Vermont Doesn't Want To Be Like Canada

I find the decision of Vermont to scrap single-payer most interesting.

Vermont is as left-wing as they come yet they prudently acted with utmost fiscal responsibility.

"As Vox's Sarah Kliff reports in a long post-mortem on the proposal, which DemocraticGov. Pete Shumlin killed last week in a surprise announcement, thefinal estimates indicated that the plan would have required thestate to raise an extra $2.5 billion in revenue annually. This is in a state that typically only raises about $2.7 billion total each year. In other words, it would have cost nearly the amount that the entire rest of the state government cost—and that's presuming that those estimates were accurate, and that the one-of-a-kind program encountered no unexpected cost overruns. 

Raising that kind of money would have required significant tax hikes—a payroll tax increase of 11.5 percent and a 9 percent income tax increase. Even in liberal Vermont, with a governor who campaigned on single payer and who was dedicated to the cause, that was just too much. This was perhaps the best possible environment for single-payer in the United States, and it failed."

Essentially, 11.5% would be added to payroll taxes and 9% on income.

This would bring Vermont payroll and personal income taxes in the neighborhood of 18% each.

This is pretty much what Quebecers pay and Vermont determined it was insane.

Sigh.

I wish.

But as long as Quebecers believe what Premier Couillard proclaimed in an interview on CTV news that Quebec is among the 'best places on earth to live' there won't likely be tax relief because welfare is enlightened compassion.