Email subject line: Time is running out to support the VDP in 2014  

Friend,  2014 has been a year of persistence for the Vermont Democratic Party.

That is the subject and the opening line of a recent cheery little email I received from the Vermont Democratic Party soliciting last minute end of the year contributions.  

2014 a year of persistence?  

Of course there are distinctions between the party and Governor Shumlin’s specific policies. It isn’t all about the Gov. and health care but a wide range of issues.  

The email explains:

The VDP Platform covers a wide range of Democratic values and includes a commitment to economic opportunities for all Vermonters, opposition of outsourcing jobs to other countries, encouragement of tax policies that tackle income inequalities, and addressing climate change by promoting alternative energy.  

It [the platform] also includes an unshakeable dedication to providing affordable and accessible health care coverage to all Vermonters. Despite the obstacles, we are 100% committed to seeing these principles become policy in our state and our country.

So was 2014 a year of persistence?  

In fairness the Governor is often quite persistent. He’s shown remarkable persistence, if not unshakeable dedication, on not raising taxes on high-end earners.  

But in light of the Governor’s year-end retreat on single payer – “Now is not the time for single payer “ – the VDP might want to re-think any claim on persistence.  

I haven’t given in years, so I have no intention to take the VDP up now on the offer to celebrate the end of the year by donating. But time is running out to snark in 2014.

This Monday Republican candidate for Governor Scott Milne will reportedly make an announcement regarding his plans. Milne says he is “leaning forward with the campaign” but he will not be leaning far enough forward to lobby legislators for their votes.

So Scott Milne is in it to win, err … he’s in it to …eh what exactly is his quest?

“Clearly, if I knew I wanted out I would have got out on Nov. 5th,” he said. “There’s still a possibility I might not go forward, although I think it’s unlikely.”

On Election Day Milne lost by 2,434 votes but has refused to concede. And due to the closeness of the vote the legislature will cast secret ballots next month to decide who won. Traditionally the legislature has voted for the top vote getter. Former governor Jim Douglas sternly warned him off lobbying legislators’ votes and Lt. Gov. Phil Scott has said he will follow legislative tradition and vote for the top vote getter — Shumlin.

Despite these significant setbacks Milne notes encouragingly that “very few people have suggested that I don’t go forward,” and believes he is a better candidate than Shumlin. However his attempts, at least so far, to explain what strategy he might use to get the heavily Democratic/Progressive legislature to vote him in as governor are notably vague. He has ruled out lobbying legislators and asking them to vote the way their district did.

So on Monday those few still watching will find out what strategy the ongoing Milne campaign for Vermont governor will take and how aggressively he will lean forward.

A little satire might go well with leftovers.  It’s all about the turkey after all.  

Grandmother Attempts Citizen Arrest of Ted Cruz for Being an Arrogant Prick  

WASHINGTON — Tiny 83-year-old Ida Stanley was taken into police custody early today after she attempted to handcuff and haul away Senator Ted Cruz for “crimes against sanity.”   “Rafael Edward Cruz, I hereby arrest you for being an egotistical asshole,” Mrs. Stanley shouted in front of media cameras as she approached the Junior Senator from Texas outside one of his D.C. homes.

[…]  “You have the right to remain silent…and wouldn’t that would be a nice change,” Mrs. Stanley continued as Cruz’ security officers forced the grandmother of four to the ground and “disarmed” her of the toy, plastic Batman handcuffs she had in her hand.    “You have the right to not flap your gums…to cease and desist with cheesy grins,”

Mrs. Stanley kept shouting despite being restrained with her arms pinned behind her back. “To stop talking down to Americans when you’re really not that smart.”      

Immediately after Mrs. Stanley was “neutralized” by at times up to 6 plainclothes security agents, Capitol Police placed her in the back seat of a cruiser where she smiled and made the V peace sign through the wire-meshed window.

Senator Bob Hartwell’s adoration for the Committee on Committees may have peaked in 2013 when its members named him as the surprise replacement for longtime chair Ginny Lyons of the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Energy. It was a move with immediate policy implications, replacing a supporter of wind power with a chair favoring a wind power moratorium, Hartwell.

 The three-member leadership Committee on Committees hand picks chairmen and senators to serve on standing committees. The current edition is made up of Democrats Dick Mazza and Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell and their BFF, Republican Lt. Gov. Phil Scott.

It was pointed out to me that Hartwell’s elevation two years ago may have been a concession to the Republicans’ ownership of the Lt. Governor’s chair. But that choice should give Democrats and Progressives, who maintain a large majority in the Senate, good reason to elect actual Democrats rather than DINOs to the other two slots. Short of actually changing the existing three man climate it would also be a way to register disapproval of the two (uh) Democrats’ open financial and personal support for the Republican incumbent Lt. Governor over the Progressive candidate, Dean Corren, who sought and received the Democratic Party’s endorsement, via both votes in the primary and the state party committee’s endorsement.

A retiring 5-term senator, Hartwell, in a self-appointed role as elder sage, now has given a flurry of recommendations and I-told-you-so comments in two opinion pieces just weeks apart. His complaints are mostly related to the climate in the Senate and how to change it. His list of suggested corrections (90% of which would please former Governor Jim Douglas) includes tax, Act 250 and permit-reform strategies, and structural improvements to the legislature’s oversight role. His harshest complaints come in the environmental permitting arena.

 Part of his prescription for change (and there’s no evidence of intended irony here)

[…] the Committee on Committees, which appoints senators to standing committees, must do everything it can to assure that ill-informed ideologues, inattentive to detail, are not appointed committee chairs.

Hmmm ill-informed ideologues, inattentive to detail? Well Mazza, Campbell,and Scott may or may not have known about Hartwell’s views on climate change in 2013, but it was a bit of a revelation to the general public by spring of 2014.

 Hartwell explained his view in depth to Seven Days:

To suggest that mankind is causing the whole climate to shift, that’s a big reach. I don’t think anybody’s ever proved that. I think, man doesn’t help it much with a lot of pollution, that’s for sure. And there’s been tremendous progress on that front. But there’s a natural phenomenon going on as well, so all we’re doing is accelerating that. [added emphasis]

 Better raise that bar a little higher for the three members of the Committee on Committees if they follow up on Hartwell’s pro-climate-change warning against ill-informed committee chairs. Clearly, the CoC needs a good gust of fresh air.

No new taxes. Governor Shumlin has ruled out submitting a budget that raises taxes to mitigate an anticipated budget shortfall.

VPR reports that a select group of legislators received Shumlin’s latest no-new-taxes pledge straight from the lips of (soon-to-be-former) Administration Secretary Jeb Spaulding:

Administration Secretary Jeb Spaulding told the group that simply addressing this problem with new revenue represents a onetime solution to an ongoing problem. That's why Spaulding says the administration will present a budget that doesn't include any tax increases. Instead, the plan will reduce the growth rate in state spending.

But this is no real surprise, we were warned (or assured depending on your tax bracket) by Governor Shumlin almost from the start.

Frankly, he told us who he favored in 2011:

“The state of Vermont does not have the flexibility to do that [raise VT income taxes] because we all know New Hampshire is to our east and Florida is not far away and frankly my job is to take the 435 high-income tax payers in Vermont and grow that base, grow our customer base so that we have more revenue.” [added emphasis]

What will they suggest for now to close the budget shortfall? Maybe some old ideas are stored away — let’s see, yup, here’s a few in the bottom of this barrel — oh here’s a couple “winners”: Taxing break-open lottery tickets, the kind sold in social clubs and bars. Or maybe this one: fiddle with err … trade-off the  “too generous” EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit) benefits to cover child care costs.

Maybe this one way down in the bottom: legalize casino gambling. Perhaps there could be floating casinos on Lake Champlain. In fairness that one wasn’t Shumlin’s, but it’s got to be from the bottom of the same barrel of make-the-poor-and-working-class-pay budget tricks.

Thought this bar graph might be kind of interesting.

Since Nov. 10, Fox News Channel has referenced Gruber at least 779 times on air, while MSNBC has referred to Gruber 79 times. CNN has mentioned Gruber just 27 times over the same period. [added emphasis]

The numbers are all likely higher because they don’t account for errors in the closed captioning transcription.

A mention is defined as any time Gruber’s name is said on air within a one-minute window.

Remember the Fairness Doctrine – honest, equitable and balanced?  The Museum of Broadcast History explains:

This doctrine grew out of concern that because of the large number of applications for radio stations being submitted and the limited number of frequencies available, broadcasters should make sure they did not use their stations simply as advocates with a singular perspective.

Rather, they must allow all points of view. That requirement was to be enforced by FCC mandate. [added emphasis]

I didn’t pay much attention to the news that broke recently that an adviser to the ACA (Obamacare, Romneycare) and Vermont’s planned “single-payer” program has found himself in a kerfuffle fueled by rightwing opponents of the healthcare act. Jonathon Gruber, the MIT economist and healthcare expert, apparently planted both his feet in his mouth, possibly even more than once. Nationally a video captured him making some very ill-advised remarks about Obamacare.

And it was stupid too, according to former Obama aide David Axelrod, who tweeted:

if you looked up "stupid" in dictionary, you'd find Gruber's picture.

However, some of what Gruber said that has inflamed critics in the video about CBO (Congressional Budget Office) scoring may actually be mistaken.

[Gruber] was incorrect about the CBO’s treatment of the individual mandate. Whether you called the fine for not carrying insurance a “tax” or a “penalty,” it got scored the same way, as generating revenue.

But I don’t intend to go into the deep weeds surrounding that part of the Gruber kerfuffle. And since he has a lucrative contract with the state of Vermont running through February 2015, there is a local angle to the kerfuffle.    

The Campaign for Vermont has taken the opportunity  Gruber handed them to pile on and fundraise locally on the national anti-healthcare/Gruber frenzy. This shouldn’t be surprising, as delaying Vermont’s healthcare was one of Campaign for Vermont’s founder Bruce Lisman’s first public positions.  While he has bankrolled the Cfor VT from the start, he recently stepped aside from policy leadership, although he may still be hold some influence.

In one of his early policy talks in 2011, Lisman suggested that Vermont could not afford health care (or renewable energy programs) and recommended that it should be delayed indefinitely. Back then he cited uncertainty (the businessman’s favorite phantasm) over Irene recovery costs as the reason for the delay.

So now the Campaign for Vermont carries on his anti-healthcare cause with an online petition (donation button included) calling for Gruber’s contract with Vermont to be revoked.

A second Gruber-in-Vermont story, that was in the news in 2011, was simply an attempt to be funny. His remark, although “flip” for official testimony, does have a little humor to it and maybe a bit of insight too.    

In the 2011 video of testimony before a Vermont legislative hearing on the new Vermont healthcare law, Gruber is questioned by the committee Chairman. The Rep. reads a lengthy constituent comment expressing:  

a Vermonter’s concerns about the law— “ballooning costs, increased taxes, bureaucratic outrages, shabby facilities, disgruntled providers, long waiting times, lower-quality care, special interest nest-feathering and destructive wages and price controls” — Gruber joked: “Was this written by my adolescent children by any chance?

The remark was met with uproarious laughter in the committee room.  

The question was not written by an ordinary adolescent but was submitted by John McClaughry, Ethan Allen Institute founder, a former Vermont state senator and long-ago adviser to President Ronald Reagan.  

No demands or petitions calling for Jonathon Gruber to apologize to adolescents for comparing them to John McClaughry have been made.  

Well, at least not yet – let’s wait for the latest anti-healthcare storyline to run its course.  

On one side of the coin you have the Shumlin administration awarding FairPoint the State’s emergency 911 communications service contract. FairPoint Communications’ winning, low bid was $2.5 million less than those of two competing firms.The contract runs for five years and is worth $11 million. Secretary of Administration Jeb Spaulding is confident in the deal. Vtdigger.com reports: 

[Spaulding] said FairPoint was the only bidder willing to commit to all of the state’s performance requirements, and that the state felt secure in its contractual protections.

Huh, the other bidding companies wouldn’t commit to meeting the state’s contract requirements? The five-year contract took effect last week on November 5.

 Flip the coin and you find a different, much less assuring FairPoint, one with a long history of poor service, bankruptcy, and troubled labor relations in New England. Not just here in Vermont but many in Maine are experiencing outage problems.

David Tucker, executive director of the Enhanced 9-1-1 Board said he was aware of the residential service issues, but that the 9-1-1 service is a different product. Despite being under the management of the same company, he said he does not expect the emergency services to be subject to the same weaknesses.

However the Dept of Public Service says the state will open an investigation into the large number of complaints about poor service against FairPoint. Only a few years out of bankruptcy, the company is still struggling and trimming costs to become profitable. Management's pre-strike claims to have ramped up non-union and contingency workers to address any emergencies have proven wrong as longterm outages have become common.

Union workers at Fairpoint are now on strike in three states over management demands that members agree to another round of benefit and pension cuts. Since the strike began four weeks ago almost 250 service-related complaints have been made about the company. The volume of phone service problems has raised concerns about emergency medical response coverage.

James Porter, director of telecommunications with the Vermont Department of Public Service says […] he expects the state will launch a formal investigation into [Fairpoint's] service practices next month. “For years and years, the phone company has been subject to automatic penalties for failure to make service quality metrics. [Note: the state has no jurisdiction over broadband complaints]

Dept. of Public Services’ Porter adds that rather than impose a penalty, he would like to find the “root cause of a problem” and fix it, as companies view fines as “a cost of doing business”

In the recent past, the state of Vermont has given the company a little help handling penalties — their “cost of doing business.” In 2012 Vermont Public Service Board waived millions of dollars in accumulated poor service-related penalties for the company. The agreement, part of a restructuring plan, allowed $7 million in assessed unpaid penalties to be redirected by FairPoint for statewide broadband build-out.

 Now with a little more Vermont help the coin comes up good for FairPoint. They squeeze concessions out of labor union members, provide poor service, bid low and then, as a reward, land a valuable state contract.

Heads they win — tails we lose?