Vermonters for Economic Health

I want to applaud Jim Eckhardt (and other business people) for having the courage and taking the time away from business to run for a position in the legislature.

Having people like Jim, who know what it takes to run a successful business and provide JOBS to people WITHOUT using taxpayers funds to make the payroll, in the legislature will make a real difference and bring fiscal sanity back to our policy making.

The current makeup of our state legislature is completely out of balance and their policy making is driving business investment, growth of good jobs, and entrepreneurs from our state. All of this is undermining our tax base. And our demographics are getting worse by the year. And I mean worse in terms of not having the job and population growth to support the unfunded liabilities of the future.

We need legislative policy to be sowing the seeds of investment in our economy TODAY in order to harvest the fruit later when we need it most. This has not been happening to the degree required. Recently our legislature has been making law and allowing spending that on balance has damaged our business community and our future economy.

The legislature touts their rollback this year of SOME of the tax increases they legislated last year, but on balance they have done a LOT of damage over the last two years (massive unemployment tax increases, 40% cap gain exemption taken away on stocks and bonds, estate tax).

We need people like Jim up on the hill to help us get our spending, tax and economic policy going in a direction that will yield a sustainable future.

We are behind you Jim, thank you for running.