Bruce Lisman: an interview

 

what is Campaign for Vermont and where is it going?  a conversation with it's founder, Bruce Lisman.

VT:  It has now been almost two months since you launched Campaign for Vermont. How is it going?

Lisman: A lot better than I ever would have guessed.  We have more than 5,000 people on our email list.  A growing Facebook contingent.  We’ve been fortunate to reach people in a way that makes many of them want to volunteer to help us and more who simply want to hear what we have to say.  From Rotary Clubs, and business groups, to radio stations, we are getting inquiries from people who are interested in our message. 

 So we’ve seen a lot of support, but we have also been called divisive and controversial by others.  One of our aims is to ensure there is a robust debate where there is none now.

 VT:  Is there a next chapter that we can look forward to any time soon?

 Lisman: First, we wanted to make Vermonters aware that Campaign for Vermont had launched and try to get them comfortable with our mission and goal.  Next, we will slowly begin to roll out some of our ideas.  We’re working to promote two big themes:  politicians must reorient the state’s priorities toward building a vibrant economy.  And then, along with that, is this notion that we ought to build a new kind of government structure based on real, even radical, transparency.  So not only would our government tell us where our money is being spent; it would also tell us how well it is being spent.

This transparency would lead to a couple of things.  First, it would inject accountability into the process.  And, then, it would move the government toward spending our money well and, also, in the right places.

 So the next chapter is in fleshing out some of Campaign for Vermont’s ideas.  For example, one of our partners Heidi Scheuermann who represents Stowe in the legislature, published an op-ed as part of Campaign for Vermont on recasting the way we pay for education. 

 Above all, we need a plan, and a bold one, so we can ensure our children are getting the education they deserve and so taxpayers contribute to a funding mechanism that connects us with outcomes.  The current system is one of the most impenetrable tax systems on earth.  But we know you can’t just argue against the current system without providing an alternative and one that will make things better.  We see a way to tie education reform to better outcomes for the students as well as workforce improvement and, therefore, an overall positive outcome for the state’s economy. 

 That’s the kind of approach we’ll be taking as we come out with more detailed and specific policy recommendations.

 VT:  You don’t see a time when you’ll endorse candidates, do you?

 Lisman:  No.  We can’t do that because of our tax status.  We are non-partisan, moderate, centrist, common sense to a fault.  This may be hard to believe, but when I formed the group and signed up the first 25 people, I didn’t ask any of them their political orientation.  I don’t know what party any of them belong to.  When we talked, we talked about ideas.  Listen, it is possible to be a Progressive, say, and have ideas that are entirely pragmatic.  Good ideas come from all over the place, but good public policy comes from the middle.

 Campaign for Vermont is about ideas and I hope there will never be another moment when fresh ideas are needed as much as they are needed now.

 VT: When you retired after a career on Wall Street and moved back to Vermont, you spent several months touring the state and talking to people.  According to some accounts, you visited some 400 different businesses around the state.  What sort of conclusions did you draw from this experience and have you applied the lessons to Campaign for Vermont?

 Lisman: Well, I did go around the state on the tour you describe, but I met with more than businesses.  I met with nurses, teachers, artists, small business, larger manufacturers, and innovators.  What I found was a very strong work ethic and an able work force.  And I also found that there is a Vermont economy that is sort of invisible.  You don’t see it unless you go looking for it.  It is vastly more complex and sophisticated than we generally think. 

 The governor rightfully talked, in his state-of-the-state speech, about the value of a strong economy and the success we’ve had in bouncing back after Tropical Storm Irene.  He talked about companies that are hiring people and that will help the state in its recovery.  That’s a good note to strike, stressing the value of a strong economy.  And based on what I found, in talking with hundreds different people –all kinds of people with different roles in this complex economy – there are good reasons to feel optimistic about the future if … we can make some changes around the ideas of transparency, accountability, and prosperity.

 VT: Some people thought that your tour was kind of a prelude to a run for some political office.  Campaign for Vermont got more people wondering the same thing.   So, not to put too fine a point on it … are you running for governor?

 Lisman: Campaign for Vermont is about ideas and forcing a robust debate about the issues that a matter to Vermonters.  A lot of people in Vermont are talking, around the water cooler or over dinner, about the future of the state.  These are passionate discussions because the people having them care deeply about Vermont.  Later, these people go home and go to bed and feel like they have accomplished something.  In the morning, they get up and things go on just like before.

 I thought I’d take it about three steps further.  Maybe by touching an emotional chord among people outside of Montpelier.  Some of those people in the economy I discovered have some great ideas they just aren’t being heard.  That’s why this is so much fun. 

 If it works, there will be a lot of people who can take credit.  If it doesn’t, it will all be on me and I can be the guy who turns out the lights.

 VT: So what about your ideas?

 Lisman: Well there are really three we have been pretty vocal on most recently.  The first of course is our education system.

Since the passage of Act 68 in 2003, education property taxes in Vermont have increased by over 43 percent or 6.2 percent per year to $918 million – and that is merely two thirds of what Vermonters actually spend on K-12 education. Vermont now spends over $1.3 billion on education, an increase of $250 million since 2005. During this same period, the number of students has dropped by over 7,400 or 7.4 percent. Vermont’s spending per pupil is near the top in America and among the highest in the world. This combination of rapidly rising costs, unbearable tax burdens and school enrollment decline is clearly something that Vermonters will be unable to sustain.

 Meanwhile, Vermonters increasingly ask if our schools are able to provide the education necessary to prepare students for careers in a knowledge-based global economy.  The time is now to transform of our delivery system to expand opportunities for our children and improve outcomes while ensuring the system is one Vermonters can afford.

 Further, our new model must place appropriate emphasis on both a “college bound” curriculum as well as one for those students seeking credentialed degree programs. By consolidating and integrating Vermont’s supervisory unions into districts serving both the above important career paths, our school system can be structured to better serve students as well as enhance efficiency

 We propose a model that brings together our educational communities in order to expand opportunities for all of our children and do so in a cost effective way. This new model must be based on a funding system that does not pit neighbors against neighbors, towns against towns, and school districts against school districts.

 VT: You said three issues.  What are the other two?

 Lisman: We are also talking a lot about health care and energy, especially where the proposals under consideration lead most people to say “are you kidding me?”

 Campaign for Vermont believes we should build on the foundation Vermont has spent years in creating: incentives for preventive care and wellness programs. Vermont has debated health care reform for nearly 25 years; the result is that we have a healthy population.  Healthier, in fact, than almost all of the other states.  That’s not bad considering we have the second oldest population in the country.

But we are heading in the wrong direction with the proposed exchange which will be the only place for almost all businesses and their employees to purchase insurance and where the only choice will be over deductible amounts. We need to create a robust Exchange that gives Vermonters many choices among insurance plans and coverage.  And we should be especially wary of tying ourselves to a plan that, if it doesn’t work, leaves us in a place where none of us want to be.

On the energy front, Vermont has spent millions of taxpayer dollars to promote alternative, intermittent energy sources.  Campaign for Vermont agrees that Vermont should have a balanced, safe, and clean energy portfolio to power economic.

But … the state’s renewable power plan is filled with contradictions and unknowns.  Like the proposed health care reform, it has no cost framework, no clear understanding of consequences, nor even a firm grasp on the problem it would “solve”.  As such it threatens all Vermonters’ economic prosperity.

These are just a couple of the public policy issues we will weigh-in on.  The last five governors have said jobs were their number one priority.  Why then is economic development one of the least promoted undertakings of all state government?

 Campaign for Vermont aligns with people who support common sense solutions.  We are a home for moderates and many have found their way to us.  We believe in the values that Vermonters hold dear: we are frugal, we are practical, and we are caring.

VT: Well, good luck and thanks for talking with us.

Lisman: My pleasure

 

 

Comments

[Hannah Dustin]

Best of luck to Mr. Lisman but he doesn't stand a chance here in Vermont. In 2006 Bernie Sanders received 67% of the vote versus Rich Tarrant. Sanders carried every town in Vermont. Mr. Lisman's efforts, while laudable, are ultimately futile.

[Stillhere]

Mr. Lisman refers to three "ideas," but all I see are three negative reviews of what HE characterizes as the current trends in Vermont on education, healthcare and energy, coupled with vague platitudes.

What IS the "new model of education" Mr. Lisman is proposing?

What IS Mr. Lisman's healthcare plan to create a "robust Exchange" so that ALL Vermonters will receive adequate care while costs are kept down?

What IS Mr. Lisman's idea of a "balanced, safe and clean" energy portfolio for Vermont?

Mr. Lisman, you coyly avoid answering the question as to whether or not you are running for office; and connecting the dots of your various incarnations and connections betrays a distinctly Republican bias on your part; so please don't make protestations about 'transparency' to further compound the artifice of your 'non-partisanship.'

Put your cards on the table, Mr. Lisman; how else are we to evaluate whether your ideas are any better (or more "moderate") than those of others who are looking at the same issues?

[G. Cross]

Right on Stillhere. The new education model is going back to the old model where the have schools had and the have not schools didn't. To make matters worse, the have not taxpayers paid through the nose to not have and the have taxpayers paid little to have a lot. It was a great system if you lived in Stowe.