Op-Ed: On taxes and the Baby Boom legacy

January 4, 2026 | By Will Patten 

Growing up, we Boomers (born 1945-1964) were steeped in the idealism of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and the minimalist hippie ethic. But Watergate, Vietnam, and assassinations would turn idealists into cynical, self-serving uber-consumers.  

Our manufacturing economy transitioned to a marketing economy that taught us to always crave more. Supply now drives demand, and consumption now drives 70% of the U.S. economy. We Boomers, who are 20% of the population with 55% of its wealth, feel entitled. We have been catered to during the recent prosperous decades. As the markets have provided us with cheap abundance, so we expect our governments to provide us with protection, education, recreation, and transportation. Cheaply.  

But now we live in a more resource-restricted time and Boomers are getting old. Ten thousand of us retire every day and live on fixed incomes. We rattle around in our large empty homes and complain about property taxes. But taxes are simply what is due and payable for the services we’ve received and they won’t go down until we reduce some of the services they pay for.

It will fall to younger generations to perform the cost/benefit analysis underlying our town budgets and identify that which we can no longer afford. I wish them luck. There will be challenges:

Much of Vermont’s charm derives from a culture of community, fostered by 251 small town governments for roughly 650,000 people. All but a few towns have their own (sovereign) police and fire departments, schools, and road crews. That has to change. The challenge will be to regionalize services while maintaining our culture of community.

(And let’s understand that a decision to regionalize services and consolidate school districts to save money is a decision to reduce the quality level of both.)

As the climate deteriorates and our population shrinks, we’re going to need more resources to cope with hard times ahead, and that will require new taxes. Two Blue Ribbon Tax Commissions have recommended that we raise new revenues by taxing services and income. That will be a challenge.  

The real estate tax is a wealth tax. It makes sense for Boomers who have equity in their homes and land. But younger and first-time home owners are paying an unfair tax on an asset that belongs mainly to a bank. If we decide to stick with a wealth tax, it should only be assessed on assets that are easily converted to cash.  

Hard times indeed.      

Will Patten is a retired business executive living in Hinesburg and president of Back to Basics Media. His book, “Rescuing Capitalism: Vermont Shows a Way,” was published in 2025.