We are just weeks away from the midterm elections, and inflation remains one of the top issues for voters for the fourth year in a row. Democrats think that they can ride pocketbook concerns to victory, but the voters should beware: Democrats’ policies would only raise the cost of living, not lower it.
Democrats can repeat slogans and rhetoric about the cost of gas or housing being too high, but they don’t have a plan that would bring costs down. In fact, Democratic policies only make life more expensive through higher taxes, more regulations, and government spending.
The voters have seen this movie before. Last year, Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) ran as a centrist and went out of her way to empathize with Virginia families struggling with the cost of living. Yet, once she took office, she veered sharply to the Left, and middle-class families continue to suffer.
But to see the Democrats’ vision for America, look no further than Vermont, which voted for then-Vice President Kamala Harris by a margin of 63% to 32%, the largest margin of any state. Vermont is, in many ways, the quintessential blue state: It has one of the oldest populations, negative population growth, and one of the highest tax burdens in America as a share of income. It is no coincidence that left-wing Vermont is also one of the least affordable states in America: After taxes, Vermonters have some of the lowest levels of disposable income of any state.
Yet, Vermont Democrats are now threatening to stand firm on the policies that have led to these dismal outcomes. Democrats now propose taking Vermont’s substantial legal preferences for unions and enshrining them into the state’s constitution, making them harder to repeal or amend. This could possibly lead to a slew of lawsuits with a domino effect on state laws.
The proposed amendment, which voters will consider this fall as Proposal Three, would overturn any law that “interferes with, negates or diminishes” the right to unionize. This broad, sweeping language would cast legal doubt on a variety of Vermont laws, as well as proposals to regulate membership agreements or even to reduce property taxes. Proposal Three would effectively give unions veto power over a large swath of state policy and let unions force private-sector workers to either join a union or lose their jobs.
It is not clear what problem Proposal Three is intended to solve. Vermont already has extensive union protections in law, and it is not a right-to-work state. But Proposal Three would create a host of new problems, such as slowing job growth and future tax increases to pay for new union benefits.
The only other state with a constitutional ban on right-to-work protections is Illinois, which is right next door to my home state of Missouri. Illinois is another quintessentially blue state: It has the worst credit rating in the nation, largely due to unsustainable pension benefits that were negotiated by the public-sector unions that dominate the state’s politics. Like Vermonters, Illinoisans have been fleeing the state, largely due to high taxes and anemic job growth. With Proposal Three, Vermont could follow in Illinois’ footsteps down the road to dysfunction and insolvency.
Proposal Three is so radical that even Left Coast California decided against a similar amendment back in 2023 when the state legislature allowed Senate Constitutional Amendment 7 to die in committee. If it’s too liberal for Beverly Hills, then it’s too liberal for just about anywhere.
Compare states such as Vermont and Illinois with Right-to-Work states, such as ruby-red Florida, Alabama, or Tennessee, and the contrast is clear. Over the last decade, nine of the top 10 states for private sector job growth were right-to-work states. In fact, private-sector job growth in right-to-work states was nearly twice as fast as in non-right-to-work states. Prominent companies such as Smith and Wesson, Caterpillar, and Boeing have moved facilities or channeled investment in recent years to right-to-work states such as Tennessee, Texas, and South Carolina.
HOW GOVERNMENT UNIONS ARE MAKING BLUE STATES UNGOVERNABLE
Handing over the state’s fiscal policies to the union bosses isn’t just bad for the state’s balance sheets. It’s bad for voters’ pocketbooks. Big Union states tend to have higher taxes and slower growth, hitting working families from both sides of the ledger.
As voters go to the polls this fall, they ought to ask themselves which policies will actually bring down the cost of living. Talk is cheap. Liberal policies are expensive. Just ask Illinois.
Eric Burlison represents Missouri’s 7th Congressional District.