|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
How’s it workin’ out?
by Rob Roper
As we reach the quarter century mark in the new millennium, it’s worth looking back on what the politics of this era have done for (or, spoiler alert, “to”) Vermont. First some important historical context:
The last time Vermont Republicans had a majority in the Senate was 1996. The last time Vermont Republicans had a majority in the House was the brief period of 2001-2004. Democrats, on the other hand, have enjoyed “trifecta” status (controlling both chambers and the governorship for unchecked lawmaking capability) for ten of those years starting in 1997, and for eight additional years enjoyed “supermajority” status in both the house and senate to pass laws over the veto check of a Republican governor.
What this means in practical terms is that at no point in over a generation have Republicans in Vermont been in a position to pass any law. Not a one. Yes, Republican governors Douglas and Scott were able to delay or stop some Dem/Prog initiatives or use the threat of a veto to get a concession or two, but an actual Republican conceived and executed policy…. There are more catamounts roaming the Green Mountains today, which is to sadly say zero.
So, what has this era of progressively Progressive Democrat rule given us?
EDUCATION: If we look at this era as beginning with the trifecta year of 1997, the first big policy initiative undertaken was, of course, Act 60 education reform and it and its patchwork of “fixes” – Act 68, Act 46 school district consolidation in 2015, Act 127 pupil weighting in 2022, etc. These are all still swinging like a wrecking ball through our public education system.
Coupled with this k-12 “reform” initiative was the Dem/Prog push to expand government funded, government-controlled pre-k beginning in 2006 with Act 62 allowing public pre-k programs to draw down state education funds, Act 166 in 2014 that made publicly provided ten hours of pre-k per week mandatory, and most recently, Act 76 in 2023 expanding the program with funding from a $100 million plus payroll tax.
It’s been an unmitigated disaster.
Costs have exploded. Vermont now has some of the highest property taxes in the nation, plus that new $100 million or more payroll tax, and a new $20 million internet services tax, a new $20 million surcharge on short term rentals, as well as all of the money collected by the sales tax, the lottery, and major chunks of the use tax and the rooms and meals tax going to fund this monster.
We are spending significantly more money to serve thirty percent fewer k-12 students since Act 60 passed, yet test scores have been steadily dropping for a decade and a half. We have created a childcare crisis both in terms of affordability and accessibility by regulating hundreds of private providers out of existence, while the more children who actually matriculate through the government run/regulated self-styled “high quality” pre-k programs the more mental health issues we seem to be encountering in elementary school and, as noted before, test scores continue to fall. Is this causation or correlation? Maybe worth some major study! Either way, epic fail.
HEALTH CARE. Healthcare is a human right! That’s been the Dem/Prog mantra. Well, under Dem/Prog rule the humans are screwed. If we go back a few years earlier in our history to the early/mid 1990s, Howard Dean (D-VT) passed community rating and guaranteed issue regulations on health insurance providers – which succeeded in driving out all of the providers but two in the name of fairness or some such thing. Since then, all of the Dem/Prog big ideas for making health care more affordable and accessible have backfired. Spectacularly.
We were handed Catamount Healthcare in 2006. Bust. Peter Shumlin’s single payer fantasy passed in 2011 and famously exploded on the launchpad three years later in 2014. The experiment with OneCare followed, and that just flamed out in a shock to, well, nobody who’s been paying attention.
The results of all this Dem/Prog healthcare policy over the first quarter of the 21st century recently gained national recognition – as a cautionary example of what a state should absolutely not to do under any circumstances! This story in KFF Health News, In Vermont, where almost everyone has insurance, many can’t find or afford care, sums things up neatly. (Click the link to read the whole story. Worth it.)
Vermonters pay the highest prices nationwide for individual health coverage, and state reports show its providers and insurers are in financial trouble. Nine of the state’s 14 hospitals are losing money, and the state’s largest insurer is struggling to remain solvent. Long waits for care have become increasingly common, according to state reports and interviews with residents and industry officials.
Rising health costs are a problem across the country, but Vermont’s situation surprises health experts because virtually all its residents have insurance and the state regulates care and coverage prices.
And right there in that last phrase you find the problem! Thanks, Bernie Bros! You did this.
ENERGY. Here we may have dodged a bullet – or at least suffered a mere flesh wound instead of the intended kill shot that the Clean Heat Standard will be if implemented. (We’re still stuck with the Renewable Energy Standard, which passed over the governor’s veto in 2024 and will drive up electric bills.) While the Dem/Progs seem intent on doing to our energy policy what they’ve done to education and healthcare, making electricity, gasoline and diesel, home heating fuel as expensive and unreliable as modern technology allows, the voters seem to have spoken – NO! – in November 2024. The question is, will the Dem/Prog majorities listen when they return in January.
It’s not enough to vote down or simply ignore the Clean Heat Standard rules proposal from the PUC. Act 18 needs to be fully repealed. Additionally, the Global Warming Solutions Act needs to be, if not fully repealed itself, modified to remove the lawsuit provision that is currently allowing the Conservation Law Foundation to sue the state at taxpayer expense and to push back the dates for greenhouse gas reduction targets to something realistic.
Happily, Vermont Republicans, on the heels of historically large victories in the State House and Senate, have pledged to introduce legislation that would, if passed, accomplish each of these objectives. However, despite doing well in the last election, Democrats and Progressives still control both chambers of the legislature. For now.
Until that changes, it will take significant and consistent public pressure to get the majority to go along with any sane legislative initiative to fix our education system, healthcare system, energy policy, and (didn’t have time to touch on all of them in this article) the housing crisis, labor shortage, substance abuse crisis, rising crime…..
So let that be your New Year’s resolution: Hold your representatives in Montpelier accountable for what they are doing in your name and, ostensibly, on your behalf. It’s way easier than sticking to a diet and cheaper than a gym membership you’ll stop using on January 23rd. And a lot more fun. I speak from experience.
Happy New Year!
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
Discover more from Vermont Daily Chronicle
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Categories: Commentary, State Government
Another good article Rob, albeit a sad commentary about the status of life in Vt. now. Most of us “Native Vermonters” wonder how much longer will we be able to continue living in our home state. I moved back here to enjoy retirement!
Thank you for explaining why Vermont has only two health insurance providers. I was amazed when I moved back here, and have never received a true answer. I don’t think I need to explain my issues with that.
“Vermont now has some of the highest property taxes in the nation”.
In terms of effective tax rate, average Vermont property taxes are the 4th highest in the nation.
***But in terms of absolute dollars the average property tax in Vermont is $9120, catapulting Vermont into the #1 slot (https://www.rocketmortgage.com/learn/property-taxes-by-state)
Not mentioned, but the primary reason for the high property taxes, is Vermont has the 2nd highest spending per public school student of all 50 States (only NY spends more) and Vermont has the LOWEST ratio of employed personnel to students (4.4:1).
A common response to higher property taxes is almost 2/3rds of Vermonters are eligible for income sensitivity (help from the State in paying their City tax bills).
*****Not mentioned is how much benefit an eligible resident gets.
Income sensitivity is impacted by household income and property value.
For incomes of $90,000 to upper limit of eligibility (about $130,000), only the first $225,000 of home value is eligible for the benefit.
For incomes less than $90,000 only the first $400,000 of home value is eligible.
With home prices continuing to increase, more and more residents eligible for income sensitivity will see their benefit fall when reappraisals are done because less of their home value is eligible for the benefit.
To understand the impact of income on benefit here is a real example:
Home value: $380,100. (note: income below is gross income, NOT net)
Income of $89,999: prebate of $3029
Income of $90,000: prebate of $834 !!!!!!
Income of $127,000: prebate is… wait for it… $16 !!!!!!
So the oft heard “siren song” that 2/3rds of Vermonters are helped with their community tax bills by the State is a classic example of the worst bias of all: “selection bias”. The latter involves picking and choosing what information to present in order to achieve a particular objective:
in the case of income sensitivity the (biased) objective is: yes, property taxes are high, BUT remember the income sensitivity benefit takes the “sting” out of those high taxes.
Well the benefit does take the sting out for some, but for many the “sting” is still painful.
Income sensitivity is a complex endeavor but do not look to School Boards, School District leaders, and… sadly… legislators to do their (professional) due diligence and explain all aspects of the program… so residents understand why their tax bills are so high even when they are eligible for “assistance” by the State.
Mr. Silverstein, I’ve read several of your missives over the years, this being the first I recall seeing on VDC.
Apparently, I missed your discussion on ‘chest cancer’. And in it, your Orwell citation; “there are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them”, which I find to be apropos to all of your articles.
Curiously, however, your posts on VT Digger, for example, on prerequisite teacher knowledge and reopening our schools during the Covid scare, included recommended courses of action. But your current missive describing Vermont’s expensive public education and the property tax prebate does not. Would you care to do so?
The reason I ask is that I agree whole heartedly with your assessment of teacher competencies and the recommendation that teachers take the initiative “on their own by accessing something known as the internet and something called books….”.
And I too have been outspoken on the fact that because those under the age of 30 in Vermont have virtually no problem coping with Covid, that our schools should have remained open.
But in order to avoid the risks inherent with my own cognitive dissonance, would you comment on the underlying incentives that create Vermont’s high education property taxes in the first place, and prescribe reasonable alternatives? Specifically, what do you think of the H.405 School Choice bill that has been shelved in the House Education Committee?
Consider the extent of the mismanagement in Vermont’s regulated healthcare sector.
Not only do “Vermonters pay the highest prices nationwide for individual health coverage”, service availability is declining too. “Long waits for care have become increasingly common, according to state reports and interviews with residents and industry officials.”
VT Digger recently reported that ‘As UVM Health Network cuts services in Vermont, it expands in New York.’
The reason.
“The recent cuts on this side of the lake, administrators say, were due solely to the actions of the Green Mountain Care Board, a state regulator that capped network hospital budgets and ordered UVM Medical Center to reduce its charges to private health insurers earlier this year.”
“Owen Foster, the chair of the Green Mountain Care Board, declined to comment, saying he did not know the details…”
He didn’t know the details? Go figure.
Keep in mind too, that personal healthcare insurance covers individuals for only those times they aren’t at work. Workman’s Compensation insurance is in addition to personal healthcare insurance.
Like education, healthcare has become a racket here too. We should stop wasting our time AND our money. It’s not possible to make a silk purse from a sow’s ear. What is needed is LESS government and MORE free markets.
My other seven tax bills sting me enough along with the doubling of my private health care insurance and this does not include the deduction from my social security check for Medicare. Sorry, but the bird feeder is empty. The only way to survive in this state is to be debt free and that now is becoming a problem.
We’ve become a haven for trust funds, no coincidence.
So, with a quarter-century of Democratic/Progressive control in VT, what do we have? Well, what we have are high taxes, frivolous spending, unsustainable policies, and a state in debt with unfunded liabilities. But then again, you vote the same inept political leaders into office year after year. I guess things aren’t bad enough yet in the state to make changes by the voters……………….
Wake up people, they only care about their agenda, your financial burden and lively hood mean nothing !!
This should be reprinted in every newspaper in the state. Keep the facts coming, Rob Roper.
There was a saying “So go California, so goes the Nation.” We have seen that manifest through the decades, no more so than now – firmly entrenched in New England, down the I-95 corridor, and zig-zags across the entire country. Doesn’t matter which side of the fence – the most powerful, most influential, and most wealthy hub in the nation is California (Hollywood, Silicone Valley, Bohemian Grove.)
Vermont is nothing more than a small black speck of a much broader, much deeper tumor representing Stage-4 cancer afflicting our Country. A viral contagion plaguing our country for well over 100 years now.
The Truth is the same cancer is in the EU, Latin America, South America, Pacfic Rim, Middle East, and down under Aussie Land and New Zealand. I hate to say it, but it appears World War II was never won by anyone. Russia, the USA, and the Crown sat down with the then “axis of evil”, divided up the spoils, re-arranged the deck chairs, and reset the board to play out the same game, same players. All wars since nothing more than power and control plays over each other’s territories. We face another reset now. Hence, WWIII and similar references to terms used back then. The talking about taking over territories such Greenland, Canada, Taiwan, African nations, Panama, Ukraine, Palestine, Syria, etc. Leads me to believe, since September 11, 2001, all the death and destruction was to get to this place now. The spoils are being divided up, the deck chairs rearranged, and the great wealth transfer, depopulation, and global reset is playing out again. Perhaps this time around, all lies will be revealed – for some it will be or is far too late. For those left behind, it is the last stand for a civil society or George Orwell was indeed prophet.
Marxism
I don’t know if Republicans have proposed bail reform to address our public safety crisis in Vermont, but if they have and have been thwarted, that would be another thing to add to the list. It is also one which both parties need to squarely address to create new and robust bail reform.
I don’t claim to fully understand why serial arrestee/habitual offenders are still on our streets assaulting and killing people and damaging homes and businesses, but I have a sense that those legislators who have been duped the Democrat/Progressive/Marxist ideology, in its twisted oppressor/oppressed class mentality, don’t have the stomach to implement and enforce tough legislation to give these frequent flyers adult timeouts, get them swiftly off our streets, and then impose lengthy prison sentences for those who habitually refuse to respect the law.
Headline fixed:
Roper: What’s to show for 25 years of Democrat/Progressive tyranny
When is one of our esteemed contributors going to write an article about the 500+ registered lobbyists in Montpelier and who they represent? If you wonder how this legislation comes to be, look no further. It’s a system that is ripe for corruption! Remember 16yr senator Chris Bray and his young girl friend lobbyist? Look and see who she represents, and the legislation that was passed through the Natural Resources committee. The Clean Heat Bill is only a tip of the iceberg!
Pardon me for commenting several times today… but what’s to show?
How about creating Vermont’s largest and most important export…Vermont’s educated youth, to the benefit of other states, instead of staying home, and adding to Vermont’s workforce, to the point Vermont had to pay young people to move to Vermont, to fill the demand, that the local youth rejected with their feet, stirring up dust, for redder pastures, as they departed. (More like were driven away by progressive governance).
How about driving old established families out of the state, with their wallet breaking progressive policies?
Their policies are regressive and suppressive…not progressive, as they lie,the media lies, and hoodwinks their way, into the power of destroying what once was a proud, rock ribbed, Yankee state.
What’s to show…a giant pile of horse manure in Montpelier’s wake that stinks so bad it makes Vermonters flee to more American states.
Thanks a lot!
Throw the bum out next election!
Bums