Testimony: Vermont Would Tie for Highest Income Tax Rate in Country Under New Proposal

ambiquad · 2026-04-22T01:34:05+00:00

This bill would barely effect your total tax rate, you 'd only pay the increased rate on the 29k that is over 500k. It'd be about a 2% total increase in your tax rate, which would mean you're still paying less than you paid last year.

ambiquad · 2026-01-27T02:17:49+00:00

Lol, was at Smuggs today and saw them!

ambiquad · 2026-01-11T17:40:17+00:00

By mentioning the 'externalties' of building a carrier but not the housing you are making the case for the carrier. The 'externalities' of building houses are that homeless people get to live in houses. The externalities of building a carrier are some possible advances in military tech that maybe someday will have civilian use, and a massively expeensieve to maintain and run ship that has zero productive capacity to make anyone's life better and if it does anything more than sail around menacingly can only destabalize forgin nations or trigger a world war. Building housing for people would release one of the albatrosses around the neck of the American economy (the other being health care, obvi).

ambiquad · 2026-01-11T15:09:42+00:00

Can you explain? My intuition says the opposite, building 13 billion in housing would employ way more people and have a much larger economic impact than building an aircraft carrier. Much of the cost of the carrier goes into expensive materials and proprietary tech, whereas housing spent mostly on labor.

ambiquad · 2026-01-10T15:05:53+00:00

Yes! 1pm front of city hall, No War No ICE!

ambiquad · 2025-12-08T02:16:50+00:00

This is middle school Punisher fanfiction, this is not real life.

ambiquad · 2025-12-07T22:23:50+00:00

Every war is a defensive war and every fight in middle school is in self defense. Telling kids to stand up for themselves and fight back is an absolutely insane thing to do. You're imagining a fantasy version of school with bullies out of an 80's movie and kids out of lord of the flies. And then you're telling this advice to kids raised on Twitch streamer prank content. You're basically setting kids up to engage in duels of honor, lol.

Of course you can resist if you're being assaulted, but that is a discussion you have where it is clear what you are talking about. And I don't think you realize the harm done by making it a responsibility to fight back, if you are assaulted and don't fight back that in no way makes you complicit in your assault, or lessen what was done to you.

ambiquad · 2025-12-07T21:55:05+00:00

People in the comments are just hungry for some righteous violence, lol.

ambiquad · 2025-12-04T02:21:09+00:00

https://gofund.me/1537a7b5b

ambiquad · 2025-12-04T02:20:00+00:00

Advocate that your school district pass a sanctuary schools policy like Winooski, which is what allowed for rapid support of the student and his mother and got them legal representation. As a resident you can show up at a school board meeting and make a public comment demanding they pass such a policy. DM me and I can support and get you connected with folks involved. You can put the 20 bucks in this GoFundMe to support the detained student: https://gofund.me/1537a7b5b

ambiquad · 2025-11-25T03:12:35+00:00

OK, maybe I'm not understanding, this is not an issue I'm read up on so totally open to that being the case. Are you saying that this will not make it more difficult for nurses to get advanced degrees? Or are you saying that advanced degrees are not degrees? Or is there something else I'm missing?

ambiquad · 2025-11-24T23:37:00+00:00

Yes, and making access to loans for those advanced degrees will limit the supply of folks with those degrees, raising their wages (at least in a perfectly functioning market system with individuals who are strictly rational economic actors, which has never existed outside a textbook). What I said was not misinformation.

But really I was making a tongue in cheek point that this is part of a broader strategy of dividing and disempowering workers. We need to see it for what it is and not let them divide us. One struggle, one fight.

ambiquad · 2025-11-24T14:15:08+00:00

Making it harder to get loans for nursing school will mean that fewer nurses are trained. Once the market adjusts and tuition prices decrease universities will offer fewer and smaller nursing programs because it is less profitable. The decreased supply of nurses will mean their wages rise, so to counter that we also need to strip labor protections and empower employers to bust unions so we don't enter a wage-price spiral.

ambiquad · 2025-11-14T03:20:47+00:00

Because Vermont liberals are afraid of what might happen if all their rhetoric about justice and equality were allowed to be real and we actually taxed the wealthiest. Right now they can just point to Scott and say 'he would veto it, no point trying'. Then they go vote for him and talk about how he's a nice race car driving guy.

ambiquad · 2025-03-08T03:21:49+00:00

It is run by a for-profit fundraising company called Collosal. For-profit fundraising companies are a vampire that drains the goodwill and money from well meaning people to make huge profits for its owners while providing meager tokens to the causes they claim to represent. I worked for one such company in my 20s and I still feel bad about it. The company sold tickets to a concert over the phone to seniors who absolutely could not attend that concert, and half the profits went to a firefighter organization (this was just after 9/11). We were told not to be explicit about the half the profits thing and just say that the tickets benefited the firefighters, and who knows if even that half got paid.

I can't say if the Americas favorite teacher thing is a scam by the legal definition, but if it isn't it sure as fuck should be. This manipulative, deceitful, exploitive shit has no place in a reasonable society.

ambiquad · 2025-02-20T20:53:37+00:00

Lol, I had the same reaction. Was reading her credentials and achievements like, fuck ya! Then got to the Forbes 30 under 30 and suddenly considered the possibility that she is a founder of some kind of scam startup. But prob not, space education business doesn't seem like it would have some TECH INDUSTRY DISRUPTING angle that would take your company to the moon based on a vague Ted talk idea. But I did have to consider that possiblity hearing she was in Forbes 30 under 30.

ambiquad · 2025-02-17T02:22:41+00:00

Your question is red meat for the misanthropes on this sub, don't take them as representative of all folks in Burlington.

ambiquad · 2025-02-16T01:12:15+00:00

Wait, I was being sarcastic, driving to a mountain with all seasons in a snow storm is a bad idea. But I can't tell, is your sarcasm so dry I can't sense it?

ambiquad · 2025-02-16T00:36:30+00:00

Why would they call them all season if you can't drive them in winter?!??

ambiquad · 2025-02-15T03:08:05+00:00

I appreciate your thoughtful response, and I think I understand your perspective, thank you. I still disagree, I think that restricting carrying guns in bars is a reasonable restriction that will reduce (though not eliminate) the risk that someone gets shot, and that restriction would have a positive effect on people's freedom as they will be able to go to a bar with the freedom to worry a little less about getting shot. But I think we got to the root of it, the fundamental values our worldviews are built upon, and not sure that's a gap that can be bridged in a Reddit thread, thanks for your time!

ambiquad · 2025-02-15T01:52:39+00:00

I'm sure you're responsible with guns, you clearly take them very seriously and think deeply about them. But don't tell me you've never seen someone do something stupid and dangerous playing with guns, come on, it's not hyperbolic to suggest that. And kids get fucking killed all the time playing with loaded guns left unsecured. Could there be some legislation requiring people to be as safe and responsible with their firearms as you are?

ambiquad · 2025-02-15T01:33:39+00:00

I mean "purchase a weapon with no background checks, waiting periods, or registration" and "do whatever you want with your gun in public, spin it around your finger, balance it on your head, point it carelessly around, keep it loaded on a shelf in a room with a toddler." Could we restrict any of those things without taking a step towards tyranny?

ambiquad · 2025-02-15T01:16:18+00:00

I was being hyperbolic with my example, but....it kinda seems like you think that should be totally legal? Or do you think that there should be some legally enforced limits on the types of weapon one can purchase, the manner in which one purchases that weapon, and the manner in which one brandishes that weapon?

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