Brookfield, Vermont, April 30, 2020: Vermont is reeling financially from the fallout from the COVID-19 crisis, with the state recently estimating a 2021 revenue shortfall of $430,000,000. Republican Gubernatorial candidate John Klar, a trained tax attorney, is vocally protesting that instead of looking for new areas to raise revenue, the bloated dome in Montpelier must come to a reckoning for fiscal mismanagement and pie-in-the-sky spending policies, especially in the failed Act 46 restructuring of schools, and the longstanding failure to fully fund the state’s pension system.
Klar today issued a full commentary at his web site (Klar2020.com) in which he warned that the threat of skyrocketing real estate taxes threatens a “giant sucking sound” of Vermonters fleeing the state. Cutting spending is not the same as cutting taxes, Klar argues, though only by cutting spending can taxes be reduced. In addition, John has proposed a detailed economic plan to support agriculture and small businesses, to grow the tax and income base for Vermont’s future prosperity.
When he announced his candidacy on October 29, 2019, John announced that his top priority was reducing the size of Vermont’s state bureaucracy. “The government has grown like a bloated tick off the blood of working Vermonters," Klar said in his announcement speech. "It's time to pop it, and make sure we get the head out."
Klar is repeating that message, and he says he will keep on repeating it until that tick belly is properly popped: “I argue that depleting soils and water aquifers to prop up industrial farming methods is unsustainable. In the same way, industrial government bloat threatens the fundamental stability of the Vermont economy: it is unsustainable. Vermonters can’t afford any more squeezing by their Mafia Legislature!”