Vermont Tiger

Pension Plan Peril

Southwestern Vermont Health Care – which would be the hospital in Bennington – is short $22 million and blaming its pension plan for not quite half of the problem. 

Sounds bad, doesn't it?  But nowhere nearly so bad as the pension plan disaster that is facing the state as a whole and which Montpelier continues blithely to ignore.

There are cities in California that have already been forced to declare bankruptcy because of pension obligations that cannot possibly be met.

Could it happen here?  Nah, this is Vermont.  We're special.

A Ration Of ...

Here is a handy-dandy way to determine whether the failure to order some exam or treatment constitutes rationing: If the patient were the president, would he get it? If he'd get it and you wouldn't, it's rationing.
    Michael Kinsley

Health Scare

The Obama-Kennedy Health Care "Reform"
by
John McClaughry

Health care "reform" is at the head of the national agenda right now. President Obama and his Democratic allies make this case for "change."

"Americans are spending far too much for health care. That is because of waste and inefficiency among our health care providers. At the same time, there are 45 million Americans without health insurance. Your government needs to wring the waste and inefficiency out of the system, curb unnecessary procedures and expenditures, promote behavioral changes to prevent illness, and use the savings to insure and where necessary subsidize the presently uninsured to achieve universal coverage."

The straightforward way to achieve this lofty goal is to install, as Great Britain and Canada have, a single payer system. Obama says this is what he would do if starting from scratch.

(More) Mail Call

Government Run
by
Chet Greenwood

If all goes as planned, by this time next year when you go for your medical check up, you will be driving a vehicle manufactured by the US Government, financed by a Government Bank, insured by a Government run insurance company, fueled by a Government mandated alternative fuel, meet with a doctor who now works for the US Government and have your physical taken in a US Government run Whocares Health Care clinic (take a number and wait your turn).

Mail Call

Do You Know What Time It Is?
by
Tom Licata

Long past time to put up or shut up.

If so many in Vermont’s legislature – and organizations such as the Public Assets Institute – believe that the government services they so vigorously advocate for are of such social value, why is it that they only (for all practical purposes) call for the taxation of the rich when seeking to fund these common public goods?

And when the “rich” – as in the case of a well circulated letter by 6th generation Vermont native Glen Wright on why his family has decided to abandon Vermont - object to their seemingly never-ending confiscatory taxation, they are often dismissed, or ridiculed as “whiners.”

The implication in this singular “soak the rich” policy only reinforces the idea that taxes are "bad," rather than the common public good that they’re so often professed to be; as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said: "Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society."

Ruthless and Excessive

 by Art Woolf

It is long past time to drive ruthless energy speculators out of the market.

---Representative Peter Welch, commenting on a bill he is co-sponsoring.

Does this mean that the plain vanilla (non-ruthless) energy speculators will be allowed to continue operating and won't be driven out of the market?  How does Rep. Welch, or the federal regulatory agencies, differentiate between the ruthless and the benign speculators?

According to the AP story, the bill,

The Energy Markets Manipulation Prevention Act (H.R. 2869), directs the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to use its existing authority to investigate excessive speculation in energy markets and empowers the CFTC with additional regulatory authority.

I assume, then, that non-excessive speculation won't be investigated.  But how is the CFTC supposed to differentiate between excessive and non-excessive speculation?

Overdrawn

If you are a taxpayer in Burlington, this sort of thing could begin to get a little old:

The city school district will close out the 2009 fiscal year June 30 with a deficit of about $757,834. Last year at this time the district posted a deficit of $800,000 to $900,000.
    Freeps

And what the weary taxpayer might find especially troubling is that:

The School Board sought and received voter approval to increase the current budget by 9.9 percent over fiscal year 2008, a rate well above the state average. That increase was not enough to keep pace with expenditures.

This is a problem for the board that spends the money and the voters who elected the members of that board.  But this story does point to the need for a larger, attitudinal change in Vermont (and, indeed, the nation): simply saying that there is not enough money to "keep pace with expenditures," is what was once-upon-a-time called a "cop out."  The money doesn't spend itself and if "expenditures" are somehow beyond the ability of an elected board's control, if they simply occur, like the weather, then what is the point of a board? 

If the problem is with the system, then maybe it is time to change the system.

If the problem is with the people, then maybe it is time to change the people.

Otherwise ... it is "California, Here We Come."

Tax 'Em All The Way To The Border

North Carolina comes up with a plan that results in no new revenues and diminished economic activity. 

How could our legislators possibly have missed this innovative new tax?

Such A Deal

The registration fee will go up -- from $60 to $65 a year, but car owners will get less for the money.
    Freeps

Now that is how government rolls. 

On The Road With P.J.

Our friend, Mr. O'Rourke, has a new book and talks about it here.

The book is hilarious which should come as no surprise to anyone.