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Keeping your community covered. We're committed to producing high-quality, fact-based news and information that gives you the facts in this community we call home. If our work has helped you stay informed, take action, or feel more connected to Windham County – please give now to help us reach our goal of raising $150,000 by December 31st.
Daniel Webster, the 19th-century senator from New Hampshire, argued before the U.S. Supreme Court “the power to tax is the power to destroy.”
Responding to an attempt by one or more states to tax an entity out of existence, the renowned orator sounded a cautionary note that the governor and Legislature of Vermont would do well to consider.
The current target for extinction by taxation is, of course, Vermont Yankee. Today, the state's largest electrical power plant pays $5 million annually in a “generation tax” negotiated as a long-term agreement when its owner, Entergy, purchased Vermont Yankee, and in the process, rescued Vermont utilities from financial ruin.
Having failed last fall to close the plant by interfering in the regulatory process, the Legislature now wants to tax the golden goose out of existence with a unilateral increase of the plant's generation taxes to a whopping $12.5 million per year.
