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VT Senate leader vows to fight Trump rather than solve Vermont issues.
by Rob Roper
Last week, members of the Vermont house and senate gathered for an all-day, pre-session briefing on the issues they will have to confront when they return for real in January. The agenda included presentations on another looming double digit property tax increase, our collapsing healthcare system, infrastructure woes, and our generally moribund economy. Serious stuff.
But kicking off this parade of red-flag waving was a five-minute speech by Senate President Pro Tem, Philip Baruth (D/P-Chittenden Central). And while he did mention the crises outlined above, the crux of his message was that these are not the problems he intends to deal with. To quote the senator:
Last year we were facing multiple crises and emergencies simultaneously. Our hospitals and our health insurers were showing real signs of strain and in some cases signs of potential collapse. Our property taxes had spiked and then spiked again. We were still dealing with the long-term effects of catastrophic flooding. And all of these crises are still with us this year in one form or another. But as we gather today there is a larger emergency looming – a more all-encompassing crisis – that we will all of us confront this time out.
Yikes! A larger issue than a 12 percent property tax increase bringing the five-year total to 41 percent, so people are being forced out of their homes to pay for an education system that’s being outperformed by Mississippi? A larger issue than our lone health insurance provider teetering on the edge of bankruptcy along with half a dozen local hospitals while Vermonters are paying far and away the highest premiums in the nation? More dangerous than an economy made stagnant under the burden of high taxes and over-regulation? I’m biting my nails and shaking in my shoes! What could be worse than all this?
Ah, yes… Donald Trump. Though Baruth is careful not to say Trump’s name out loud, his message was clear.
And as unbelievable as it might sound, or as it might have sounded to us a dozen years ago, that crisis is being produced on a daily basis by our own federal government.
And what has the “federal government” done that dwarfs the danger posed by our collapsing education and healthcare systems, rising energy costs, near-highest state and local tax burden in the country, demographic crisis because we’re driving younger, working-age people out of the state, resulting from, among other things, an acute housing crisis? Cue scary music….
Last year we were worried about what might come to pass following the 2024 elections. This year we know all too well the on the ground reality. The federal government has tried its best to withhold federal money from SNAP and LIHEAP.
Uhhhhhh… couple points. First of all, it was US Senate Democrats including Bernie Sanders and Peter Welch who voted no less than fifteen times to keep the government shut down and the funding for SNAP and LIHEAP locked up – not the administration. And, the day before Baruth’s speech – plenty of time for a re-write – the evil federal government sent Vermont over $20 million, fully funding its obligation to the heating assistance program. Similarly with SNAP, following the Schumer Shutdown, the federal government fully restored SNAP funding through September 2026.
So, when Baruth claims, “Washington has tried to keep food from the poorest among us, and they’ve tried to eliminate heating assistance for those most at risk in the middle of winter,” he is just plain lying. To the extent the delays in benefits occurred, it was the votes of his own party that caused them. And, in either case, these crises he deems bigger than property taxes, healthcare, etcetera ad infinitum have been resolved without his having to “fight” (somehow) on the floor of the Vermont State House.
Baruth also cites the Trump Administration’s recent decision to deny a disaster relief request regarding July flooding in the town of Burke. One can debate that decision for sure, but the total amount of damage/relief funds in question: $1.8 million. With an “M” not a “B.” Our state budget is over $9 billion, so this concerns .0002 of state spending. Existential crisis superseding education taxes, healthcare, and all the rest? I think not.
The last priority Baruth elevates over the real issues under the purview of state government is federal immigration law. The Trump administration wants to enforce it. Baruth does not. And he’s willing to ignore the possibility that you get taxed out of your home next summer because:
Even as we speak, two of my constituents, a Winooski mother and her second grade child, are being held in a detention facility in Dilley, Texas.
About that…. The woman, in the US illegally, was flagged not by ICE, but Canadian border authorities when she tried to enter that country using forged documents, including a fraudulent green card, which is in the US a felony. Why is the woman’s daughter being detained as well? Shouldn’t Baruth be happy that we are not separating families? Isn’t that the policy he and his party have been touting for years? Congratulations! You won that one.
And here is Baruth’s concluding message to his colleagues:
So that is the question — the main question on my mind — as we enter this session. How will we respond to these provocations and outrages? Will we fight for the rights of those targeted by this federal administration? Will we close the inevitable gaps in funding to make sure that our people eat? That our people survive the winter? Will we push back in our bills and our votes in our committees in our several political caucuses because this is not a partisan issue. We will all need to fight, Republicans, Democrats and Progressives. Will we push back against this attempt to bend Vermont to a cruel federal will? I believe we will. I believe we will push back, again and again, in all the legal ways open to us. Out attorney general is demonstrating that every day. But make no mistake, this session will be more like a horror movie than a Hallmark Holiday film. Because although emergencies and crises are our stock and trade, this time the call is coming from inside the house.
There he said it. These non- or minor issues are “the main” – his words – issues on his mind. Not your ability to pay your property taxes, or if they are being used to teach your children anything useful. Not your ability to pay for your health insurance premiums and, if you can, find quality care in a timely manner. Not the housing crisis, or rising electric rates, or solving our growing labor crisis, or the $30 million shortfall in the Transportation Fund needed to get federal matching to pave our roads, or really anything else that is the job of the state legislature to manage.
Philip Baruth, a UVM professor, lives in an ivory tower encased in the Chittenden County bubble. He is freakin’ clueless about the real problems Vermonters need solved yesterday. All he has to offer is ginned up hyper-partisanship and higher taxes to pay for an ideological agenda that does nothing to better Vermonters’ standard of living. Quite the opposite. He’s right that this session will be a horror movie, and the call is coming from inside the house – the Vermont State House, and the Senate President Pro Tem is the one on the line. His speech here is the message left on Vermonters’ answering machine. Listen and pay attention.
Rob Roper is a freelance writer who has been involved with Vermont politics and policy for over 20 years. This article reprinted with permission from Behind the Lines: Rob Roper on Vermont Politics, robertroper.substack.com
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Categories: Commentary
Headline fixed: Baruth vows to fight for Communist/Socialist takeover instead of Vermont citizens Rights
There are cracks in the media armor, the propaganda that has run cover for the colour revelation for decades. Free speech platforms that allow comments are spreading; the lies are falling apart.
Who benefits most from Vermont’s Medical and Health Insurance policies?
It’s not the people!
It’s the bureaucracy!
Who benefits most from Vermont’s educational system?
It’s not the students!
It’s the bureaucracy!
Who benefits most from Vermont’s affordable housing system?
It’s not the homeless and Vermonters!
It’s the bureaucracy!
And the bureaucracy in Vermont is Marxist….it must be protected at all costs. They want nothing to change in Vermont; you will own nothing and be happy damn it!
Well said, out in the open.
They are all about the revolution, the overthrow of the Republic, useful idiot or in on the plan? Is he one of 10 oligarchs that chart the course for Vermont prior to every session?
In case anyone was wondering how we got here…..
Save our Bureaucracy!!!!!!
We have NGO”s, Lobbyists and non-profits we must answer to, they shout!
From the biggest indoctrination organization in Vermont I might add, UVM.
Listening to his scree, he’s pretty good at telling tales, he’s good at outright lies too!
Interesting what he says Vermont is known for…….
Harboring illegals and free handouts……he didn’t mention the drug dealers; guess he hadn’t got that in his speech.
Notice how he included VTGOP, who will oblige, like they always have.
This man is teaching our children at the highest levels, rather frightening, when you get outside the Vermont media bubble and subverted/indoctrinated citizenry, his speech and Bernie’s speech don’t hold up to the light of day.
None of it hold up to the light of day or ANY questioning. Well done, Rob, keep shining the light.
Baruth is an upstate New York interloper who came to Vermont to save us “dumb hicks” from ourselves, like so many other higher-ups (not leaders) in the Vermont legislature. He only holds office because there are too many other interlopers in Chittenden County who also think they know what’s best for everyone else and vote for him and his party of criminals. He has tried to reduce suicide and criminal violence by denying law-abiding Vermonters our Constitutional Rights to self-defense, as guaranteed by both the US Bill of Rights and Article 16 of the Vermont Constitution, by dictating the size of a magazine in one’s handgun, how long you have to wait to take possession of it after you have passed a federal background check and paid for it and how you must store it in your own home. Those who vote for this authoritarian, anti-Trump virtue signaler are as much to blame as him for the problems he has caused.
Mr. Baruth, go ahead and fight the Trump administration and see how many more federal funds Vermont will lose. Remember, you are supposed to be working for ALL of Vermont, not just your chosen few. SOS (save our state)
Rob, yet again, provides one of the most articulate and thoughtful descriptions of Philip Baruth’s, the Vermont legislature’s, and those voter’s enabling them, misguided political endeavors. In fact, Vermont’s politicians aren’t just doing everything poorly, they’re harming a lot of people in the process.
So, the question remains; why?
Confusion and ignorance no longer apply. Rob, for example, has been elaborating this dystopia, in detail, for years. Many of us have expressed specific remedies with examples of proven success, and still, the dysfunction continues.
At this point I can draw only one remaining conclusion. When the now infamous American bank robber, Willie Sutton (the first ‘Slick Willie’), was asked why he robbed banks, he replied, ‘because that’s where the money is.’
Baruth is a very devious person, a NY college professor instructing English who crawled his way to Vermont and immediately sought VT government. Politicians are masters at devious definitions as to what they really mean. When they say something to the populaces wording is meant to make a seemingly truth from a lie. There’s a hidden political meaning as to what he really means and does. Many politicians dramatize this their true intent. Baruth is one of the worse liberals to ever crawl their way into VT politics. Liberal mentality.
Several years ago, a True North Reports article, Baruth had to walk past a couple of hunters wearing orange and talking.. He was very concerned (about being accosted?) and didn’t feel safe and mouthed off about it. Actually the hunters should have been fearful of him ie gun control and tax legislation.
Note in this article he’s concerned about spiking taxes. Again this is propaganda, he doesn’t care about the tax situation.
“It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good disposition.”
Thomas Jefferson letter to Peter Carr 1785
So, when Baruth claims, “Washington has tried to keep food from the poorest among us, and they’ve tried to eliminate heating assistance for those most at risk in the middle of winter,” and yet they want to ban wood used for heat in the middle of winter
So yeah, ask him this, “we gave you 9 billion dollars to take care of, to steward in one year, and you are telling me you have no money left over to by a starving person a sandwich? You have no money to keep a person from freezing? What did you do with the 9 billion? That’s 4 billion more than just a few years ago! That buys a lot of sandwiches!
I’d donate $5 to see him squirm out of answering that question!
They are never forced and have no practice answering real hard questions, that I know from experience. Talk about fun!
He’s got a great smirk, though.
He recognizes an ignorant and indoctrinating electorate when he sees one.
…and plays them like a cheap fiddle.
There are many accomplices, the biggest being, 7 days, front porch forum, NPR, Vt Digger and many lefty publications……
Sen, Baruth should not blame Pres. Trump for all the failures of the Vermont democrat controlled legislature. The problems Baruth mentioned existed long before Trump became President. All the schemes the democrats tried to reduce health care costs were failures. Community ratings, The GMCB, ONE Care Vermont, ect, were all failures and increased the cost of Vermonters health care. Pres Trump had nothing to do with Vermont’s high property taxes. The democrats in the Vermont Legislature are ruining Vermont with over regulations. The democrats are not listening to common sense Vermonters who realize without extensive studies that the democrats ideas will not work. A good example of this is the global warming solution act. Pres. Trump won because the democrats failed.
When a governmental management team or executive of any institution fails, it typically blames uncontrollable circumstances. At least I have yet to see anyone involved in a failure admit to what they did and say, ‘I should have done this – or I should have done that differently’.
History continues to demonstrate, over and again, that the only legitimate arbiters of an entity’s effective management are those who ‘voluntarily’ choose to use the goods and services that entity produces. And the only people who disagree with this reality are those who fail at what they do and refuse to accept accountability. Period.
Make no mistake, we are on the verge of a perfect storm. Be it in Vermont’s public education system, its GMCB healthcare system, or the takeover of various government institutions by the unelected players in the government bureaucracy (e.g., the PUC, SNAP, LIHEAP, VSHA, AHS, and myriad other appointed agencies) that are preferentially assigned to Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) like OneCare, UVM Medical, Efficiency Vermont, the VTNEA, you name them. We all know who they are.
There are hundreds of these unaccountable institutions profiting from their authoritarian bureaucracies (and bankrupting us in the process). They are failing before our eyes because their ability to extend their credit (either through borrowing or confiscating taxpayer property) has reached a terminal limit.
An example of this authoritarian last gasp is Philip Baruth’s waving of the ‘red flag’ while blaming President Trump, and Governor Scott’s recent repudiation of the Education Reform Committee’s failure to create consolidated school districts.
But what neither Baruth nor Scott realize is that Trump didn’t create this mess. And when the Education Reform Committee stared its problem in the face, not only did they determine that district consolidation can’t solve Vermont’s education crisis, they have no idea how to proceed from here.
I’ll go out on a limb. 2026 is the year. We are going to witness these failures coming to full fruition. Prediction: Baruth will do nothing. Scott will make an attempt at consolidation. But he too will fail. The bankruptcy proceedings will continue. Administrative and Legislative chaos and anarchy, even beyond what we already see, will affect everyone who remains in Vermont. It’s inevitable. Again, quoting Hemingway – ‘Bankruptcy happens gradually, then suddenly’.
What can we do to save ourselves from Vermont’s dystopia? Apparently, not a damned thing. Not only does Vermont’s governor and legislature refuse to listen to the advice that has been put forth now for years, but Vermont’s electorate remains equally in the dark.
Buckle your seat belts, folks. 2026 is the year the Vermont Petrie dish titration experiment reaches saturation. Titration, by the way, is the “gold standard” method for accurately measuring the concentration of a chemical in a solution by carefully adding another chemical, one drop at a time, until, with one additional drop, the reaction change-over occurs. It seems that the U.S. goes through these phases every 85 years or so. The Civil War in 1860-65. World War II 1940-45. And now the bankruptcy of the Deep State in 2026.
The drip, drip, drip of Marxist snake oil is about to change the landscape with one more dramatic drop for all to see. And isn’t it appropriate that the Marxist solution saturates our governance during the 250th anniversary of the founding of the country that was the first in the world to embrace free enterprise.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13TxNjuY9IBuaIl4Th5pbvb83PLuW7LvJ/view?usp=gmail
Jay, I’ve always maintained “give a rope to a liberal, they will hang themselves:. Good comment, interesting your depth of knowledge regarding this and many other comments.
Here’s a video, seems the Vermont ideal has spread outside out state and is getting similar results. The Vermont grift needs to stop, it will, suddenly, whether they want to or not. The question is will we learn from our mistakes.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1999456704480653439