The Vermont Lottery offers several draw games for those willing to make a bet to win big.

Vermont’s affordability crisis is an interconnected crisis of housing, healthcare, and, until recently, child care. For years, a generation – my generation – has been sounding the alarm, and now we’re there. We have an estimated 19,000 open jobs. We are one of the most expensive places to live, with a crushing tax burden on working families, and more people are leaving Vermont than are moving here.

For too long, the approach has been to cut and consolidate in an attempt to save money. But austerity isn’t just harmful to working families and the employers struggling to recruit talent in Vermont—it’s an ineffective policy that fails to significantly lower the cost of living. If we’re serious about strengthening our workforce and improving quality of life, we need to focus on what has been proven to make a difference for working families: meaningful investments in healthcare and affordable housing.

Look at what we’ve achieved with Act 76, Vermont’s landmark child care bill. Business and economic leaders, legislators, and a statewide coalition of working families came together to make a public investment that has created over 1,200 new child care spots and 639 new jobs in less than three years. That’s at least 1,200 parents remaining in the workforce, plus hundreds of new employees. States across the nation are now looking to Vermont and what we achieved.

Act 76’s investment in childcare has been a game-changer for households like mine. I was able to stay in the workforce and secure a child care spot for my 2.5-year-old in our community. If we can apply this same focused, data-informed investment model to the other aspects of our demographic crisis, we will grow our workforce, diversify our tax base, and reduce the cost of living for all Vermonters.

Consider healthcare. In 2024, premiums for individual plans in Vermont were among the highest in the nation, and employers saw premium increases as high as 35% over the last three years. These skyrocketing health insurance costs are responsible for a recent spike in property taxes across the state, as healthcare is now the largest driver of education spending and school budgets are funded through property taxes. Closing schools and consolidating districts doesn’t address healthcare costs and arguably does little to bring down the cost of owning a home or to stabilize the property taxes that fall most heavily on working Vermonters.

If we invest in expanding successful programs like Dr. Dynosaur to offer universal primary care to every Vermonter regardless of age or income, we could end the ruinously expensive trend of Vermonters rushing to hospital emergency departments for basic care. We could expand loan forgiveness and other scholarship opportunities for nurses and doctors, training the next generation of healthcare professionals while putting Vermont on a course to end its shortage of primary care providers.

But we can’t grow a workforce without housing. Vermont has set a goal of building 30,000 new homes by 2030. At less than 2,500 new homes per year, we’re moving at less than 10% of the speed this goal requires. We see steps in the right direction: the Community and Housing Infrastructure Program (CHIP) will kickstart housing development through public infrastructure development, and the “Tier 1” aspects of Act 181 will exempt cities, towns, and villages from Act 250. But our current housing strategy still depends on 251 towns and cities independently deciding to pull their weight. In short, municipalities still wield significant veto power over projects. We can’t afford to have some communities resist critically needed affordable housing, especially in areas with the infrastructure to support it. We must double our efforts to invest in the workers and infrastructure needed to build, while continuing to end duplicative and unnecessary restrictions.

We can make these badly-needed, interconnected investments without raising taxes on working families. First, we can ensure our budget is aligned with these specific, urgent priorities. Second, we can potentially consider new sources of revenue, including increasing the tax on second homes as well as on our highest income earners. Crucially, we must directly and specifically invest this new revenue into these priorities, which we know will lower costs for all Vermonters.

In the years ahead, we face a choice: we can continue on the current path of consolidation and austerity for short-term tax relief, or we can be fierce in our focus on critical investments that will actually lower costs and grow our workforce. It won’t be easy, but if we are serious about growing our tax base and retaining and attracting working families, it’s time to invest boldly in a different future.

Molly Gray is a Democratic candidate for Lt. Governor. Previously, she served as Executive Director of the Vermont Afghan Alliance (2023-2026), Vermont Lt. Governor (2021-2023), and as an Assistant Attorney General (2018-2020). Opinions expressed by columnists do not necessarily reflect the views of Vermont News & Media,

The Trump administration’s move to reclassify marijuana as a lower-risk drug could provide major tax benefits to medical marijuana businesses, but for now, it leaves Vermont regulators charting a future that’s clear as mud. 

Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche signed an order Thursday that shifts medical marijuana out of the most federally restrictive class of drugs — Schedule I, which includes LSD and synthetic opioids — into the less restrictive Schedule III. Further reclassification may soon follow. 

The move has created a nationwide buzz about how the drug’s reclassification could make it easier to buy and sell marijuana and open up medical research.

Rescheduling the drug gives licensed medical marijuana businesses major federal tax breaks and makes it clear to researchers they can use cannabis products in their work. “This rescheduling action allows for research on the safety and efficacy of this substance, ultimately providing patients with better care and doctors with more reliable information,” Blanche said in a statement. 

Vermont legalized medical cannabis in 2004 and later legalized recreational use of the drug in 2018. Now 78 towns have at least one dispensary, and last year cannabis sales in Vermont generated more than $150 million in revenue, according to Seven Days. 

The reclassification could provide significant tax benefits to medical retailers in Vermont and  “turbocharge” the state’s medical cannabis industry, according to Gabe Gilman, general counsel for the Vermont Cannabis Control Board. But the medical and recreational cannabis industries in Vermont are tangled together, which makes it difficult for regulators and businesses to understand the industries’ future in the state. 

“I think the board is excited to see needed rescheduling but also trying to serve businesses that encounter just an absolutely unprecedented amount of ambiguity,” Gilman said. 

After the reclassification, medical cannabis retailers could deduct their business expenses from their federal taxes for the first time, Gilman said. The change could result in major financial savings for businesses. 

Joseph Verga, who owns Green Leaf Central dispensary in Burlington, has a state endorsement to sell medical along with recreational cannabis products. Verga called the reclassification, and the tax change, “a huge win” for his business. 

The dispensary in the heart of the Queen City is getting by but struggling to bring in profit amid Burlington’s competitive market, Verga said. 

With a boost from the tax change, “I’d hire more people, I would stay open later,” Verga said. 

Verga said that while he hopes he gets a windfall from tax changes, he remains skeptical about the laws and regulations Vermont will have to figure out before businesses actually see the benefits. 

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Verga said. 

Marijuana has been a Schedule I drug since 1970, sitting among drugs that are considered to have no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Schedule III drugs are recognized as having medical applications and face fewer regulatory restrictions.  

Because marijuana is federally illegal, Vermont — like many states — created its own legal and regulatory framework to support an in-state cannabis market. But Thursday’s federal order currently offers no guidance to states on how to make changes to their individual programs and regulations, Gilman said, which leaves Vermont regulators unsure of how to move forward. 

Before Vermont legalized recreational marijuana, people with a qualifying condition diagnosed by a health care provider could buy cannabis from a medical dispensary. 

But when Vermont created a recreational cannabis market, the medical industry began to drop off, Gilman said.

In response to the decline in the medical market, the state started a program last fall that allowed recreational dispensaries to receive medical endorsements, Gilman said. Those endorsements allowed retailers to sell to people on the state’s medical cannabis registry. 

Since endorsing dispensaries, the state has seen more people using the medical cannabis market, Gilman said. But the change also made the state’s medical and recreational markets more interconnected, he said, creating a conundrum for regulators trying to understand how the federal reclassification of cannabis affects Vermont. 

It’s unclear how state regulators or the Internal Revenue Service will define what qualifies as a medical cannabis business eligible for tax benefits, Gilman said. But tax implications from the federal reclassification will have a major financial impact one way or another, which could boost the state’s medical cannabis industry. 

“There’s just going to be this huge incentive for everybody to try to look medical,” he said.