Commentary: It’s Time to Invest in Vermont
By Molly Gray
Vermont’s affordability crisis is an interconnected crisis of housing, healthcare, and, until recently, childcare. For years, a generation – my generation – has been sounding the alarm, and now we’re there. We have an estimated 19,000 open jobs. We are one of the most expensive places to live, with a crushing tax burden on working families, and more people are leaving Vermont than are moving here.
For too long, the approach has been to cut and consolidate in an attempt to save money. But austerity isn’t just harmful to working families and the employers struggling to recruit talent in Vermont – it’s an ineffective policy that fails to significantly lower the cost of living. If we’re serious about strengthening our workforce and improving quality of life, we need to focus on what has been proven to make a difference for working families: meaningful investments in healthcare and affordable housing.
Look at what we’ve achieved with Act 76, Vermont’s landmark childcare bill. Business and economic leaders, legislators, and a statewide coalition of working families came together to make a public investment that has created over 1,200 new childcare spots and 639 new jobs in less than three years. That’s at least 1,200 parents remaining in the workforce, plus hundreds of new employees. States across the nation are now looking to Vermont and what we achieved.
Act 76’s investment in childcare has been a game-changer for households like mine. I was able to stay in the workforce and secure a childcare spot for my 2.5-year-old in our community. If we can apply this same focused, data-informed investment model to the other aspects of our demographic crisis, we will grow our workforce, diversify our tax base, and reduce the cost of living for all Vermonters.
Consider healthcare. In 2024, premiums for individual plans in Vermont were among the highest in the nation, and employers saw premium increases as high as 35 percent over the last three years. These skyrocketing health insurance costs are responsible for a recent spike in property taxes across the state, as healthcare is now the largest driver of education spending and school budgets are funded through property taxes. Closing schools and consolidating districts doesn’t address healthcare costs and arguably does little to bring down the cost of owning a home or to stabilize the property taxes that fall most heavily on working Vermonters.
If we invest in expanding successful programs like Dr. Dynosaur to offer universal primary care to every Vermonter regardless of age or income, we could end the ruinously expensive trend of Vermonters rushing to hospital emergency departments for basic care. We could expand loan forgiveness and other scholarship opportunities for nurses and doctors, training the next generation of healthcare professionals while putting Vermont on a course to end its shortage of primary care providers.
But we can’t grow a workforce without housing. Vermont has set a goal of building 30,000 new homes by 2030. At less than 2,500 new homes per year, we’re moving at less than 10 percent of the speed this goal requires. We see steps in the right direction: the Community and Housing Infrastructure Program (CHIP) will kickstart housing development through public infrastructure development, and the “Tier 1” aspects of Act 181 will exempt cities, towns, and villages from Act 250. But our current housing strategy still depends on 251 towns and cities independently deciding to pull their weight. In short, municipalities still wield significant veto power over projects. We can’t afford to have some communities resist critically needed affordable housing, especially in areas with the infrastructure to support it. We must double our efforts to invest in the workers and infrastructure needed to build, while continuing to end duplicative and unnecessary restrictions.
We can make these badly-needed, interconnected investments without raising taxes on working families. First, we can ensure our budget is aligned with these specific, urgent priorities. Second, we can potentially consider new sources of revenue, including increasing the tax on second homes as well as on our highest income earners. Crucially, we must directly and specifically invest this new revenue into these priorities, which we know will lower costs for all Vermonters.
In the years ahead, we face a choice: we can continue on the current path of consolidation and austerity for short-term tax relief, or we can be fierce in our focus on critical investments that will actually lower costs and grow our workforce. It won’t be easy, but if we are serious about growing our tax base and retaining and attracting working families, it’s time to invest boldly in a different future.
Molly Gray is a Democratic candidate for Lt. Governor. Previously, she served as Executive Director of the Vermont Afghan Alliance (2023-2026), Vermont Lt. Governor (2021-2023), and as an Assistant Attorney General (2018-2020).
