Can't speak to whether 'turning the other cheek' or just ranting is the only thing that's been done, or not. I do know that there's no lack of advocates trying to effect positive change(s), but its not possible to escape undeniable truths.

One being that there aren't too many solutions to fundamentally rural problems; which about 3/4's of the State is. Fortunately, our rural parts benefit (trickle-down) from tourism in ways that rural villes and hamlets in places from OH to VA .... don't. Those places now look like ghost towns.

We are a tourist state that attracts 30M people from Boston to Baltimore. Sure, we have a few industries, but even relaxing regs would not make Vermont competitive with elsewhere. We need industry that we can build from the ground up.

We do K-12 OK, but >50% kids don't stay past HS; because growing up rural can be boring and there's too little opportunity. So our edu taxes make places elsewhere more literate. We're graying out, and the new blood replacing it is bringing in new values and new money; making life even more expensive.

I don't have any solutions, but know any proposed will be a tough pill to swallow and invite the inevitable backlash, no different than what's happening with the VSC/VSU transition.

What I do know, for sure, is that fixing wealth inequality, employer tied for-profit healthcare, .... the big killers of our social safety net .... would go a long way to remedying many of the issues we're facing.