Eventually You Run Out Of Other People's Money

Walter Russell Mead is discussing the fact that anti-public union fever is not just for Wisconsin anymore. He comes up with a quote which is the perfect explanation for why the SIHTF.

From a state that is bluer than blue, ultraviolet Vermont, comes the news that Governor Peter Shumlin, a Democratic governor with solid Democratic majorities in both houses of the legislature, will not solve his state’s fiscal problems with a tax increase. Why? As Politico reports, “We’ve already got a progressive income tax in Vermont, and we can’t get more progressive because we’ll lose the few payers that we have,” Shumlin said in between sessions at the National Governors Association meeting. “We don’t have any more tax capacity.”

“I can see New Hampshire from my house,” said the governor, noting that Vermont is already losing business, investments and residents to its low-tax neighbor.

As Dame Margaret Thacher (a grocers daughter) is reputed to have said,

The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.

It looks like eventually has arrived.

H/T Instapundit

Cross Posted at Classical Values