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Ski Free Or Die Though tax season is usually about as intellectually stimulating as duck hunting season, there was an exception this time around. Last month, the ski resort town of Killington voted to secede from Vermont, and not merely to get away from Howard Dean. The plan? To join New Hampshire. Something tells you these people have been surfing Priceline.com for vacation packages too long. All that talk about gay rights, and these Vermonters want a civil disunion. This state’s been on edge ever since Jim Jeffords went independent. You got some nice PR, folks, but it’s all uphill from here. Twenty-five miles from the border and you want out? There isn’t enough ink in a BIC factory to gerrymander you to New Hampshire. It’s one thing to say you’ll move mountains, but if you’ve ever been behind a modular home on the highway, you know there isn’t a lane in the world wide enough. The real end result might not be as picturesque as you think. Go ask Berlin. Killington’s chances of a positive outcome are as slim as the state they’re trying to leave. The US Olympic team trains at Killington. Soon, Libertarians will train there too. When neo-conservatives told us “vote with your feet,” they were talking to citizens, not municipalities. But the Killington movement could snowball. As if there isn’t enough confusion with free agency in baseball, we might soon have to think even harder to match towns with their new states. And it’s a slippery slope. After all, why move merely across state lines when you can move cross country? This is the dawn of a new era for overzealous town supervisors dreaming of surfing in Kenosha, California; legalized gambling in Omaha, Nevada; alligator sightings in Camden, Florida; oil wells in Chevy Chase, Texas. Come ski and incorporate a shell company in Aspen, Delaware. Like April snow, Killington’s problems are largely man-made. It’s the taxes, dude, and suddenly California’s recall vote looks like a backyard kegger. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall once said the power to tax is the power to destroy. It is also the power to make constituents hold off on the that second solarium and third hot tub. In any weather, it’s hard to cry for the millionaires of Killington, where there are more moguls in the valley than on the hills. You can tell everything about someone by what gets their blood boiling. You didn’t hear much out of Killington when we invaded Iraq. And why would you? There was 6 inches of fresh powder that day, with 23 out of 25 slopes open. One can almost hear these lockjaws sipping cappuccino at the lodge and complaining about Mexicans crossing the border. It’s time to put the privileged in their place. Half a country seceding is formidable. A state seceding is a serious matter. A county seceding is pocket change. A town seceding is a nuisance. When a ski resort wants to secede, you let them go. Knock yourselves out, guys. Don’t let the lift car door hit you on the way out. There is a scary, anarchical thread running through this story. But perhaps there is a great American tradition being carried on here as well. In the 80s, we had the Reagan Revolution. Over a century earlier, the Civil War was fought over slavery. Not. White southern gentlemen believed they were the slaves. The Revolutionary War was basically a tax revolt. It just happened to be led by Renaissance men instead of SUV owners. The enemy were a collection of snooty Loyalists in Concord instead of a bunch of part-time legislators in Montpelier. Don’t shoot till you see the whites of their collars. But when you look even closer, this saga is a new form of white flight. Let’s call it white out. The school tax system in this country has been about as fair and equitable as an episode of The Apprentice. Asking poor communities to use their property tax base as a means to educate themselves out of poverty was the 20th Century method of telling them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Now that major adjustments are being made, Killington wants to adjust its residency. To be evenhanded, part of the American dream died when residential property taxes in the several thousands of dollars per year became the norm. Every property owner other than Donald Trump knows that in reality, his land is rented from the government. Point taken. But think twice before holding your protests on federal malls and in city halls. Too many Americans like to get stuff but hate paying for stuff. On the face of it, the $20 thousand a year or so average property tax in Killington seems excessive. The rich should neither be soaked nor windburned. But if Michael Kennedy’s life taught us anything, it was to look where you’re going. Click here to rant back. |