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Why should I take the pledge?
There are a few reasons for the
pledge.
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It gets people to think
about how they are going to spend their tax rebates.
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It gives fellow Vermonters a
way to track how much of the rebate money we are able to
keep in the state.
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It will gives all of us an
idea of how our neighbors are spending their tax
rebates.
The pledge is totally anonymous.
You will not be asked for your name or even the town that
you live in.
Why should I care about keeping my
money in Vermont?
Many people
wonder why they should worry about where they are buying
things from. What is the difference if I get something
at the local family owned store vs. the chain store across
the street?
The more money
that we can keep right here in Vermont, the better off we
will be. Each time that we buy something from out of
the state, our dollars leave here and the only way that we
get them back is to have someone from out of the state buy
something from someone within the state.
Here is an
excerpt from an article by Carl Etnier that recently
appeared in the Times Argus and the Rutland Herald that puts some actual numbers
to this concept.
Buying
locally makes a surprising economic difference even with
non-local products like books. According to a study in
Austin, Texas, buying [Michael] Pollan's book for $16 at
a locally owned, independent book store keeps $7.20 in
the local economy, while buying it for the same price at
a chain store means only $2.10 is kept local. (Contrary
to a popular belief, locally owned stores often offer
similar prices to the chains.) And buying the book
online, of course, keeps hardly any money local - mostly
the wages of the people who deliver the book to your
door and the people who service the delivery trucks.
Today, with so
much of what we buy coming from overseas, much of the money
that we spend on stuff doesn't even stay in our country.
Instead, it goes to China, Japan, India, and other distant
lands.
Is it realistic
to never buy anything from outside of the state? No,
not really. Instead, it is most helpful to think of
the localness of our purchases on a scale that ranges from
All Local Purchases to No Local Purchases. Where would
you fall on that scale?
The Tax Rebate
Check is a great opportunity to start thinking more
seriously about where you are spending your money.
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