As high school graduates you are now mature enough to appreciate and fully understand a sincere apology from your parent’s generation. Unfortunately, during the last four years you have been required to learn in a politically correct education environment where no one is permitted to say or write anything that might offend someone else’s feelings. This is why the BUHS class of 2009 has the unique distinction of leaving high school with the smallest vocabulary of any preceding graduating class before you.

Your parents owe you an apology for allowing that to happen.

The good news is that you learned a valuable lesson in hypocrisy. Do you remember when a small group of residents decided that the BUHS school mascot “Colonel” was a racist symbol? Do you recall how the students voted overwhelmingly to keep the “Colonel” but were overruled by your politically correct BUHS faculty and school board? Do you remember how the students responded by claiming that the teachers were violating the students right of free speech? Do you recollect a student written play called The Lift which was pulled after one performance because of one scene that offended someone in the audience? Do you remember the screams of protest in the Reformer Letter Box from the very same BUHS teachers who forbid the word “Colonel” complained that shutting down The Lift was a violation of the student’s right of free speech? Please take a moment – close your eyes and take a really deep breath through your nose. Can you smell the hypocrisy? When the issue is political correctness, what goes around comes around.

Your parents owe you an apology for allowing that to happen.

For those of you who applied to a college or university and were accepted – congratulations! For those of you who received letters of rejection and cried – well, once again you are owed an apology. Ever since attending grade school in Brattleboro you have been mistakenly taught that there is no need to keep score because in life “everyone is a winner”. As a result you have been endowed with the false sense of security entitling you to anything you want – all you have to do is just try. Sorry kids, just trying is not the path to a productive life. Success is borne from failure. For those of you who received college rejection letters, it’s because you lost out to other students far more qualified than you because they were educated in a school system not only superior to BUHS but with curriculums that do not waste either the time or financial resources on multi-cultural sensitivity propaganda.

Your parents owe you an apology for allowing that to happen.

And by the way, for those of you attending college this fall, be prepared to attend classes with lots of Asians, Chinese, and India students who will be in the library diligently studying while you are watching a huge flat screen television in the student lounge. They are not only better educated and more disciplined than you, but have every intention of confiscating all of your future employment opportunities here in the United States. They are motivated to attain and bring back to their country your lifestyle that you have been handed free of charge in your country.

Your parents owe you an apology for allowing that to happen.

During the late 1960’s and early 1970’s the Town of Brattleboro was flooded with college graduates who not only returned to the community they were raised in but more importantly became the economic spark plug that propelled the town’s incredible economic prosperity during the late 1970’s all the way through the 1980’s. No more. College graduates from Vermont are leaving the state so fast that this year Governor Douglas at the UVM graduation pleaded with the graduates to remain in Vermont.

Why the exodus? The answer is very simple. The planning and permit process has resulted in a minimum wage Brattleboro economy. No intelligent savvy business person is going to waste their time justifying their investment risk to various boards and committees composed of residents doing their “we must preserve our oh so wonderful quality of life” vision nonsense. If you take the time to carefully listening to local obstructionists, they actually believe that Vermont is a museum cordoned off with red felt rope hooked onto brass pedestals. It’s okay to look – but do not touch. Its status-quo-ism at its worst propagated by a small group of control junkies.

Your parents owe you an apology for allowing that to happen.

In 2008 the Maryland State Legislature voted to implement a new income tax on their wealthiest three-thousand residents in order to raise an additional one-hundred million dollars for the state coffers. In April of 2009 the Maryland tax department reported that not only did the new millionaire tax not generate the anticipated one-hundred million dollars in new revenue but in fact they lost two-hundred million dollars because one third of the wealthiest residents moved out of state. According to the tax authorities they discovered that rich people own a second or third or fourth home in a tax friendly state like Florida, Virginia, or Texas and simply changed their residency. The Maryland Legislature is now considering eliminating the special millionaire surcharge to avoid even further huge revenue losses.

What does this have to do with your high school graduation?

Everything. Like Maryland the State of Vermont has reached the tax tipping point where residents are now intentionally going out of their way to circumvent state and local taxes and the Vermont Legislature knows it. That is why their budget this year includes millions of dollars for more auditors in the tax department to ferret through your personal life looking for undeclared income. Further compounding the problem is our Selectboard which has convinced itself that Brattleboro residents are an unlimited ATM machine for any project imaginable that can be bonded. What our current Selectboard has essentially done with their borrow-spend-tax-borrow-spend-tax agenda is to mortgage your generation right out of Brattleboro along with many other long time residents who are fed up with paying more and more and more and receiving less and less and less in return. That is why one-half of all the homes in Brattleboro are now rental properties.

Your parents owe you an apology for allowing that to happen.

Take a look at your fellow student sitting next to you. According to the Vermont Department of Taxes one of you will be paying income taxes while the other will not. Mind boggling isn’t it? In a town that took pride in their work ethic, fifty percent of Brattleboro residents no longer pay income taxes. Do you know what that means? When people receive something for nothing they will demand even more of it from their progressive legislator who will be more than happy to give it to them. After all, isn’t that what state government is for? So who is going to pay for all the freebie entitlements now called human rights? The fifty percent motivated to work for living? Do you really want to bust your butt to meet your financial obligations while simultaneously supporting the person sitting next to you at graduation? I don’t think so. That is where we are headed which is precisely why working in Vermont has lost its financial incentive. You know the local economy is in serious decline when the highest paying jobs in Brattleboro are located in the school system and the municipal center.

Your parents owe you an apology for allowing that to happen.

There is a great scene in the comedy film Bruce Almighty when God (Morgan Freeman) says to Bruce (Jim Carrey): “Nothing wrong with rolling up your sleeves, son. People underestimate the benefits of good old manual labor. There's freedom in it. Happiest people in the world stink like hell at the end of the day.”

You can’t wire a light fixture with your iPod, repair a plumbing leak over the internet, or fix a leaky roof by twittering. Don’t let yourself be guilt tripped into remaining in Brattleboro and spending the rest of life your earning minimum wage struggling to pay your bills. The best advice I can offer is to get your hands dirty and manually work your way out of our town and into a state that has its financial act together. Places like that do exist. You just have to find them. The very best investment you can make in today’s lousy economy is in yourself because quality attracts success. Pursue your dreams and your money will accumulate. And when that occurs, you will finally understand that the initials BUHS on your diploma which years ago stood for something special are now just random letters with no meaning on a worthless piece of paper.

Your parents owe you a huge apology for allowing that to happen.

RLElkins