I recently read an article highlighting the campaigns of the two main candidates for Vermont governor. Like many, I’m an armchair historian. As I read the platforms of these two candidates, I was drawn back to the thoughts and wisdom of one particular past Congressional leader: former Massachusetts Congressman and House Speaker (from 1977 to 1986) Thomas “Tip” O’Neill and his simple maxim: “All politics is local.” That brief bit of insight goes hand-in-hand with Thomas Jefferson’s belief: “The government closest to the people serves the people the best.” I agree with both men.
It’s hard not to be concerned about taxes - I find myself worrying too much lately. Thinking back to a college “Poli-Sci’ course and Justice John Marshall’s words from 1819, when he framed his legal opinion for the landmark “McCulloch v. Maryland” decision. Marshall opined: “The power to tax” is equivalent to “the power to destroy.” Marshall’s was the first such occasion, in our nation’s young life, to showcase the court’s unique Constitutional power to legally contain (or constrain) over-reaching legislation: particularly those establishing taxation. Marshall’s succinct warning came early in our nation’s history and remains one of the most prescient and defining statements ever put forth in defining our nation’s future. Justice Marshall placed a clear and definitive focus on the Constitution’s stated mission: a balance of power in government: a system of checks, balances, and limits on the three co-equal branches.
“The power to destroy.” This sticks in my mind. I’m no legal expert, but I doubt that Justice Marshall was penning hyperbole. Most historians think not, but rather, carefully chosen words intended to be a clear and sobering statement from the highest court. A concise warning to all legislative bodies across those United States: to those elected to offices both big and small – to those thus empowered to write tax laws - to be clearly aware of the great power that they wield when imposing taxes. In so doing, the court not only established limits on legislative powers but also placed a bright moral spotlight on the specter of taxation. A topic at the very nexus of our own Revolution just 43 years prior.
It might be dammed near impossible not to know that election day 2026 is fast approaching. I’d wager that no matter your political “color” – from red to blue to purple – our personal selection of candidates running for office often boils down to their approach to taxes. Or spending. In my world, they are sort of one and the same. Or as FDR’s close advisor and WPA administrator Harry Hopkins asserted in the 1930’s: "We shall tax and tax, and spend and spend, and elect and elect.” A moniker of an administration desperately – and admirably - struggling to find an end to the Great Depression. That was then.
By the 1980’s, President Reagan had taken that economic policy to task and is today remembered by many for his counter and diametrically opposed economic policies and lively home-grown observations. Famously, this “quippy” observation of post WW2 government: "If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it". Pure Reagan. “Trickle-down” Reaganomics, though, failed to work. (I was never heavily trickled upon.)
Imposing new taxes in order to afford government spending is not a novel concept. From Roman “bread and circuses” to Marie Antoinette’s (aka “Madame Deficit”) missive directed at the poor, hungry, and suffering French peasants: “Let them eat cake”; leaders often ignore the masses. That trite economic “policy” of the Queen’s did not turn out well: not for her certainly, or the French Royal ruling class.
It’s mid-September. I’m inundated by political ads: proselytized to by those running for office. I’m no expert on government or an economist. But I am a decent mathematician and understand well the most basic principle of algebra: the “=” equals sign. The quantity on the left equals the quantity on the right. So too, the simple beauty of the chemical equation: reactants on the left of the arrow react to form the products on the right. You cannot end up with more than the amount that you started with. It’s accounting. So, then why does it appear that many of our elected leaders – from federal on down – seem to skip the most basic principles of algebra and the most basic concepts of chemistry? It’s mystifying. In nature, you just cannot get something from nothing. Yet our federal government “makes up revenue” routinely. We Americans are experiencing an all-time historic federal budget crisis. We are deeply in debt. We habitually spend what we don’t have. How is that sensible? Try that in your personal finances. It’s not sound or practical. Why and how did we arrive here? I’d be wealthy if I knew that answer.
I’m left thinking about my gubernatorial choices come November 3. And our aggregate tax burden. I’m left thinking about that notion, “all politics being local.” I am tired of what I feel is a pervasive “tax and spend” attitude in our state legislature. I clearly hear one candidate consistently describe his proven executive policy – a policy being both pragmatic and incremental. He regularly speaks about making Vermont affordable for average Vermonters. I’ve read that others speak of creating higher taxes on wealthy Vermonters and on second homeowners and focus less on curtailing discretionary spending. That “equation” seems flawed. The rhetoric, too, misses the mark on more traditional rural Vermont values of thrift, pragmatism, and family values. It always sounds and feels good to tax the wealthy. Right? Perhaps we need to. I’m just me, but these days I’d rather hear a candidate’s ideas about curbing spending rather than hearing about instituting broad and sweeping new tax laws. More colloquially – Vermont does not have a tax revenue problem; it has a spending problem.
Or maybe I should just stop worrying so much and resign myself to the wisdom of US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes:
“Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.”
Graves lives in Warren.
