The Reckless Vermont Strong License Plate Campaign

A populist slogan obscures bad policy.

In the aftermath of recent record flooding in Vermont, Republican Governor Phil Scott announced a state program to sell uplifting license plates, bearing the simple message “Vermont Strong,” to affix to the front of vehicles. Vermonters soon will be able to purchase these plates to express solidarity and a rebuilding spirit. But does the messaging mask awful policy?

While “Vermont Strong” is a positive government message, the inequitable delivery method may threaten public safety. In the Green Mountain State, all vehicles are required to have both front and back license plates so they can be identified from either direction, ostensibly making it easier to prevent and solve crimes – unless, of course, the owner pays the state a little extra to run the one and only vanity plate allowed as an exception.

The Plate Plug

Vermont first cashed in on this gig following Hurricane Irene in 2017. As the state’s DMV notes on its website:

“Act 71, which became law on July 1, 2017, removed any end date from the law that authorizes certain motor vehicles registered in Vermont to display Vermont Strong plates that cover a regular front license plate. No other alternate plates are allowed.”

The fee for a flood vanity plate (now in two styles: one says “Vermont Strong: Tough Too! 2023”) has inflated to $35 from the previous $25. For $70, “donors” receive a voucher from the state to redeem for Darn Tough socks. Carhartts would seem the better investment, but not every company can land a free advertising deal through the government. (Ben & Jerry’s might have missed the boat on this one, so watch for a flood-commemorating ice cream flavor dubbed Flood Mud or Trump Did It!)

Vermont also sells lottery tickets by dipping into public coffers, advertising prominently “Profits go to the state education fund.” The state’s deteriorating public school system is locked in a downward spiral, so as a marketing ploy this may wane in popularity. But the carnival-worker willingness to bilk citizens for yet more tax revenue in the name of “helping the children” is questionable policy: Lottery tickets are regressive, and Vermont has high poverty rates.

A similar, if not more sinister, state cynicism occurs with the “Vermont Strong” license plate chicanery. Exploiting the sentiment, Vermont advertises flat plates of green steel, devoid of utilitarian value, to attract more revenue. Money that could be invested in safer roads or rebuilt housing is sent to the plate-printing press — wasting fossil fuels and creating chemical pollution — simply to obscure an existing, perfectly good, and legally required identifying plate specific to the vehicle.

Vermont Public Safety Issues

Unfortunately, that Green Mountain slogan of strength presents a serious public safety threat: An unlimited number of vehicles can shield their front plate for a small fee. This is arguably unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, differentiating between people’s travel liberties (degree of surveillance) based upon the ability to buy a product offered by Big Brother. This is elitist inequity: Poor Vermonters can’t afford fancy slogan plates. It is also a public safety back-pedal: Either front license plates help law enforcement, or they don’t. If they do, exceptions must be justified.

(Photo by Jim Steinfeldt/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

A few years ago, a report recounted the search of a man’s vehicle at Vermont’s Canadian border and the discovery of a rape kit: duct tape, handcuffs, plastic gloves, rope, etc. This fellow was likely a dangerous criminal, perhaps with horrible crimes in his past or in his future. Is there any doubt that this villain would be at the front of the line to buy a new “Vermont Strong” license plate?

Not every owner of a car sporting “Vermont Strong” is a goodie-two-shoes public benefactor. Drivers ranging from the rape-kit border-crosser to suspended licensees, dealers of fentanyl, heroin, or other drugs, stalkers, Peeping Toms, and habitual drunk drivers will gladly pay the philanthropic fee to reduce the likelihood their identifying vehicle number will be seen during the commission of a crime or while fleeing.

There is an overlap here, as wealthy people and judges may be benefactors today but can evade the scene of a motor vehicle accident tomorrow when, say, their blood alcohol content exceeds legal limits. They can’t buy a “Vermont Strong” shield from the DUI statutes the way they can the license plate laws. If just one obscured front license plate prevents criminal accountability, the accessory to the crime is Gov. Scott. So, too, the child abducted in a van or truck, for which witnesses saw only the front end of the vehicle (or the back plate was obscured by mud or debris), and the Amber Alert can offer only that the suspect vehicle has a ubiquitous “Vermont Strong” front plate.

Exploiting Children to Increase Vermont Revenues

(Photo by Erin Clark/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

Vermont’s progressives spiked the state’s budget by $91 million last session (and voted to double their legislative salaries), squandering massive sums that could have been employed for flood recovery on newfangled socialist programs that make year-round school lunches universal (regressively, so that wealthy kids get free food), and offer universal daycare at state expense. Much like the lottery program, the spiel is to “help the children” – but much school food is institutionally processed and unhealthful, and no subsidies are provided to families who make health-promoting lunches for their kids. At the same time, the state has decimated private daycares with over-regulation, creating the crisis it now seeks to repair.

Measured in policy terms, Vermont’s leadership appears weak, not strong. The state’s schoolchildren are being terrified by climate over-alarmism and told their families and heritage are racist. Yet the government lures donations to its state lottery by dangling children as cause célèbre, forgetting that too many financially strapped parents desperately buy scratch tickets in hopes of something better than mac & cheese for dinner.

But this is the modus operandi of socialist progressivism: Appeal to a populist cause to rake off profits and power. Scott’s “Vermont Strong” gimmick funds gratuitously manufactured junk license plates that hurt the environment while undermining public safety and creating for purchasers an unconstitutional exempt legal status from traffic laws. Vermont’s post-flood license plate scheme sports a slick veneer but obscures bad policy crafted by grasping career bureaucrats, much like it obscures vehicle ID tags for predatory criminals.

Previously published at Liberty Nation