Put Their Feet to the Fire

 by John McClaughry

The primaries are over and the winning candidates are now in their final run toward Election Day (November 2). Now is the time that citizens concerned about the state's future can pin down those candidates on their positions on key issues they'll face in the forthcoming legislative session.

Bear in mind that candidates do not want to be pinned down. Their natural tendency is to evade, sidestep, mislead, and obscure. The trick to pinning down candidates is to ask straightforward, informed questions that minimize the candidate's opportunity to squirm out of a commitment. (Getting answers in writing, or declared before witnesses, is also very valuable.) Here (below the fold) are twelve questions that may be useful.

1. The Vermont income tax now has a top bracket of 8.95%, applied on taxable incomes in excess of $336,550. To what level, if any, would you vote to increase that rate to raise more revenues from the wealthy?

2. The 2011 legislature will vote on whether to allow the Public Service Board to issue a certificate of public good to allow the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant to continue to operate after 2012. Will you vote to allow the PSB to make this determination? Or will you vote to prevent PSB consideration, and thus cause the shutdown of the plant, regardless of the cost and sources of the power needed to replace its 600Mw output?

3. For years some legislators have proposed that the government institute a single payer universal access health care system, where private health insurance and premiums are abolished, all Vermonters are entitled to the benefits of a government-designed taxpayer-financed health insurance plan, and the state compensates all health care providers out of such tax dollars as may be available for that purpose. Would you support creation of such a system? If so, which tax or taxes would you vote to raise to finance it?

4. To combat "climate change", the 2006 legislature committed to requiring Vermonters to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide to 50% below the level prevailing in 1990, by the year 2028. Will you vote to authorize the regulations and energy taxes necessary to achieve this very large reduction? Or will you vote to repeal this Act (Act 168)?

5.  One candidate for Governor has pledged to institute universal preschool programs at taxpayer expense. In the absence of any evidence that preschooling for 3- and 4-year olds produces any measurable or lasting improvement in educational achievement, will you vote to establish universal preschools?

6. The outgoing Governor and others have proposed to rein in public education spending by having the state require higher pupil-teacher ratios and impose caps on increases in local school district spending. Will you support either or both of those proposals?

7. The 2009 legislature enacted a law (Act 45) to require Vermont utilities to buy wind and solar generated electricity at three to five times the market price, in order to make those renewable energy companies economically viable. Will you vote to repeal this "feed in tariff" requirement?

8. For five years wireless tower siting has been under the jurisdiction of the Public Service Board, which unlike the district environmental commissions can take into account economic benefits. That law sunsets in July 2011. Will you vote to make the law permanent?

9. Will you vote to introduce consideration of economic benefits into the Act 250 land use and development regulatory process, so that job and revenue creation can outweigh some allegedly adverse environmental effects?

10. If the "Challenge for Change" process created in 2010 fails to produce the expected $38 million in state spending reductions in FY11, will you vote to make up the shortfall from the state's rainy day funds?

11. Will you vote to preserve existing parental choice in education, and extend it via any or all of public school choice, charter schools, virtual schools, or vouchers for use in any approved independent education program?

12. The legislature has given the Public Service Board the power to levy "efficiency assessments" on your electric bill. It has given the Milk Commission power to levy "assessments" on fluid milk sold in Vermont stores. Will you vote to require that only the legislature, accountable to the people, can raise taxes on the people?

Happy hunting! And if your candidate declines to respond, tell everyone you know, and by all means look for another candidate.


John McClaughry is vice president of the Ethan Allen Institute. 

Comments

[Gen X Vermonter]

Great questions. We could only hope to have such in the up coming debates.

[William Boardman]

Excellent list of litmus test questions for enforcing political correctness and ideological purity.

[mike seely]

Wonderful work, John! Pity YOU aren't running.

[Ralph Colin]

John,

As pithy and exacting as your questions are, I dare say that many candidates, particularly those with a (D) after their name, would make waffles out of their answers and then pour maple syrup on them.

Ralph

[Vermont Voter]

Excellent questions. Challenge state daily and weekly newspapers to forward them to all Legislative candidates in their respective regions and to print the responses.

[AM]

I tend to think the answers to these questions are pretty much known. Everyone is a known quantity with a long Montpelier track record.

Also...if you get a "solid" answer to these questions, what's to say they won't change their mind afterward? Just saying... ;)

[Mary]

I hate to interrupt the love fest, but John! Cmon.

In question 5, why would you ask a question that is so obviously untrue and misleading? Evidence of lasting effects from quality early education is overwhelming with studies in the United States and abroad including rigorous randomized trials. A statistical summary of all the evidence finds that on average long-term effect are about half the size of initial effects, so we need high quality programs that have larger effects in order to ensure that later effects are also large.

Recent reports and studies include — TC Record meta-analysis, Chicago Longitudinal Study, NICHD, EPPE.
http://tcrecord.org/content.asp?contentid=15440

[AM]

LOL - Just one of the questions is leading? That's funny, because they pretty much all are.

"Evidence of lasting effects from quality early education is overwhelming with studies in the United States and abroad including rigorous randomized trials. "

There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. I can find a study (or multiple) to "prove" any thesis I may care to come up with.

It's impossible to prove what affect, if any, preschool has on outcomes. Correlation is NOT causation.

If anything, I'd say that parent willing to be involved enough to get their kid into preschool is probably far more a key to overall success than actual act of preschool. The correlation is preschool, but the "cause" of success is the parent.

Also, it is easy to observe that some boys in particular do better if their formal education is delayed rather than introduced too early. My own nephew greatly benefited from delaying kindergarten for a full year. For those boys, formal preschool is a complete waste of $$$ and may prove to have opposite effect.