Libertarian Response to Governor's Budget Proposal
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 18, 2006
During the State of the State Address, Governor Douglas quoted Calvin Coolidge saying, “I want the people of America to be able to work less for the government and more for themselves. I want them to have the rewards of their own industry. That is the chief meaning of freedom.”
The Vermont Libertarian Party couldn’t agree more.
However, the party notes that Governor Douglas seems to have forgotten those words within the span of a week. Tuesday, Douglas proposed a budget that increases spending approximately one quarter of a billion dollars. Adding this year’s budget increase to Douglas’s three prior budgets, the people of Vermont have seen the state budget rise 34%, or $1.1 billion since Douglas took office.
Hardy Machia, chairman of the Vermont Libertarian Party said, “This year’s budget is 4.5 billion dollars, or about $30,000 for every family in Vermont. For a minimum wage earner, this spending increase would mean an extra 255 hours of work this year, with all of it going to the state…in addition to the taxes she already pays.”
Libertarian Party member Doug Richmond asks, “Has Douglas developed money trees that he could urge farmers to grow as a new cash crop to pay for any of this?”
Machia says to Governor Douglas, “Let us live by those words you quoted from Calvin Coolidge, and let the people of Vermont work less for the government and more for themselves. The solutions are simple. We need to fundamentally change how the state’s largest budget items–education and health care–are purchased, delivered, and consumed. We need to reinstall the free market mechanisms that have been removed.”
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Vermont Libertarian Party
https://vtliberty.org/
Hardy Machia, Chair
[email protected]
802.372.9512 (home/work)
802.238.3437 (cell)
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The VERMONT LIBERTARIAN NEWS is a publication of the Vermont Libertarian Party, PO Box 5475, Burlington, VT 05402. All Rights Reserved. Copyright ? 2006.
