A stark anonymous shot via Margolis, whose coverage and analysis of the budget battle has been terrific:

Republicans were killing time while Douglas invited a few Democratic lawmakers for one-on-one sessions in his ceremonial office, trying to convince them to cast the one vote he’d need from their party to sustain the veto.

According to Democratic sources, Douglas told those Democrats that his aides and Legislative leaders were close to a budget compromise, the details of which he outlined to them, and that if one of them would vote against the override, the two sides could easily reach agreement.

“That was a lie,” said one Democrat.

Two things happened today. And although they are related, they are in fact, distinct.

One: The political power and authority of the Democratic leadership in the Legislature increased to an order of magnitude we haven’t seen in a long time – likely since the Wright era. Most of the backslapping and glass raising is focused on Speaker Smith – and as the catalyst for the power transformation, it is well deserved. But it doesn’t end there. There has been a synergy between the Senate and House that didn’t exist before, and that means Shumlin has earned a big slice of the victory pie as well. And Smith’s team – not just Majority Leader Floyd Nease, but folks like Reps. Larson and Heath join in that power enhancing glow.

And its not just about a two-thirds vote. Smith and Shumlin rolled the dice, and they won. They produced a budget nobody liked – certainly nobody on the left. But enough lefties held their noses and voted for it because they believed that it was the best budget they could expect to pass – or at least they did after last minute fine tuning from leadership during the session (such as backing off the Current Use program as a revenue source).

The fact is that no budget that would have been acceptable to enough lawmakers on the left to keep them onboard (which was important not just for initial passage, but as a show of caucus cohesion and strength) was going to leave the Governor’s desk un-vetoed. The equation then was an almost ridiculous one; pass a budget that was just progressive enough to guarantee a veto, and just centrist enough to hold together the override vote. By walking that line so precisely – and by managing the politics so deftly – Smith & Shumlin haven’t simply come out on top, but they come out looking like masters of the game. Had they lost the override, we’d be looking at a degree of compromise with the Governor that would’ve been unconscionable, given the shortcomings of the budget already. Since they won the override – especially since they won without a single vote to spare – all will be forgiven, as they will have seemed to thread the needle so precisely, that this was more or less the most progressive budget politically possible under the economic circumstances.

Which leaves Smith and Shumlin looking like game-masters, and Smith (as the change in the equation making all of this possible) looking like a hero. It’s something to think that, if not for a single vote, people would be feeling quite the opposite.

Two: The political power and authority of Governor Douglas diminished markedly.

Douglas’s reduced clout was already in full, stark display before the override vote was even cast. The most striking thing about today’s debate in the House chamber was how desperately each Republican who rose to speak tried to separate him or herself from this Governor. We’re voting against this budget, not for the Douglas budget was the steady refrain. Those GOP-ers didn’t like the legislative proposal that was sent back, but by-god they wanted it known that they didn’t like their own party leader’s offering any better.

It was something to hear over the VPR stream, and the only thing I can compare it to was the wholesale abandonment by the national Republicans of George W. Bush in the final weeks before the last national election.

Consider: two vetoes overridden, and not just any vetoes – the two most significant bills the legislature passed all session, reflecting the full political spectrum; the vision and values thing on one end, and the nuts and bolts of good public policy on the other.

The Governor, even by his own historical standards, has been lazy this year. So disengaged with the process of crafting public policy and engaging constructively with the legislature that even the press has turned on him, and now that he has suddenly and dramatically found his power to have his way with Democrats curtailed, he is beginning to look like an irrelevance. Poor policy and even outright incompetence seemed not to matter in the face of his unchallenged political muscle, but now that Douglas the bully has had someone stand up to him, he is looking very small indeed. Questions that were unthinkable a year ago will be asked openly: is Douglas finished politically? Should he opt not to run rather than face electoral defeat? Does he matter anymore?

Leaving question 2 aside, the answers to the the other two are clearly “no” and “no,” “yes” (woops) respectively, and people won’t be asking them for long – but the very fact that such questions are already being called speaks to the sea change. The second override has shown in dramatic fashion that the first was anything but a fluke, and that Douglas has unquestionably passed what will be considered his political prime when his era in power is looked back on. And in the face of a diminishing Douglas, many of those weeniecrats moderate Dems who keep supporting him for re-election may feel more inclined to consider the opposition in light of the fact that there are new, Democratic Party sheriffs in town. The ranks of the “Democrats for Douglas” crowd will begin to thin, and a press corps that smells blood in the water will have a new narrative to chew on going into next year: Douglas descendant.

What happens now? Well, we are moving into the annual period of Douglas’s greatest advantage – where any modest gains made by Democratic legislatures are quickly overwritten. When the Dems had a modest PR victory over Douglas with the passage of Catamount Health a few years back, Douglas wasted no time after legislators returned to their regular jobs in going on a self-promotional tour and putting his considerable staff of professionals to work taking full credit himself and rewriting history. Nothing has changed structurally to prevent history from repeating itself. Douglas is still a full time professional employing a staff of PR flacks who stay on the clock the day after legislators go home. It’s nearly seven months until the new session, after all, and seven months is a political eternity – especially in Vermont.

So in one sense, we’re in uncharted territory. In another, we’re moving into all-too familiar ground. What’s next? Who knows.

Still, we do have one other notable advantage that we haven’t had before in terms of maintaining a presence in the debate during the legislative off-season; a rapidly developing Democratic gubernatorial primary, which could serve to keep the dynamic of a weakened Governor very much in play through the coming months.

All in all, things could look a lot worse for the left, and a lot better for the Governor.

 

Oh sure, the Governor's hope is that the sticker shock will cause a radical rolling back of school budgets that will collapse the school system as we've come to know it in order to get that pesky teacher's union. But is the “we had to destroy the village in order to save it” approach, really in your best interests? You are, after all, the people in the villages who will have to face these very villagers to explain why you supported such disastrous tax policy.

From CNN: 

Dr. George Tiller, whose Kansas women's clinic was the epicenter of the state's battles over abortion for nearly two decades, was shot and killed at his church Sunday morning, his family said. Tiller, 67, was one of the few U.S. physicians who still performed late-term abortions. He survived a 1993 shooting outside his Wichita clinic

What you don't see anywhere in this report is the real word for this sort of reprehensible action: terrorism.

I'm not making a political statement by saying that. I'm not even making a moral one. I'm just using the english language. This is the definition of the word:

ter⋅ror⋅ism  [ter-uh-riz-uhm] –noun 1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes. 2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization. 3. a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.

While I might not be making a political statement about the act by calling it what it plainly is, I will make such a statement about the coverage; by not calling this murder out for what it is, outlets like CNN have opted to make their own political statements by omission, rather than play the role of neutral observer that supposedly characterizes the fourth estate.

Yup. The “liberal media” strikes again.

Given all the talk we hear from Douglas about protecting people from sex offenders, you’d think that this wouldn’t happen so easily:

Local officials have expressed concerns after learning that the Department of Corrections has not provided treatment for sex offenders living in local communities in Bennington and Rutland counties for several weeks because the contract to provide that service was broken.

Oh, and it gets better…

Several Bennington County officials said they were also concerned because they hadn’t been notified by the Department of Corrections that sex offenders living in their community were not getting clinical treatment.

Bennington County State’s Attorney Erica Marthage said her office, Cole, the Bennington County Special Victims Unit and other agencies had worked together to create a successful team that had attracted positive attention for its response to sex crimes. But she said part of the success had been the trust that all members of the team were doing their part.

“My office makes plea agreements all the time in cases that require sex offender treatment. The fact that we don’t have someone doing that right now would have been good to know,” she said.

So the DOC didn’t think it necessary to tell local officials.  

I shall summarize:

Sex offenders who have treatment as part of the terms of their probation are not getting the treatment they need.  

Why is this?  We don’t know.

When did this start?  We don’t know.

Not only do we not know, but…

Georgia Cumming, the department’s program director for sex offenders, said she didn’t know the exact date the previous contract was broken, but said it was earlier in May.

It’s easy to talk about protecting people and it’s easy to talk about sex offenders in the abstract, but this is real: this is people who are supposed to be receiving treatment who aren’t.  We talk about budgets; we talk about costs.  This is the cost of trying to dismantle government:

…Corrections Commissioner Andrew Pallito said… “That gap is being filled partially by the (Department of Corrections), but for treatment like this, you really need a licensed provider. Unfortunately, the state doesn’t have the luxury of being able to afford to have any back-up providers.”

So I think I’ve got this clear now: meaningless rhetoric about sex offenders is, to quote a Douglas press release, “an important and necessary step in strengthening its sex offender registry.”

But back up providers in case of a serious gap in coverage is a “luxury.”

Good to know where our priorities are.

State governmental budgets are arcane things to the uninitiated – or if not, they are at the very least time-sucking, brain-squashing things for those who have enough to worry about already. As such, we lean on what's in the press or what we hear from advocacy groups on what the details are.  In this budget, we've all heard grumblings from advocates (myself included) about the inadequacies of the budget passed by the Legislature, but how it is miles above what's come from the Governor's office.

Here, then, are some points of comparison (in terms of program cuts), in plain english (Note: What the following list does not cover is the implications of the Governor's plan on local property taxes… look for a diary Monday on that):

• The legislature’s budget does not cut monthly management reimbursements to doctors. Compare that to the Douglas budget, which cuts over $5.2 million in monthly management reimbursements to primary care doctors (this proposal would result in an average cut of almost $6,200 a year for 828 doctors around the state… but, 55 doctors would have to absorb cuts from $20,000 to over $70,000 a year.)
• The legislature cuts the Vermont Housing and Conservation board by about 50 percent to around $6 million in FY10, while the governor’s budget cuts VHCB an even more whopping 85 percent – an additional $5 million – basically killing the whole highly successful affordable housing and conservation program (that Douglas has had in his sights since well before the financial crisis) dead.
• The legislature’s budget makes a painful $480,000 cut to the Department of Children and Families. The governor, on the other hand, cuts more than $2.2 million.

More on the flip (including comparative impacts on state employees):

• The amount paid for dental care under Medicaid — currently $495 a year – is protected under the legislature’s budget, while the governor would cut Medicaid dental coverage to $200 a year
• On employee cuts: The legislature’s budget calls for $14.7 million in cost cuts. It stipulates that $11 million will fall on union employees, $2.4 million on non-union positions and $1.3 million will come in the form of cuts to contracts. Not stuff to feel good about, but contrast that against the governor’s plan which makes an additional $2.3 million in cuts to state employees (and you know would disproportionately hit the union employees since – as with the property tax bomb he’s dropping – Douglas is seeing the entire financial meltdown as an opportunity to play executive union-buster). That right there totals $17 million, and the governor included another $3 million in cuts to personal service contracts, bring the total in payroll cuts to $20 million. Clearly, the difference here is not insignificant (especially to a lot of employees who would otherwise get cut).

  There are details to the legislative proposals around the employee cuts – ideas designed to make the whole thing less painful, such as giving the legislature a role in deciding who gets laid off and encouraging early retirements. They’re worth worth breaking out in a separate diary, warts and all.

  While there’s a big difference between the leg and the gov here, we’re unquestionably looking at two decidedly un-pretty scenarios.

More on this tomorrow – specifically a look at the governor’s claim that only he is looking ahead to further budget problems in fiscal 2011, and that his perspective justifies the draconian cuts he prefers.

And stay tuned for Monday’s really big property tax show.

All of these numbers, of course, are made possible by the fine people at the Joint Fiscal Office who are all far smarter than I.

Well worth the visit —> http://taggalaxy.de/

(draws photos from Flickr)

( – promoted by odum)

The Burlington Free Press ran this May 30th.

http://www.burlingtonfreepress…

Governor, Why Sink Our Schools?

Governor Douglas,

When your budget proposal was released, there was a lot in it for Vermonters to shake their heads about.  While I find the cuts to our social programs devastating, there are people more qualified to talk on those issues.  But as a high school student, I think I have a thing or two to say about your proposal to thoroughly gut our state’s education system.

Governor, the budget you’ve offered is not only a direct affront to Vermont students, but it’s an insult to school board members and town meeting attendees all across Vermont.  It takes a remarkable lack of responsibility to level-fund all education spending and then shift a wealth of expenses into the Education Fund, all in the name of “fiscal responsibility”.

Level funding is a brash way of pushing school boards up against a rail, and forcing them to make cuts.  There are expenses that rise over time; everyone knows this.  And so by offering this proposal, you force towns to make painful cuts, on top of the ones they’ve already made.  Passionate, young educators with tremendous talent are forced out of our classrooms and into the ranks of the unemployed.  Essential arts programs wind up torn apart.  The result is simple: students lose.  I lose, Governor, and my classmates lose.  In a world of increased competition, you’d like the state to abandon its students, leaving us to fend for ourselves. Meanwhile, competing countries around the world are preparing their next generation for the global economy.  Unless a family is wealthy enough to send its children off to private school, it looks like we’re out of luck with you.

Unfortunately, my family doesn’t make the kind of money where that’s a viable option, Governor.  These are uncertain times for all of us.  And in these times, when so many Vermont families are struggling to get by, what have you chosen to do?  You’ve offered a proposal that will dramatically increase the property tax burden on Vermonters.  According to Appropriations Chairs Sen. Susan Bartlett and Rep. Martha Heath, “the actual impact on individual Vermont families could be as high as $8,000 dollars.”  Surely, Governor, you are not so out of touch as to believe that there are any middle-income families who could afford that incredible spike.

But this proposal does not just hit Vermonters in their wallets, it insults those who adhere to the simple principles of federalism, and believe that schools should be under local control.  You’ve tied the hands of school boards all across the state.  These are community members who have invested a great deal of time to put forth budgets that both satisfy the taxpayers and offer my classmates a strong education.  In some unfortunate cases, positions have to be cut.  But across the state, school boards have done what they believed to be best for their community.  Your proposal takes away local control and attempts to consolidate more power under your office.  Apparently, your administration does not believe Vermonters are responsible enough to make decisions for themselves.

Governor, if you knew what was really going on in schools, you’d know that they are not the bloated behemoths you’ve tastelessly attempted to paint them as.  You’d know they are full of hardworking Vermonters, young and old.  You’d know they should be a source of pride for this state, not an area to attack.  The Legislature has given us a reasonable budget; it is not perfect, but at least it is responsible.  I hope, for the sake of all students, that you think twice before shutting us out in the cold.

UPDATE: In response to our query, GMD has heard from Brian Dubie.

He specifically denies having made any decision about whether to run for reelection, and says that he isn’t going to make any decisions until after the session is over. He does say that he’s always encouraging other people to run for office, though.

Amazing the things you can hear if you keep your ears open.

We don't know that it's for sure, definitely true, but GMD has been hearing from reliable sources that Lite Gov Brian Dubie is definitely not running for reelection.

True? It's a bit early to be sure, but if he does step aside this soon it may leave the Republican field open for Barre Mayor and Jim Douglas Pie Bodyguard and marijuana flip-flopper Thom Lauzon. After all, the Republican bench is pretty skimpy, and Lauzon has made no secret of his interest in moving to the copilot's seat.  (note: some more of Lauzon’s greatest hits, including advocating for the death penalty for drug dealers, can be found here and here. – odum)

Given that Floyd Nease is also considering a run for Lite Gov from the D side, this step would seem to create an excellent opportunity for our side to pick up one of the few statewide offices not in Democratic hands. Nease has already demonstrated his expertise with the legislative process, and his work as majority leader has given him the statewide exposure that Lauzon lacks. Still, the down ticket races can be unpredictable, especially with the attention the governor's race is likely to get next year.

(cross-posted from Vermont Watch blog, here)

In light of pending Vermont budget cuts and, depending on what happens with the state budget and, whose budget plan(s) hold sway:

List both ten (10) things you could not manage to do without as well as ten (10) things you could manage to do without.

Then, list both ten (10) things you believe Vermont could not manage to do without as well as ten (10) things you believe Vermont could manage to do without.

While for some, this may prove to be more of a theoretical exercise and, others who are faced with such prioritizing to one degree or another, it is important to weigh the fact that there are those who do not always have such choices.

What to do about such can bring about tough questions, often ones with no easy answers, save the priorities given both when it comes to meeting basic human needs as well as properly maintaining and improving upon the basic infrastructure we as a society collectively depend upon.

Let us hope our state’s political leaders and we as a society choose wisely.