(Continuing site policy of promoting candidate diaries. – promoted by GMD)
Today, I announced that if I am elected governor I will eliminate the daily meal allowance that currently comes with the job. Vermonters are suffering and our state budget is suffering. That means that this is a luxury that Governor Douglas, and governors before him, enjoyed that is fundamentally out-of-touch and unaffordable.
Vermonters pay our governor a good salary, so a meal stipend is an unnecessary luxury at a time of belt-tightening statewide. 23,000 Vermonters are suffering as our economy fails to rebound. I know the savings realized by ending the governor’s per diem is small in the context of the entire budget, but it sends an important message: Shared sacrifice is important and Vermonters want a leader that understand the struggles they are going through.
If packing a bag lunch from home is good enough for working Vermont families, it should be good enough for our governor.
Shay Totten first reported that Vermont governors are currently entitled to a meals allowance of $61 per day not only when they are traveling on state business, but also on ordinary days when working in Montpelier. That perk costs taxpayers around $16,000 per year.
Vermont house and senate members are entitled to a per diem when they are in Montpelier attending sessions. Under current practice, however, governors receive the per diem every day they work. The governor should receive an allowance when traveling representing Vermont, but at a time when we irresponsibly cut some social services, it simply seems wrong to spend this money.
It’s a small gesture, but an important one. Money is tight for everyone these days and being careful with the public’s dollars has to start at the top.
It bothers me when I hear politicians calling for one group or another to take a pay freeze or pay cut.
There is only one way I know of to have an equitable shared sacrifice and that is with an income tax surcharge.
Many people are doing just fine this recession and can easily dig a little deeper. People with meager incomes or who have lost their jobs pay little if anything in income tax to the state. A surcharge will only have those that can afford the “sacrifice” pay for it.
So far I have only heard one candidate say that they would consider the income tax surcharge to prevent serious cuts in needed programs. That was Doug Racine.
If I’m wrong, please correct me.
I think the gesture would be meaningful to some people but I don’t think it would mean that our Governor would be packing a brown bag anytime soon.
Any school in the state would welcome a 61.00 donation; maybe eating at a school cafeteria daily and donating the 61.00 to a different school every day until the economy starts an upward move would bring some attention to the “sacrifice” – otherwise, there’s a news bit for one day, and then someone with no lunch money for the rest of the year.
I will point out that after 25 years, my earning power is no more than it ever was. Now, that’s a sacrifice of a different sort. In fact, I haven’t been able to keep up with inflation so I’m earning less than ever in that respect; I was wealthier as a teen. I’d serve the governor lunch every day if something could be done to change that.
I’d rather have hope than symbolism.. let the Governor eat cake.
Ms. Markowitz clearly hasn’t thought through the economic implications of her proposal. If the Governor were to start brown-bagging it, Vermont’s restaurants would lose a steady source of business. That $61/day has a multiplier effect, which I’m sure Doug Hoffer could quantify. Owners, cooks, waitstaff, busboys, farmers, makers of specialty foods — all benefit from the Governor eating out as often as possible.
This is particularly true at the high-end eateries that are preferred by the lofty and powerful among us. Surely there’s more economic impact from a $30 lunch at a white-tablecloth place than from a five-dollar foot-long or, horrors, a PB&J quickly prepared at home.
There’s also an unquantifiable “halo effect” from having our state’s leading citizen patronize a restaurant. What better endorsement of quality than to have the Governor — hopefully accompanied by a boatload of cronies and lobbyists — sitting at a window table?
The Governor’s meal allowance isn’t a boondoggle; it’s an economic boon for one of our economy’s most important sectors. Please, Ms. Markowitz, retract your unwise proposal. Instead, promise that, if elected Governor, you will live as high on the hog as possible.
I’m afraid you can’t buy Vermonter’s votes – not with political rhetoric, and not even for $61 a day. Come on! If that’s your economic policy, belt tightening because now we’re going without lunch, I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to do a lot better than that!
It might be perceived as more ethical and sincere if the governor’s out-of-proportion salary were cut back to something more reasonable.
According to Rich Koch’s site, in 2008, Vermont’s governor made over 150k in salary alone, which made him the ninth highest-paid governor in the U.S., behind Tenn, Washington state, Penn., NJ, Virginia, Michigan, NY, and California.
We’re the second smallest in population (after Wyoming), 8th smallest in land area, and only crack double digits when it comes to population density: 21st least dense state, surrounded by Minnesota (20th) and West Virginia (22nd).
So why is our governor being paid all out of proportion to the size of the state?
NanuqFC
The State is a collection of officials, different for different purposes, drawing comfortable salaries so long as the status quo is preserved. ~ Bertrand Russell
If government is going to work, you need people who have experience and earning capacity that are higher than the average person. The reaction to the governor’s salary is wrongheaded and counterproductive to the aims of most of the people on this group.
If you go to “Ladders.com”, the site for jobs over $100k, you’ll find it stuffed with high tech marketing, programming, sales jobs that sound mid-level at best. You’re basically paying the governor what you’d pay a mid-level executive in a fairly successful company. This is not too much; it’s too little. This problem is especially magnified for people who have to regulate important industries. If we want to have true strong regulation, we need to pay the regulators close to what the private sector is getting (in return for agreeing not to work for any regulated company for 5 years after leaving government).
As to the other governors around the country, it’s silly to leave out the most obvious source of “pay”: the minute they leave office, they get hundreds of $20-$50k speaking opportunities around their states (sometimes outside if they have national aspirations) and immediate offers at jobs paying $1M or more per year. They are deferring income while in office to maximize it afterwards.