Take Your Time, Folks

"Governors always complain about the slow pace of the legislature," said Chris Graff, a former journalist who covered Vermont politics for decades.
Graff says this pace in the legislature is common, especially in the first half of a two-year session where there are many new lawmakers
       WCAX

The legislature is taking a recess for town meeting and this year it will be out for two weeks instead of one, which is customary.  Before leaving town on Friday, President Pro-Tem of the Senate, Peter Shumlin, and Speaker of the House, Shap Smith revealed that they had a plan for fixing the 2010 budget.

Good thing, since it requires a lot of fixing.  Some $238 million worth.  Up $11 million from last month’s estimate and likely to keep growing.  The budget deficit, in fact, grows a lot faster than the legislature moves but as Chris Graff says, that’s the way it always is.  These may be extraordinary times but that doesn’t mean you need to get in a hurry.

As for the Shumlin/Smith plan, Terri Hallenbeck described it on VPT’s “Vermont This Week,” as “not extremely specific.”

Evasive, in other words.

The plan includes a mix of spending cuts, “new revenues” (tax increases), and a generous application of federal stimulus money to close the budget gap.  And, of course, a lot of studying, examining, and exploring to see if there isn’t some way to reorganize and streamline government to make it more efficient and less expensive.

For example, there is this from the Shumlin/Smith press release:

Corrections remains a major area of budget pressure, costing Vermont taxpayers $137 million a year.  We will ask our Institutions Committees to evaluate ways in which we can make our system more efficient.  Areas of evaluation will include:
a.    The opportunity to use the unused building pad at Springfield.
b.    The reuse of Newport or improved use of empty space at St. Albans
c.    Options for providing leased space to the Federal government as part of our facility plan
d.    The proposal from New Hampshire Governor Lynch to develop a joint facility to reduce costs.

Okay, you think.  Then go ahead and do it.  Enough evaluating.

And there is a lot more of the same in that press release.  Study, review, evaluate.
 
But no specifics on new taxes or tax increases.  One suspects that these will include a bigger bite on higher incomes, a broader application of rooms & meals and sales taxes, and some others.   One wonders, if the answer is to raise taxes, why can’t we get extremely specific.  After all, as Mr. Shumlin says, these are “extraordinary times.”  So how about a little extraordinary candor.  The legislature has had half a session to think on these things.  The members are in recess so that they may spend time with their constituents.  It isn’t especially helpful, if you are one of those constituents, to be greeted with, “Hey, how you doing?  Good to see you.  Say, we’re thinking about maybe raising taxes but we aren’t sure on what and by how much.  Whatta ya’ think?”

For that, they could have stayed in Montpelier and kept working.

And, by the way, if the legislature couldn’t get its arms around the budget these last two months because it was unsure of how much federal money would be coming to the state, couldn’t it have actually gone ahead and studied, examined, and explored some of those items that it proposes, in the Shumlin/Smith press release to study, examine, and explore?

These may be extraordinary times, but what we are seeing, so far, from Montpelier and Vermont’s political class is the same old, same old. The budget is cratering and while that would seem to call for shared sacrifice, what we get instead is “not me.”

•    The administration says it needs to find $17.5 million savings in permanent labor costs and the Vermont State Employees Association comes back with proposals for furloughs and pay freezes that do not save that amount and are not permanent.
•    The Vermont Housing and Conservation Board insists it can’t possibly get by without its usual appropriation, though one has to wonder just how much land is being bought up for development in the midst of the worst housing downturn in memory.
•    School spending continues to rise, though not as dramatically as in recent years.  Thanks, perhaps, to Act 82 though none in the education establishment would admit to this or, even, agree that it might be a good thing that Vermont taxpayers are only being nicked this year instead of being gouged, as is customary.  (And, by the way, is there a teacher or education bureaucrat anywhere in the state who is taking a pay cut?  But, then, why should they?  The legislators didn’t.)

The list goes on.  And since it is business as usual, the legislature will almost certainly avoid making tough spending cuts and, instead, propose raising taxes.  The governor has promised to resist and one should hope, regardless of party or ideology, that he does.  If these are truly, extraordinary times, then they call for more than additional studies on whether or not it makes sense to reopen old prisons.

Town meetings will be going on, tonight and tomorrow, all around the state.  Legislators will be making themselves available and one hopes that they will hear their constituents insist – politely but firmly – that these “not extremely specific” plans just aren’t getting it.  That this isn’t 2004 or 2005 when so much money was coming into Montpelier that even the Vermont legislature couldn’t appropriate it all.

So enough about studying and reviewing and evaluating.  Let’s cut to the chase.  Tell us what spending (if any) you are willing to cut and what taxes you intend to raise.  If we have to fight about it, we’ll fight.

And then maybe we can, at long last, get moving.

Comments

[Karen Kerin]

I find it extraordinary that the prisons are under attack since they merely have a guest list imposed by a defunct judiciary that plea bargains over 97% of the cases. It is frightening that really dangerous people are getting light sentences with plea bargains and shameful that some innocent people are going to prison because they fear getting worse sentences if they go to trial with an inept or overburdened defense attorney. Do remember that the prosecutors have carved out this prosecutorial discretion position that allows them to make charges that simply would not stand up at trial. If you doubt that, look at the conviction rate for the ones that do go to trial and discover for yourself that these chosen cases bombed at trial because the prosecutors really did not have evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.
Another point I need to make is my representative, David Ainsworth, proposed a 5% cut for legislators and the legislature turned it down. But a number of legislators voluntarily took a 5% cut anyway.

[Ed G. Mann]

"As for the Shumlin/Smith plan, Terri Hallenbeck described it on VPT’s “Vermont This Week,” as “not extremely specific.”

Au contraire, as to not being "extremely specific" for the economic duo of Shummy/Shap did something no other progressive politician dared prior.

They used arabic numerals and threatened to actually add and subtract them for the unbelievers. (This is not to say this numerology shall be correctly manipulated or all numbers will be utilized.)

How extraordinary to do so early in the session for this is normally sprung on the Governor at 11:59 of deadline day.

I suggest the Governor check sleeves and the floor for dropped decimals and unused subtrahends.

[Dennis Lukas]

Did we forget about the unfunded pensions? As of today About $800 million.

[Wendy Wilton]

A sacred cow you won't see on the table: state property tax assistance for the wealthy. Because of the way the state tax assistance formula works, based solely on income and house value--without regard to assets--some of the Vermont's wealthiest citizens are getting huge "prebates". The budget in the Ed Fund for state tax assistance is about $150 million. Of that, $20-30 million or so is supporting your wealthy neighbor's taxes. It would be a relatively easy fix. But does the legislature have the intestinal fortitude to do it? If we reduced this expenditure in the Ed Fund, we could transfer less from the General Fund, helping to solve about 10% of the budget shortfall.