Vermont Can Be Next

by Chet Greenwood

The overwhelming support given to Republican Scott Brown over Democratic opponent Martha Coakley in the U.S. Senate race in MA can be easily explained.  Pay attention, Senator Sanders, Senator Leahy, and Representative Welch.

Voters do not like government-run health care (only 38% approval rating), government-run banks and government-run automobile companies. Did you know the Obama Administration approved a $900k consulting fee to Girsky only to advise GM’s CEO? 

Voters do not want closed door negotiations involving only one party and terrorists awarded the same constitutional rights that US citizens enjoy.  Voters were promised transparency. Do you see any?

Voters are tired of Obama playing the blame game one year after he was elected. Voters do not like the bribes that cost them billions just to get bills passed. Voters do not like the idea of a separate “Obama Tax Code”.  If you were a contributor to Obama’s election, you get preferred tax treatment.  The Senate, with his approval, has exempted labor unions from the tax on “Cadillac” health care premiums along with state and federal employees. Cost: $60 billion that we must pay because unions do not. 

Obama is taxing banks who received TARP funds, even if paid back, on their assets hoping to recover all Tarp funds. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac need billions more to keep from going under and on Christmas Eve the Administration approved $6 million in salary plus bonuses to the CEOs. Are we ever going to get the money back? I don’t think so. 

Rep. Peter Welch wants to tax bonuses at 50% but this applies only to bankers.  Fannie and Freddie are exempt and Girsky is exempt.

Where’s the “outrage?" Our legislative contingent to Washington has been mum on all the above so obviously they approve of the Obama policies.

Comments

[GEN X Vermonter]

Ahh but here's the kicker. Leahy and Sanders continue to bring "feel good" money to the state. All those "grants" for enviro projects and business projects. Leahy is like #5 or 6 most senior Democrat? He brings too much money to the state to move him out of office. Remember VT gets more out of the feds than we pay in. I've tried to vote this guy out for the last 15 years. He'll be in DC till he dies.

[Chris Campion]

That's how discipline is enforced in Congress - you toe the line, or you don't get the federal outlays you're looking for in your state. In other words, the system keeps those who have the most power in doling out tax dollars (and borrowed dollars) to those constituencies that help keep them in office. That's it. It's not rocket science - they keep their seats by controlling the dollars, and selling their seniority as being "valuable" back in the individual states.

It's a trough-schnuffling contest, except the trough is filled with our dollars, our childrens' dollars, and dollars borrowed from somebody overseas that we'll never meet. We're in a sorry state of affairs when Leahy's greatest appeal is his ability to send federal tax dollars (which do come directly from our own wallets, it's not "magic money") back to Vermont.

That's what we're looking for in legislative leadership these days - making damn sure we get out share of the pie. Perhaps we should be shrinking the pie, not enlarging it, which will force Congress to make real decisions on allocations. Real choices, like the ones we make every day, like whether or not to buy the generic brand of something versus the name brand - so your bills get covered every month. Congress has no such self-imposed limits, the only limits are what they can get away with and still remain in office.

[Tom the Old Bastard]

I live in Mass, in the next town to Scott Brown and know the real reason he won.

1. It was a real grass roots that only started to grab hold after Christmas.

2. He controlled the internet.

3. The Dems used the oversell like Vicky Kennedy, Obama, and Bill Clinton.

4. The Dems used their usual smugness thinking that Mass belongs to them.

5. Brown took 66% of most suburbs where indep, live and also took some traditionally strong Dem cities.

6. Your 2 Senators are smug, have no humility and if they had run in Mass they would not even been elected for dog catcher.

The masses are pissed off !!!!

[mathcurmudgeon]

Brown was simply a better candidate than Martha. It's not a repudiation of the Democratic party at all. MA has been drifting between right and left for a long time - think Weld and Romney. The only reason that the seat remained Democratic was that Ted Kennedy was in it. Whether anyone personally loved him or despised him, the majority of MA voters realized that he did good things for them, seniority in the Senate helped, and was the consummate politician who tried to care about his people.

Don't get started on the specifics - it's immaterial to this issue. His philandering, drinking, driving skills were not enough to prevent him from getting reelected eight(?) times. He must have been doing something right, something that the voters felt was worth it.

However, Martha Coakley had none of that. As soon as the name changed, all bets were off and only fools thought that Martha would just slide right into that seat. Well, fools and Democrats.

So it came down to the two candidates and Brown was the better one. When you throw in the Schilling, Bird, and Fenway faux-pas along with her history as a prosecutor and her smugness and sureness of her unbeatability, Martha had no real shot. People like humble. Brown was that and Martha wasn't.

There was no "change in the weather" or change in the mood of the voters" here. Had Kennedy been alive, he'd have been re-elected. Martha was no Ted Kennedy.

The same holds true for Vermont. Leahy will never be defeated if he runs. He does too much that people agree with, is a genuinely nice guy which counts for a lot, and has seniority and a track record. Couple that with a solid campaign and you have an unbeatable combination.

Welch is in slightly different water, but he hasn't done anything that he wasn't expected to. Those who elected him got what they wanted and will re-elect him easily. Same for Bernie.

Vermont won't be next.

Don't need a dog-catcher up here anyway, so we'll send our lot back to Washington.

[Chris Campion]

It's easier to win re-election when the people who are most likely to vote against you wind up leaving the state because it's an economic wasteland. Our 3 patriarchs in DC are certainly going to win the votes of the people they point the most money at - the money coming from the people who are doing most of the working and earning out there. When 97% of income taxes collected come from the top half of income earners, it's pretty clear who's footing the bills.

Kennedy would have been re-elected had he still been around. That doesn't mean that things can't change, or won't change, but he was a perfect example of the bloated, self-congratulatory patron who deigns to let the people know how much he's done for them at every chance - to make sure he gets his job back every six years. MA was happy to buy that crap for decades - but perhaps other things have changed in the state financially, and within the Democratic machine (indictments all around in their state leadership), where it portends a different direction.

Coakley was a lousy campaigner, and a perfect political machine widget, which means she was unequipped to listen to herself or the people - witness her tone-deaf comments regarding Fenway. It's clear evidence that the machine runs the party, not the candidates, and if MA wants that kind of garbage running their state in perpetuity, they can easily get there, by not changing a thing. That's why I think Brown has a larger impact, and Coakley's ineptitude is now exaggerated, unsurprisingly, now that she's lost. And now finding herself under the bus, courtesy of the same machine.

[timv]

The critical mass in Vt. is apparently quite satisfied with the current situation.
I hate to admit it, but there are still some adults in Mass.
Not enough adults in Vt. (between the trust fund babies, hippy spawn, failed musicians, wannabe carpenters and potters, public employees, etc.) to make a difference.
When the entire rest of the USA has awakened, Vt. will still be electing the senator from Brooklyn and blaming George Bush for something....everything.

[GreggB]

VT is so dreamy. No worries prosperity is right around the corner for VT.

[G. Cross]

"Mathie" has it correct. Good piece.

[Bill]

The bald headed triumvirate will keep flinging pork fat at us until we are buried and can't breathe. We are the Dependent Protectorate of Vermont. We are the rump state where downcountry liberals rushed in to fill the vacuum left by the Woodchuck Diaspora. Our native sons and daughters in the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Florida help the great grandchildren of the rebels their great grandfathers defeated 145 years ago elect conservatives. God bless them. It's a dirty job. But somebody has got to do it. Nobody here has the stones anymore. Mushy has replaced flinty. Buddhist prayer flags have replaced the American flag.

[the vermont patriot]

If anyone thinks that Republicans are any different than Democrats in their abuse of power (ie handing out the pork), then they are hugely naive. That is how power is wielded in Washington DC. This is how power has been wielded for centuries. Do you think pork disappeared under a Republican controlled Congress and Executive? No, it only got worse. Pull your head out of the sand. Washington is not going to change, Republican or Democrat. It is time to throw off the yoke of our morally bankrupt empire. It is time for the independent Republic of Vermont to rise again. It is time to bring back power to the people. It is time to secede.

[Brattleboro_conservative]

Vermont Patriot,
It's time for you and your secessionist friends to pull YOUR heads out of the sand! Just where do you think Vermont will get the money to stay afloat when and if you secede, hmm? Vermont owes how much money now? Just what happens when the Federal Government hands you secessionists a bill for Vermont's share of the Federal Debt? We have little in the way of manufacturing jobs and pretty much all businesses will leave the state once Vermont secedes, leaving you in a bigger mess than you got now.

Healthcare a human right? Fine and how do you people pay for the doctor's time and expenses when you aint got no money? Steal from the rich? How many rich folks will stay around here just to be robbed by taxes? Vermont barely survived as an independent republic a hundred years ago when everyone had to be self-sufficient. That isn't the case now is it?

Vermont Patriot, it's time to grow up.

[Bill]

Yea, right, Patriot. Tell the huge numbers of Vermonters getting an entitlement check from the federal government that their bennies will no longer be forthcoming because Vermont is no longer a part of the United States. Don't give me the ridiculous argument that the independent Republic of Vermont can somehow negotiate with Uncle Sam to keep those benefits coming to them. The rest of the nation is going to continue to finance us after we secede from the Union? Not too likely. The rest of the country already knows we are mostly flaky and would be happy to get rid of us. No, the dirty little secret about the so called Second Vermont Republic is that the liberals who think it is a good idea want to tax you at Danish rates of 75% of your income and your assets. That's the only way they can keep folks riding the gravy train after Uncle Sam is banished.

[Vermont Woodchuck]

What's Vermont going to be, "The Mouse that Roared?"

Secede indeed!
Major imports-skiers crack, coke, smack
Major exports-maple syrup, all the youth

Sounds like a winner!

[Dennis Lukas]

Wow! every ones getting testy. Only the American people can be held accountable for the mess in Washington or in there own state or town. The American people have created this mess by not being engaged, they have been to busy indulging there wants.
Both parties have run a muck, how ever the Democrate party is doing the most damage; they support the enviromentalist( no nukes, no oil, no gas, no hydrogen cars,no coal, no developement with out permiting that takes $ and years, no cutting of timber,on and on) its fine though to buy from other countries the same products and send US dollars abroad, we dont need our money.
Then there are all their social programs that enslave people to poverty, and tax business out of exsistance, the same "BAD" businesses that use to pay for employess (WORKING PEOPLE) pensions,healthcare,dental, eye glasses.Democrats love to spend the working classes money.
Yes the Republicans have all there back room deals but its about who in "business" gets the money.
I would rather have a American made $500.00 toilet seat then 10 people that can work on wealfare.
Why is it that 12 million illegal imagrants find work and 12 million wealfare recipients can't?
The Democrate responce," we can not take these peoples dignity away with meanall jobs." You can not blame any one but your self for where we are at, but you can be engaged and make the changes that are unpopular.