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Raising Taxes in Vermont: Sweden’s Chilling Warning
Editor, Vermont Commons:
What Vermonters can expect with a Swedish-style healthcare system? With recent budget shortfalls and discussion of raising taxes to fill the gap it appears timely to describe what happened in Sweden as taxes climbed. It is known in Sweden as the great “Brain Drain,” and the country may never recover.
As Sweden transformed to a socialist state it was heralded as a glowing example of the success of the socialist paradigm. The quality of life was among the highest in the world and people flocked to Sweden from all over the world.
In the 1980s taxes continued to rise and something unexpected happened. Those Swedes with high incomes started to leave as refugees of the tax system. As ex patriots with citizenship in nations with low tax rates, they kept their money and lived in Sweden during the summer when the weather was nice. Instead of collecting a modest amount of tax income from the wealthy the government got none and the socialist dream began to unravel.
Perhaps the most glaring example is Ingvar Kamprad, founder of IKEA and perennial contender for the richest man in the world. As his legal residence is outside Sweden he pays not a Krona in income taxes. He does however have homes in Sweden and drives his old Volvo around all summer enjoying the beautiful countryside. My alma mater in Sweden was full of children of former Swedes who wanted their children raised in Sweden but refused to pay the taxes.
Vermont is edging ever closer to this scenario and does so at great peril. Vermont already has an extremely low number of wealthy residents who bear the disproportionate burden of taxation. States like Arizona and Florida keep taxes low to attract “Snowbirds” who spend money on durable goods there that would have been spent on taxes in Vermont.
With long, harsh winters and beautiful summers, Vermont is similar to Scandinavia. Vermont should look to Sweden as a chilling warning regarding the economic realities of irresponsible taxation. People who know how to make money often know how to keep it. They also often have the money to relocate with relative ease. This is a very dangerous combination for Vermont’s coffers.
Only a few decades after being looked toward as the closest thing to Utopia on Earth, Sweden has plummeted out of the top spot and last year did not even crack the top 25 in national standard-of-living rankings.
In contrast to having no real choice but to implement a Swedish-style healthcare system, Vermont does have options regarding budget shortfalls. Raising taxes further is one. A far better option is to acknowledge that business is the engine of an economy and to support new business creation in actions as well as words. Vermont needs a fundamental shift in attitude regarding permitting and taxation. In the end this is not a discussion of morality or fairness. It is one of simple economics.
This shift needs to come very quickly or Vermont will have the misfortune of sharing more with Sweden than beautiful summers.
Anders Holm
Middlebury
Managing Yankee’s Waste Is Task Enough
Editor, Vermont Commons:
Another problem at Vermont Yankee? Indeed. But wait: let’s not lose sight of the take-home message here. It's not to be surprised or angry (although that is surely warranted). It's to recognize that this is simply the nature of humans attempting to manage a material that's not, in practical terms, manageable. Vermont Yankee's recent problems are not episodic events of a leak here, a lie by a plant official there, a mistake there. They indicate the much deeper reality that is atomic energy.
How can the atomic industry be anything other than catastrophic? Human decision making and management is imperfect. Unfortunately, nuclear energy management requires perfection. And its impacts are lethal, cancerous and mutating, for hundreds of lifetimes.
Luckily we don’t need nuclear energy; only 1 percent of the sunshine landing on Earth is the amount of energy humans use. And, as has been noted before, we already have the best nuclear reactor we could ever want; it's a safe distance of 90 million miles away and is called the Sun.
The Greek's wrote the story of Pandora and the box Zeus gave her to warn people against unending curiosity. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was a similar attempt to warn society against making those things that we cannot control.
The worst thing that could happen on a legislative end here is if the politicians and regulators see these problems as “management mistakes,” as episodic incompetent actions that "could have been prevented." While that may be true – Entergy is indeed showing many signs of incompetence – no new management scheme will prevent myriad other mistakes at another time in the future. Nuclear energy has no tolerance for imperfection. We’d be wise to not throw more good money, time, and energy after bad.
Let’s close the plant, finally, and get on with the development of renewing, long-term sources of non-lethal energy, and attempt to manage the 1,200,000 pounds of high-level waste that already exists in Vernon. Isn't this enough of a challenge?
Ben Falk
Moretown
Editor, Vermont Commons:
What Vermonters can expect with a Swedish-style healthcare system? With recent budget shortfalls and discussion of raising taxes to fill the gap it appears timely to describe what happened in Sweden as taxes climbed. It is known in Sweden as the great “Brain Drain,” and the country may never recover.
As Sweden transformed to a socialist state it was heralded as a glowing example of the success of the socialist paradigm. The quality of life was among the highest in the world and people flocked to Sweden from all over the world.
In the 1980s taxes continued to rise and something unexpected happened. Those Swedes with high incomes started to leave as refugees of the tax system. As ex patriots with citizenship in nations with low tax rates, they kept their money and lived in Sweden during the summer when the weather was nice. Instead of collecting a modest amount of tax income from the wealthy the government got none and the socialist dream began to unravel.
Perhaps the most glaring example is Ingvar Kamprad, founder of IKEA and perennial contender for the richest man in the world. As his legal residence is outside Sweden he pays not a Krona in income taxes. He does however have homes in Sweden and drives his old Volvo around all summer enjoying the beautiful countryside. My alma mater in Sweden was full of children of former Swedes who wanted their children raised in Sweden but refused to pay the taxes.
Vermont is edging ever closer to this scenario and does so at great peril. Vermont already has an extremely low number of wealthy residents who bear the disproportionate burden of taxation. States like Arizona and Florida keep taxes low to attract “Snowbirds” who spend money on durable goods there that would have been spent on taxes in Vermont.
With long, harsh winters and beautiful summers, Vermont is similar to Scandinavia. Vermont should look to Sweden as a chilling warning regarding the economic realities of irresponsible taxation. People who know how to make money often know how to keep it. They also often have the money to relocate with relative ease. This is a very dangerous combination for Vermont’s coffers.
Only a few decades after being looked toward as the closest thing to Utopia on Earth, Sweden has plummeted out of the top spot and last year did not even crack the top 25 in national standard-of-living rankings.
In contrast to having no real choice but to implement a Swedish-style healthcare system, Vermont does have options regarding budget shortfalls. Raising taxes further is one. A far better option is to acknowledge that business is the engine of an economy and to support new business creation in actions as well as words. Vermont needs a fundamental shift in attitude regarding permitting and taxation. In the end this is not a discussion of morality or fairness. It is one of simple economics.
This shift needs to come very quickly or Vermont will have the misfortune of sharing more with Sweden than beautiful summers.
Anders Holm
Middlebury
Managing Yankee’s Waste Is Task Enough
Editor, Vermont Commons:
Another problem at Vermont Yankee? Indeed. But wait: let’s not lose sight of the take-home message here. It's not to be surprised or angry (although that is surely warranted). It's to recognize that this is simply the nature of humans attempting to manage a material that's not, in practical terms, manageable. Vermont Yankee's recent problems are not episodic events of a leak here, a lie by a plant official there, a mistake there. They indicate the much deeper reality that is atomic energy.
How can the atomic industry be anything other than catastrophic? Human decision making and management is imperfect. Unfortunately, nuclear energy management requires perfection. And its impacts are lethal, cancerous and mutating, for hundreds of lifetimes.
Luckily we don’t need nuclear energy; only 1 percent of the sunshine landing on Earth is the amount of energy humans use. And, as has been noted before, we already have the best nuclear reactor we could ever want; it's a safe distance of 90 million miles away and is called the Sun.
The Greek's wrote the story of Pandora and the box Zeus gave her to warn people against unending curiosity. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was a similar attempt to warn society against making those things that we cannot control.
The worst thing that could happen on a legislative end here is if the politicians and regulators see these problems as “management mistakes,” as episodic incompetent actions that "could have been prevented." While that may be true – Entergy is indeed showing many signs of incompetence – no new management scheme will prevent myriad other mistakes at another time in the future. Nuclear energy has no tolerance for imperfection. We’d be wise to not throw more good money, time, and energy after bad.
Let’s close the plant, finally, and get on with the development of renewing, long-term sources of non-lethal energy, and attempt to manage the 1,200,000 pounds of high-level waste that already exists in Vernon. Isn't this enough of a challenge?
Ben Falk
Moretown