Tag Archives: Remote Worker Grant Program

That Military Pension Tax Exemption is Largely a Giveaway to the Affluent

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I know some people are going to read this — or read the title and nothing more — and jump to the conclusion that I’m just a liberal bashing the troops. Nothing could be further from the truth. My dad served in World War II and came home with undiagnosed PTSD that derailed his life for several years. One of my uncles lied about his age, enlisted in the Navy at 15, and died on board a submarine in WWII. My grandfather-in-law died leading his unit through a French farm field in World War I without ever getting to see or hold his infant son (who eventually became my father-in-law). I respect the people who serve in the armed forces.

But this tax exemption for military pensions that just became law in Vermont has nothing to do with the troops. It’s the officer class who will reap most of the benefits, and most of them are quite comfortable already. I don’t recall anyone bringing this up during the years-long debate over the exemption, which has been strongly pushed by Gov. Phil Scott.

Hell, I wouldn’t know about this if not for political cartoonist and Vietnam vet Jeff Danziger, who emailed me about the military pension system — in particular, who qualifies and who doesn’t.

In order to earn a military pension, you have to serve 20 years in the military. This includes most officers and some NCOs. It excludes the grunts, the people who do the fighting and shoulder most of the risk. It would not have included my dad or my grandfather-in-law’s surviving widow and son — or former Lt. Danziger, who “only” served four years in the Big Muddy. (His Vietnam memoir, Lieutenant Dangerous, is highly recommended.)

In other words, the military pension exemption is largely a giveaway to the affluent.

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The definition of insanity

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Doug Hoffer is at it again, pissing in the cornflakes of conventional wisdom. His latest report offers a detailed picture of something we already knew: The value of Vermont’s Remote Worker Grant Program is essentially unquantifiable.

The program offers up to $10,000 to people who relocate to Vermont and work remotely for employers elsewhere. It has generated a ton of publicity and very little in the way of actual returns. Scott administration apparatchiks boast of attracting new residents — a grand total of, um, 110 grantees and 290 new residents.

To quote my favorite comics character, Big Nate: “Whoop-de-dang-do.” That’s basically a rounding error in Vermont’s demographics.

There are other problems with the program’s performance, in addition to the paltry numbers. Almost half the grantees have settled in Chittenden County, which doesn’t need the boost. And the Commerce Agency’s own figures shows that most grantees would have moved here anyway. At best, the grant was only one factor in their decisions, and there’s no way to tell how many of those new residents would have decided against Vermont if the program didn’t exist.

Hoffer also points to the deliberately lax standards for awarding grants, established by the legislature on the principle of “keep it simple and get the money out the door.”

See, we must expect rigorous documentation and enforcement in social service programs, but Heaven forbid we should bother well-educated, white-collar recipients of economic development initiatives. Or businesses that draw on incentives for job training or expansion.

Because pretty much all of Commerce’s highly-touted programs are basically emperors with no clothes. Or, as Hoffer put it, “there is little reliable performance data about some of the State’s largest economic development programs.”

He closes the introduction to his new report with the destined-to-be-ignored clarion call: “When considering funding for Vermont’s economic development programs, we strongly encourage decision makers to take an evidence-based approach.”

Yeah, right. When pigs fly.

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