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Political notes from Free Press staff writers Terri Hallenbeck, Sam Hemingway and Nancy Remsen


11.16.2007

 

We're so vain

This might put us back in the random category, but you're just going to have to deal with that.

I saw a survey recently that had Vermont ranked 10th among states for percent of vehicles with vanity license plates. The idea was that we were the 10th most vain state.

Just by pure observation, I had sensed that Vermont has more than than the usual share of motorists using their plates as a personal billboard. I had always assumed that must mean Vermont charges less than other states for the right of vanity.

Turns out that isn't really true. Vermonters pay $60 annual registration fee plus $35 for the vanity plate.

Texas, according to this American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators survey, had the lowest percentage of vanity plates. I would not necessarily characterize Texas as a particularly unvain state or lacking in people who've got something to say (just based on my relatives who live there). Yet a lower percentage of Texans drive around with clever little messages on their license plates than anywhere else in the country. It costs only $3.80 a year more to get a vanity plate in Texas than it does in Vermont.

Tennessee comes in the second-least vain state, and yet the state charges $38.50 a year less than Vermont for them. Indiana is next and charges $47 less.

OK, so Vermonters who want to say something on their tags are a highly motivated crowd. Hmm. Maybe they'd be willing to pay more - a sort of voluntary tax. After all, what is the risk? That fewer people get vanity plates? And the downside of that? Just a random thought.

- Terri Hallenbeck

Comments:
I just saw this plate:

DGLSSUX!
 
Since Vermonters love this stuff, let's have vanity bridge.

For $100,000, you get to put a 6 letter word on your favorite bridge.

Procedes go to rebuilding the state bridges and highways that are crumbling down around us ...
 
Reminds me of Ralph Wright and his license plate.

He had to remove the "Speaker" plate because so many people were flipping him the bird when he was in his car.
 
I guess we've solved the Carly Simon mystery. It was Shumlin she was singing about!
 
She would have written it about Jimmy Douglas, but nobody gives a crap what he says.
 
I just saw this plate:

ODUMSUX
 
That was his mom's car.
 
"OK, so Vermonters who want to say something on their tags are a highly motivated crowd. Hmm. Maybe they'd be willing to pay more - a sort of voluntary tax."

Doug Hoffer said...Clearly the survey on the cost of vanity plates is invalid as it does not fully consider all relevant hidden taxes that Tennessee and Indiana place on other motor vehicle related programs.

Further, the flat tax nature of the $60 fee is unduly burdensome to those on fixed incomes such as our senior citizens. My independently prepared analysis, soon to be released, recommends future fees be calculated on an individual's adjusted gross income thereby moving the cost of the program to those with the most ability to pay.
 
Income sensitivity for vanity. I love it!

What's next, a tax to pay for Shumlin to get a nose job?
 
Vanity plates already cost more.
 
Some of us got our vanity plates when they were like $5 extra... which then went to $10. Reasonable, which made them sort of fun.

More recently Sen. Mazza and his buddies decided that DMV fees weren't high enough. $60/yr to register a car is cheap, I recall he said in the press, vanity fees extra. This from a Colchester senator with a Corvette and a pantload of other cars to drive to Montpelier each day, depending on the mood he's in. It seemed an astonishingly flippant remark. Anyway, for those of us who got a vanity plate 20+ years ago they've become sort of part of the car, the persona. As usual, Montpelier is pushing to the max and it's probably time to give it up.

Which sucks.
 
"Anyway, for those of us who got a vanity plate 20+ years ago they've become sort of part of the car, the persona. As usual, Montpelier is pushing to the max and it's probably time to give it up. "

Perhaps a support group is needed to ease the blow to the persona. But fear not, I suspect the Progs are right now planning another tax on those evil upper 2% wage earners to fund the effort.
 
"But fear not, I suspect the Progs are right now planning another tax on those evil upper 2% wage earners to fund the effort."

Is Pollina planning another lawsuit against the Vermont campaign Finance Reform law that he helped write, now that he's running for offica again?
 
"Further, the flat tax nature of the $60 fee is unduly burdensome to those on fixed incomes such as our senior citizens. My independently prepared analysis, soon to be released, recommends future fees be calculated on an individual's adjusted gross income thereby moving the cost of the program to those with the most ability to pay."

Not bad. Do you write for Bill O'Reilly? Just say anything at all (nonsequiturs welcome), attribute it to a "bad" person, and presto, you've got yourself an attack ad.

BTW - Your attempt to equate progressive funding proposals for essential gov't. services with a (silly) discretionary program like vanity license plates is absurd on its face. Nice try.

Have you nothing better to do?
 
it's obvious that doug hoffer tried to disguise himself for a while there as jwcoop.
 
"Have you nothing better to do?"

This is an interesting question coming from the man of a thousand blog posts.

Anyway, when he was posting as jwcoop, I like how he came up with "schmendrik."
 
No I think coop is really Peter Freyne
 
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