have sweated. In return, it promises to make the streets in front of the mansions beautiful, make parks that will close at dark to keep out undesirables, and pave your roads with the cheapest recycled materials possible to help employ all the state road workers.
I can’t help but laugh at your horse excrement metaphor, but I don’t think Justice Holmes thoughts can fairly be characterized as a polemic. Also, your definition of the purpose of government is pretty Hobbesian and I would gently suggest that it is a point of view rather than an ultimate truth.
I am sure Alabama is a wonderful state and I’m glad you’ve found a place where you feel comfortable, but again, I would gently say that some people’s definition of civilization goes beyond whether people say “Sir” or “Ma’am”. For those people civilization is perhaps measured by the quality of things like education and health care.
I can’t disagree with you about the tendency for government to be inefficient and occasionally even irrational, but unfortunately that will always be the case as government, which is ultimate “us”, is human.
Never forget that unchecked government is NOT your friend.
Actually, you're right. The government is us, literally. Getting involved and active locally, regionally, and beyond has been a remedy for the sense of powerlessness I've sometimes felt. In other states where I've lived I reached out that way. But only in Vermont have I found that I can really get in there and work side by side with government, the private sector, communities, and individuals to create change.
Another thing I love about Vermont: It's one of those places where you literally can eat the scenery, as long as you grow it yourself or buy it from the grower. In many other places, the "scenery" is about things other than food and forms of sustenance and basic needs -- usually about manufactured "needs," perhaps best parodied in The Lorax. There's so much we can provide for ourselves here along with responsibly importing and exporting to meet our own and others' needs and wants.
Actually, you're right. The government is us, literally. Getting involved and active locally, regionally, and beyond has been a remedy for the sense of powerlessness I've sometimes felt. In other states where I've lived I reached out that way. But only in Vermont have I found that I can really get in there and work side by side with government, the private sector, communities, and individuals to create change.
This is actually the most frustrating thing about RI, especially Providence. The government seeks the input of the residents and then does whatever their friends tell them to do behind closed doors.
"The government is us, literally." At town meetings, yes. I can agree with that. The moment a "senate" and a "two party system" gets mixed in, no. On any larger scale of government, the government is no more "us" than Wal-mart is "us" or BP is "us." The Hobbsian (or was it Calvin that said that?... no, it was a Pogo schtick) claim of "We have met the enemy and they are us" is an outdated cliche. When the popular public sentiment was strongly NOT to pass the TARP bill, and the senators and "representatives" passed it without even taking the time to read it, that is NOT a government that is "US" or representative of us in any way, shape or form.
My mom was a teacher, back before the teacher's unions started wielding power. I agree wholeheartedly that education (not indoctrination) is an important aspect of civilization. But when a blanket statement is made about the value of education run by the government is made, I think of the situation in Rhode Island, where the school board had to ultimately address the problems of this concept by firing an entire school-full of teachers and administrators. Why? Because there was no real education happening, even though the money was being paid out for it. My mom was glad to retire, not because she was tired of teaching, but because she was tired of the institutionalized BS and politics that had invaded the public school system.
Health care. While Alabama has a world class cardiac care system with UAB, I remember my father having to go out of Vermont to the Mayo clinic to get proper diagnoses of his medical problems. Yes, civilization is more than saying "Sir" and "Ma'am." But it still starts with civil behavior. It then adds real education, and real educated health care professionals on top of that.
Eating the scenery. My thoughts are a little more radical. I recently suggested to a friend that only people who have PERSONALLY grown at least 1/10th of their own food for five years should be allowed to vote on anything relating to agriculture or ecology, or be allowed to lobby for those groups. Paying double the usual amount for produce in a store is not an indication of ecological awareness. Having the experience of battling squash bugs, Japanese Beetles, vine borers, rabbits, late frosts, and the host of real-world problems creates a lot more awareness than siding with Bambi and Thumper at the local elections.
As you can tell, I may reside in Alabama (where we barbecue the scenery to make it really tasty) but I am still a curmudgeon Vermonter in spirit.
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