The Council on the Future of Vermont Recommends Strategic Economic Plan
A great deal of effort underway for the past couple of years by the Council on the Future of Vermont has been finished. A 90-page final report has been issued based on a massive amount of public input and the results of 500+ Vermonters meeting at UVM on May 11, 2009. No one should under-estimate the influence this effort and the various published reports will have on our Government and the Legislature. Over time, elements of the reports will be cited as support for various causes and special interests.
Two of us from Vermonters for Economic Health attended the Economic Plan Task Force working group. Many of the attendees were "Economic Development Professionals," those folks, either in the public sector or the private non-profit sector, who are paid to foster economic development and job creation. In that session. I was taken by the fact that the statements of many 'professionals' were, at bottom, an admission of their failure in one form or another.
We believe VEH influenced the final statement from this task group. We made the case that Vermont's future economic health was dependent on a healthy, vibrant private sector that should be encouraged and enabled by government policies and regulation to create good-paying jobs. We also posited that government had added far too many jobs in recent years compared with the anemic private sector, (which creates so much of Vermont's tax base).
In addition, we made the case that government should not be in the business of choosing 'winners' and 'losers' among industries or business segments.
Our points are included in Priorities 1. & 2. in the Council's statement below (emphasis added).
The Economic Plan Task Force group identified these priorities:
1. The Governor, current and subsequent, should state the need for and lead the effort to create a new vision, goals and economic action plan with measures and outcomes that achieves policies and resources that support non‐government, value added job creation.
The Governor shall continually provide the staff and resources to distill and synthesize all the work done by CFED, the Next Generation Commission, and the Council on the Future of Vermont as a foundation for this plan.
2. A comprehensive analysis of future growth sectors in Vermont should be conducted so that targeted state support can be focused on entrepreneurial efforts in those sectors. All sectors shall be supported from the plan, but a tiered response is also needed to stimulate growth.
Post new comment