Progressive Caucus: Governor’s Budget Misleads Vermonters About the Real Causes of the Affordability Crisis

Montpelier, Vermont — The Vermont Progressive General Assembly Caucus today sharply criticized Governor Phil Scott’s budget address, calling it a misleading justification for austerity that echoes national, far-right talking points while asking working Vermonters to accept higher costs and fewer services. 

“The Governor’s budget follows a familiar national playbook: deregulate, cut public investment, and then tell working people there is no alternative,” said Rep. Kate Logan, House Progressive Minority Leader. “That approach has been funded and promoted for years by right-wing business interest groups across the country, and it has failed everywhere it has been tried.”

The Governor claims that federal uncertainty and education spending leave Vermont with no choice but to pull back. Progressive lawmakers rejected that claim outright, calling it false and dangerously misleading.

“Uncertainty does not force austerity. Austerity is a choice,” Logan said. “This budget chooses to advance an ideological agenda at the expense of working Vermonters, asking them to pay more and get less.”

The Caucus said the Governor’s repeated focus on deregulation, restraint, and so-called market solutions mirrors a national strategy pushed for years by right-wing organizations funded by corporate interests, including networks backed by the Koch family, like Americans For Prosperity. Those groups have poured money into state legislatures and elections across the country, including Vermont, to weaken public institutions, shift power away from working people, and normalize austerity politics under the language of affordability and choice. 

“This is not new thinking, and it is not Vermont-grown,” Logan said. “It is a recycled national playbook designed to shrink public responsibility while leaving real cost drivers untouched.” 

Progressive lawmakers rejected the Governor’s claim that education spending is a primary cause of Vermont’s affordability crisis, calling it a convenient distraction that shifts blame away from failed housing, healthcare, and economic policy.

“Over the past decade, Vermont has become increasingly unaffordable,” said Rep. Brian Cina, House Progressive Assistant Minority Leader. “This crisis did not happen overnight, and it did not happen for just one reason. Economic stress has intensified social challenges, leading to mental health crises, substance use disorders, trauma, poverty and human suffering. More Vermonters are vulnerable today than at any point in recent memory.” 

The Caucus also challenged the assertion that deregulation and spending restraint will organically grow the workforce, reverse demographic decline, and reduce costs. Lawmakers said those promises are presented as economic fact despite a complete lack of evidence, while ignoring the lived reality facing Vermonters. 

“I agree with the Governor that we must center protecting the most vulnerable, making Vermont more affordable, and growing the economy,” said Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky.  “Unfortunately, the Governor’s budget and policy proposals miss the mark on all of that – he is once again proposing austerity for the most vulnerable, cost shifts that will ultimately cost us all more, and no plan to create the infrastructure or build the educated populace to grow our economy.”

Progressive lawmakers emphasized that Vermont has the resources to address its affordability crisis, but only if leaders are willing to stop misdiagnosing the problem and confront who benefits from the current approach. While working families are told to tighten their belts, the Governor’s budget leaves entrenched inequalities intact.

“This budget reflects ideology, not reality,” Logan said, responding directly to the Governor’s claim that ideology has blocked progress. “The ideology on display is the belief that markets fix everything and the government should do less. Vermonters know better, because we’re living the consequences of that system right now.”

The Progressive Caucus said it will continue advancing a vision centered on equitable revenue, sustained public investment, and policies that address root causes instead of repeating corporate talking points and lowering expectations for working-class Vermonters.