Coming just four days after the state and the world celebrated the changeover to the year 2000, Dean sought to connect the last century to the next. He said 100 years ago the Legislature passed a statewide property tax to pay the cost of educating all Vermont school children. He also said 100 years ago the Legislature authorized communities to provide free hospital beds to those who couldn't afford health care. Today, Dean said, Vermont guaranteed the availability of health care to nearly every child in the state, and he vowed not to renege on that commitment.
Every child has access to health care.
Dean drew other parallels between the past and present. He compared the Legislature's banning of the sale of cigarettes to minors 100 years ago to today's public anti-smoking campaigns. The governor also speculated about changes in the coming century. He said the state's population was likely to double, perhaps even triple in the next 100 years. He predicted that increasing commerce on the Internet, where it is difficult to collect taxes, would lead eventually to the abolition of state sales taxes on all products.