From the AP:

Vermont could offer health coverage to all its residents and spend $51 million less a year on health care under a single-payer system, according to a legislative consultant’s report released Tuesday…

…[Chittenden County Senator Jim] Leddy called the report “one more step in our ongoing process that will continue.”

So around we go on this…again. There are two things missing to move on single payer: one, the political will. Two: a real roadmap. Now before people go all nuts on the first one, the fact is that without a practicable road map, there won’t be enough political will in the universe to make something this radical happen.

The problem with the activist left on such issues is our frequent inability or lack of interest in thinking about the road map. There’s a “just do it,” leap-of-faith mentality – as most of us are more interested (and practiced) in organizing than policy making. But we need to come to the realization that if there is a road map to progressive change on the table for all to see and consider, there isn’t necessarily a “leap of faith” required, and the problem of political will among our elected leaders diminishes rapidly.

I know I covered all this in a previous post from some time back, but with the above news, it seems more timely now. In the previous post, I just threw out my own, naive roadmap on the table (based on my extremely brief, but instructive experience with medical billing in an IT capacity) in an attempt to jumpstart discussion. With this latest news hopefully rekindling debate, I’m going to reprint it below and invite boos, catcalls, eyerolls, cheers, shrugs, or alternatives…

It’s likely there are many ways to get to single payer. Piloting a system with state employees and incentivizing others into it gradually, for example. However, there are a few cold political realities that must be faced to make something like this work. First, there can be little or no perception of tax increases, or any up-front increase on the burden of working and middle class citizens. Second (and most daunting), the bulk of the changeover must be complete within the two-year election cycle, so incumbents can feel confident they will have results to run on and not face a backlash in the midst of a painful transitional period (and yes, this is the opposite view expressed by many current legislators, I know).
The devil’s in the details, of course but in the interest of keeping all options alive, the following are five broad steps that, as part of a comprehensive reform bill, could facilitate the transition under these preconditions.

The basic premise is this: legislatively lock all current health plans and malpractice insurance plans into place during the transition period, gradually move all insurance reporting to a centralized state-based reporting/tracking/reimbursement system rather than having patient accounts systems and departments at every medical facility, then slide all current commercial planholders into comparable state-administered plans with the same premiums being paid directly to the state rather than the commercial payers. Then use the profit (and there IS profit under the current payment rates – plenty of it) from the premiums (along with taxes levied on larger employers that weren’t adequately covering employees already, as the Catamount plan does) to assume basic coverage for uncovered Vermonters. This gives you a dramatically larger revenue base from which to build a coverage pool for the uninsured, and sufficient resources to have the state implement it directly, rather than farm it out to a commercial payer. By the time the transition is over, we zero out remaining profits (the state shouldn’t be in the for-profit business) by passing on savings to the ratepayers, businesses, and physicians by actually bringing DOWN premiums.

That’s the abstract. Somebody gimme some money to fund a study and I’ll hash out the details. In the meantime, to flesh that out a little bit, I see it playing out in the following order of steps:

1. First, freeze all current private insurance plans with the understanding they will be discontinued within one year. Within that time, require all providers (doctors and hospitals) to convert to electronic medical records. The state should then enter into a partnership with an established commercial “practice management” software provider (no, it doesn’t have to be IDX!) to refit their system to centrally receive, convert and process insurance claims under all the current plans and communicate with the current payers. Collect all existing coverage information into a central database.

2. Once coverage and patient data is centralized, cancel all private insurance and assume the responsibility for all existing, catalogued plans at the state level. All providers will be submitting patient claims to this centralized system, but the insured and their employers will be paying the same rates and receiving the same plan. From the current health care consumer’s standpoint (both individuals and employers), transitioning them into the system should be seamless. There is, of course, profit taking in the system currently, so just transferring the system of premiums and provider recoupment to the state will also transfer those profits, helping to fund the system. The state should put some initial money into a pool to keep the system solvent long enough for the revenue to start flowing.

3. After a comprehensive analysis, settle on a system of a limited amount of coverage plans (much like a for-profit insurance company) that mirror Medicare and Medicaid plans for uniformity, since those forms are dictated to some extent by the federal government. Simplifying and streamlining plans to mirror the federal programs’ systems will also make it simpler for the newly created (and only modestly-sized) State Patient Accounts Division to be the go-between between Medicare and Medicaid eligible patients and the federal government for payment. Fold current users into the new plan that most resembles the commercial plan they are leaving behind and offer uninsured residents their choice of plans with a sliding-scale premium based on their ability to pay.

4. Conduct a parallel process with physician malpractice coverage, with an eye towards a rapid phase in of premiums that truly reflect an overall revenue-neutral, cost/benefit survey on the real costs of supporting malpractice insurance based on historical projections of payouts (I guarantee you such an analysis focusing on Vermont and without a profit incentive or excessive overhead would generate a FAR lower premium for physicians – bringing down what is often cited as the number one spiraling cost on physicians end of the equation). Malpractice costs are an often overstated, but nevertheless very real source of spiraling costs. In fact it seems to be every bit the racket that much of the health insurance industry is. Taking over malpractice insurance at the state level and implementing it with a zero-profit, realistic cost-benefit analysis is therefore critical to the overall goal of controlling helath costs in the state so that any Vermont single payer plan can be predictable and sustainable. In the interest of bringing down costs, drug re-importation also becomes a priority, which is yet another way that implementing such a plan could put the state on a collision course with the feds. Sometimes it’s worth playing chicken though.

Once the data is centralized, a market “going rate” analysis can also be made of what current employers can reasonably be expected to pay into a system, based on a snapshot study of what businesses were paying into commercial plans at the time the transition started. A fair rate for a business premium can be based on this analysis, and should also be based on business’s ability to pay.

Finally, a generic “bare bones” coverage plan can exist for all those that aren’t reached to choose their own plan option (emergency cases), and charges to such patients can be submitted under a “dummy account” to the state, pending proof of residence (as defined by the legislature under the plan).

5. Savings from lower emergency room services, lower paperwork and administrative overhead (providers’ patient accounts personnel resources can likely be reduced by 50-100%) can be used to boost the coverage pool for catastrophic conditions and the sliding premium scale.

Under this approach, there are no new expense increases for the consumer – simply a redirection — and the draconian increases in coverage hitting individuals, employers, and local property taxpayers annually will all but vanish.

There would be bumps in the road of course, not the least of which being confidentiality and privacy concerns. But if nothing else, weary legislators and policy advocates could take heart from this example and not give into cynicism. Obviously working out the details and passing such a plan would be a Herculean task.

But not an impossible one.

Your turn.

[Crossposted at What’s the Point?]

Any of you regular readers of the Vermont political blogosphere probably haven’t missed the ubiquitous, mercurial and entertaining Haik Bedrosian‘s full-on attack against PoliticsVT, claiming that it’s a tool of the Tarrant Senate campaign.

Now, I’ve long admired Haik since the time he ran for Mayor of Burlington while still in high school. And since Haik’s been wondering why nobody seems to want to pay attention to his campaign, I thought I’d show him some respect by taking the time to offer my views on this. So here they are…

Because of the long ago launch of PoliticsVT in January of 2005, and the overall blandly non-partisan tone of PoliticsVT, I think most people regard Haik’s claim as self-evidently absurd. And knowing Haik’s penchant for Andy Kaufman-like absurdity, it seemed to most – or at least to me – to be an elaborate bit of political theater with the possible intent to coax the Dead Guvz into outing themselves, just on principle.

So, I’ve been waiting for the punchline, though I’m no longer so sure it’s going to come.

And even though I seriously doubt Haik’s claims, who knows, he may be right. Regardless, he should certainly be commended for trying to shine some light on the activities of the Hayes Group.

I also think the timing of this effort has been a bit unfortunate for Haik, too.

See, it comes oddly at a time when a certain self-promoting bottom feeder (no link is deserved and this person will hereby be referred to as "Bottom Feeder"), who’s trying to make a name for himself by aggressively deriding others (and, in the process, walking right up to the edge of Frisching himself) has arrived on the scene. Further, through back channels, I’ve come to find out that both Haik and Bottom Feeder have allegedly used similar threats of "war" in private emails to their targets.

This had led at least one person I know to suggest, half-seriously, that Bottom Feeder might really be Haik’s own version of Andy Kaufman’s, obnoxious alter-ego, Tony Clifton. But, since there’s really nothing very similar in their writing styles, I doubt strongly that this is the case.

But a better question may be this:

Instead of PoliticsVT, is it Haik Bedrosian and Bottom Feeder who are on Rich Tarrant’s pay roll?

Let’s try this thought experiment…

Haik’s correct when he says that the Dean campaign, the recent Mayoral race in Burlington, and the Lamont/Lieberman primary are proof of how "powerful" the blogging community can be. And he’s correct that the  Tarrant campaign would be keeping an eye on this power.

But, here’s the thing, blogging seems to largely be a power base on the left…

Instead of putting money into something so non-threatening as PoliticsVT, would it not make more sense to insert a few instigators into Vemont’s blog world, who launch vulgar attacks and make seemingly crazy claims, to try to undercut the legitimacy of the netroots’ efforts and help to negate its influence? A sort of virtual version of the FBI’s infiltration of peace groups in order to stir up trouble?

And how can we square Haik’s staunch support for Bernie with his pro-Douglas inclinations? Suspicious disconnect, eh?

OK, I don’t really think Haik’s a Republican mole (or Bottom Feeder, either, for that matter). But, I think, it makes more sense to me than the PoliticsVT angle.

I do wonder, though, that at a time when we political bloggers have made some headway in being taken seriously – what with the Bloggers BBQ and the online Lt. Governor’s debate drawing coverage in print and on TV and radio – there could likely be some interest in trying to cut our legs out from under us before we have a chance to do something more politically significant.

But, who really knows what’s real and not real the wild west of the net?

Maybe, just maybe, Haik knows more than us all.

By Meteor Blades
[crossposted with permission from DailyKos]

I sure wish I were in Vermont this week. I could join writer/environmentalist/deep thinker Bill McKibben and whoever else shows up for a four-day walk seeking to kindle federal action against global warming.

Billed as “The Road Less Traveled, Vermonters Walking Toward a Clean Energy Future,” the march will begin Thursday noon at Robert Frost’s old writing cabin near Ripton, stop in cities along the way for Conversations on the Green, and end 43 miles up the road in Burlington. Knowing McKibben’s work and the kind of people he attracts, I imagine those are going to be eye-opening conversations for participants and bystanders alike, a traveling teach-in, if you will. You can get a taste of this in my five-question interview with McKibben below.

Many here, I know, downplay the value of a public demonstration, even public action of any kind outside the realm of lawsuits and legislation. Sooooo ’60s, they say. Doesn’t work anymore. If it ever really did. I couldn’t disagree more. Perhaps the reason people say this comes from their being so comprehensively saturated with a megamedia caricature of the era. They don’t believe most or any of what the megamedia tells them about the times they themselves live in, but they accept as gospel what’s been told them regarding one of the periods of greatest social change since the Civil War.

The public intellectuals and other activists who spurred that change worked inside and outside the governing system, using whatever megaphone seemed proper at the moment to capture public attention and increase the pressure on public policy. What you mostly hear about that era today is the media-mediated version, a distorted fraction of the story. That’s not my way of trying to sanctify the “protest” movements or say that we made no mistakes, no strategic blunders, or engaged in no counterproductive activism. Surely, we did more than enough of that and were paid for it with half-victories and outright defeats, some of them long-lasting. But, please, most of the focus, even most of the public events, had nothing to do grubby street demonstrations.

Rather, in every case, the change process began with bits of information transmitted among family, neighbors, classmates and work peers. These conversations led to little groups which made phone calls, worked for candidates, vigiled, lobbied, wrote, did research, and organized public events dedicated to spreading the message of change to others who would themselves spread the message. The organizing got bigger, the conversation wider, the building of political clout more coherent and powerful. Then came the changes … or not.

That is what the Vermont march is about. Talking forcefully in public with an eye toward changing public policy. An  essential catalyst. As McKibben notes in my interview with him, he’s thinking the noise from the “The Road Less Traveled” – along with Al Gore’s film and other actions – will spread nationwide, virally, and “assemble a crowd under the noses of the media.” In the old days, this depended on word-of-mouth. It still does. But now it’s word-of-mouth amplified with broadband and other accouterments of wwwLand that neither the government nor the megamedia have (so far) reined in.

It was 16 years ago that I read McKibben’s The End of Nature. Together that year with the resurrection of Earth Day on its 20th anniversary, his book spurred me to – as Mister Bush would say – spend some political capital and pressure my bosses at the Los Angeles Times to underwrite a syndicated weekly package of environmental articles called Earth Matters. It lasted at the Times as long as I did, 12 years.

Enhanced with McKibben’s signature eloquence, The End of Nature  was the first popular book to demonstrate that one species, allegedly the smartest species ever to appear on Earth, had reached a critical threshold, a point of irrevocably changing the planet’s environment, including its atmosphere. A decade and a half later, more people are paying attention, but, as McKibben points out in his invitation to join the walk:

…leadership has been sorely lacking: even as the science around global warming has grown steadily darker, the political appointees at the head of the Environmental Protection Agency have declared that in their eyes carbon dioxide is “not a pollutant.” The Congress has decided that all legislation addressing this issue must pass through a committee chaired by a man, James Imhofe, who calls global warming “a hoax.” And so–in this warmest year on record across the United States–we walk to ask that this logjam be broken. Our hope is that just as in the past Vermont has spurred action on other issues, so too this example will lead others across the country to increase the pressure.

Here are McKibben’s answers to my five questions:

Meteor Blades: Why Vermont? Wouldn’t a walk and talk along the route from Baltimore to DC have more impact?

  McKibben: Well, the short answer is that Vermont is where I live, and so, where I can organize. But the great hope is precisely that if we can make some noise up here the idea will spread quickly to other spots.  Correct me if I’m wrong, but there’s yet to be a real large-scale protest movement that gets spread virally in the Internet age (although the Seattle WTO protests owed part of their potency to the fact that this then-little-understood medium helped organizers assemble a crowd under the noses of the media). In fact, even in the last few weeks I’ve had emails from around the country asking for advice.

  Anyway, though I suspect our [Vermont] legislators would mostly vote the right way anyway on global warming, we want them to understand that their constituents need them to be champions on this issue.

  Meteor Blades: I know you were an early adopter of hybrid car technology. And I suspect your house is heavily insulated and the refrigerator filled with locally grown food. But one attitude I’ve encountered time and again is that solving global warming is such a huge issue that nothing individuals can do will make a difference, so why bother?  Any advice on how to break through the stubbornness?

  McKibben: It’s hard to break through that idea because, frankly, there’s a deep mathematical logic to it. Individual action is a kind of calisthenics before the big event, which must be political. Only the kind of massive change that can be brought about through national (and, even harder, international) policy will really suffice to reduce the flow of carbon into the atmosphere. So the key is summoning political will – and the very act of coming together in a march, say, to demand that kind of action will help us to start feeling politically powerful again.

  I wrote the very first general book about global warming, way back in 1989, and I’ve been working on it ever since. The science has grown grimmer in the past few years as we understand just how fast we’re unhinging the Earth’s system. There remains time to do something about global warming (not avert it, but keep it from getting any worse than it has to be), but we need very quickly to seize that moment. And I think that right now – because of Katrina, because of Gore’s movie, because of our hot summer – is the best opening we’ve had in two decades.

  Meteor Blades: If you rubbed a compact fluorescent bulb and the Eco-Genie popped out to offer you one wish – passage of a single piece of narrowly focused global warming legislation – what would you ask for?

  McKibben: I think the rapid phase-in of a 40 mpg average for new cars. Because the technology is there to do it easily, because it would demonstrate to us that the change in our sacred lifestyles will be very small at first – and because it will give everyone the added benefit of saving some money on gas. Unless you drive a hybrid, you can’t believe the number of people who sidle up to you at a gas station and ask some longing questions about exactly how far it goes on a tank of gas.

  And after that I’d work my way down Energize America 2020‘s list of policies. I just wrote an overview article for Sierra magazine on our energy situation, and described that joint effort as the single most impressive package of energy policy anyone has yet concocted.

  Meteor Blades: Some people, including long-time environmental critics, are saying that nuclear power can, at the very least, provide a transition that will buy us time to come up with other technologies to reduce or eliminate human-made greenhouse gases. Do you agree? 

  McKibben: Here’s what I think: nuclear power is a potential safety threat, if something goes wrong. Coal-fired power is guaranteed destruction, filling the atmosphere with planet-heating carbon when it operates the way it’s supposed to. I don’t mean to minimize the danger of a reactor; I do mean to use that danger to highlight the awesome peril posed by our conventional means of generating electricity. (And there are 150 new coal plants on the books in some stage or another).

  That said, nuclear power is not where I’d turn first, or second, or even third. The reason is economics – without massive government subsidy it doesn’t work because it’s an inherently expensive technology, rather like burning twenty-dollar bills to generate electricity. All the econometric modeling not paid for by the nuclear industry itself makes clear that if you spent a billion dollars on a nuclear plant and a billion dollars on some conservation program, you’d get three or four or five times the carbon bang for your buck. So – before nuclear power, efficient appliances, heavy-duty insulation, real attention to mass transit, and also an all-out commitment to renewables, especially wind, which are much closer to cost-competitive. And no one ever spent the night worrying that a terrorist was about to smash their wind tower, spreading dangerous wind particles in every direction.

  Meteor Blades: What kind of useful advice does a small-town/rural family like yours have for us urban dwellers?

  McKibben: City dwellers, depending on how they live, are already the greenest Americans. New York City, because it’s the least car-dependent city in the country, is our environmental champion in many ways. I think the biggest changes are needed where the majority of Americans live – i.e., the suburbs, a landscape that only sprung up because of cheap energy, and which will take real work to transform. The kind of semi-intact small towns and local economies that Vermont and some other rural places still possess are useful models – at least, that’s one of the theses of my next book.

  But the real lesson, and the one I hope this march will highlight, is that the technology we need above all is the technology of community. Vermont still has town meeting government – we’re reasonably good at talking with each other. It’s one reason lots of experiments have come out of this state: the nuclear freeze movement of the 1980s, for instance, or for that matter, the Dean campaign. It’s not that we’re so liberal (we have a conservative governor; we’ve lost more people per capita in Iraq than any other state). But I think we’re still pretty good at community, which is the underlying necessity for a more efficient and happier country. At root, dealing with global warming will mean sanding the edges off of some of America’s hyperindividualism – and perhaps that will be just a little easier out in the country.

Most of us can’t be in Vermont over the Labor Day Weekend. Right now, many are desperately ensconced in getting more Democrats into Congress and getting rid of the likes of California Representative Richard Pombo and Montana Senator Conrad Burns. But, as McKibben points out in his August 24 Op-Ed, Finally, fired up over global warming:

We’ve lobbied hard in state houses and city halls to get local action for change. But it’s not adding up to anywhere near enough – and the reason is clear. Washington, unlike every other capital in the developed world, simply won’t do anything.

  {snip}

  It’s not as if changing the party in power will automatically change the outcome, either. The Clinton administration did little to tackle climate change; most Democrats would probably be all too willing to sign onto some limp compromise like the bill introduced in 2003 by Senators John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Joseph Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, even though the march of science in the years since it was introduced makes clear the inadequacy of its minuscule cuts in carbon. If we lock into some weak regimen now, it may be years before Congress will take up the issue again.

In other words, once we get those new Democrats elected, we need to make them pay attention and do something – soon – about what could be the most transformative issue of our age. That will take a lot more leg work.

If you’re in the neighborhood, stop by and walk with the Vermonters for a while. If you can’t, < a href="http://vtwalc.org/">click on the donation tab at their Web site and send them some sugar. Whether you can or can’t do either of those, send an e-mail to your family and friends with a link to McKibben’s Op-Ed or to this Diary.

“Privatize the school system, put in school vouchers and push out the NEA”

– Paul Beaudry, host of True North Radio on WDEV, in response to a caller last week

Despite the Democratic Control of Vermont’s legislature, the overwhelming stranglehold on all three branches of government currently enjoyed by the GOP at the federal level has made right wing activists feel empowered. As of a result of that feeling, we are witnessing a refreshing, yet disturbing honesty from more and more of the right wing base. Hard-core republicans feel less and less obliged to couch their true goals in the rhetoric of moderation, as demonstrated by the quote above. Any who’ve listened to Beaudry knows that he is a veritable font of these kinds of sentiments.

And the above sentiment does us all the favor of removing the fig leaf of moderate pretense behind much of the perennial school and teacher bashing that goes on – rhetoric that is blossoming in light of the excessive property tax burdens homeowners are struggling under. It reminds us of the true goals of many on the right – that is, the elimination of the public school system.

When this crowd attacks, it usually starts with a consensus, emotional point that gets heads wagging before they go nuclear – and nuclear they go. A case-in-point is the recent war of words launched against Chittenden County Democratic Senator Jim Condos by our old reliable favorite, the Caledonian (Broken) Record. Check the link for the exchange…

This is a bit old now – from back in July, actually. But it was brought to my attention. Interestingly, it doesn’t seem to be on the Broken Record’s site anymore, so here’s a generic link to the website before I reprint the copy saved by Sen. Condos (and remember, this is the Caledonian Broken Record we’re talking about – no mere “conservatives” like WCAX or the Randolph Herald – this is the flagship paper of the angry right – the Take-Back-Vermontists):

Recently, Sen. James Condos, D-Chittenden, wrote an op-ed article that assured us all that we had nothing to fear from higher property taxes, despite the alarming rise in the cost of education, even in the face of declining student populations. Condos’ piece was a textbook example of political double-talk. He talked all about the furniture in the education living room, but not at all about the bear, in fact, two bears * no, three bears standing in the middle of the room.

Condos cited the small reduction in tax rates accomplished by the Democratic-controlled legislature as a time to celebrate lower taxes. He didn’t say a word about the huge increase in property assessments all over Vermont. That’s the first bear in the living room. Do the math. A $100,000 house with a tax rate of $2 will be taxed $2,000. The same house whose new assessment is $150,000, taxed at a ten-cent lower rate of $1.90 will produce a tax bill of $2,850. Same house, lower tax rate, higher assessment, $850 more bucks.

Condos goes on to, though, to state that most taxpayers’ bills won’t go up, because everybody whose household income is under $75,000 will get a prebate large enough to absorb any increase in property taxes. That’s the second bear in the living room. Prebates remove any sense of responsibility for higher taxes from the people who get them. That’s what Condos and his
Democratic colleagues call “income sensitivity.” If getting a tax rebate when you’re making up to $75,000 a year is income sensitivity, a bull in a china store is a ballet dancer.

Condos and his ideological soul mate, Sen. Don Collins, D-Franklin, are pushing hard to add two more grades to the public school roles, 4 and 5
year-olds in pre-kindergarten. That’s the third bear in the living room. That expansion of the public school system will cost tens of millions of dollars every year, yet, wherever it has been tried, it has failed to improve kids’ performance. In fact, of the ten highest scoring states on national assessment tests, none offers universal pre-school, while two of the lowest scoring states both have long-standing pre-school programs.

So, why is Condos pushing his line of blather? Quite simply, his most important constituency is the Vermont NEA, the teachers union. They wear him like a lapel pin, and when they say, “Jump!” he asks, “How high?” All three bears, if Vermonters are convinced by Condos, guarantee job security and continuing dues to unions.

Condos response, which was printed in the paper (and does still appear on their site…odd):

Your recent editorial, the title of which might as well have been “Jim Condos and the Three Bears,” repeats the same tired misstatements that right wing ideologues have been making about me, and about public education, for some time now. You would do your readers a service if, before printing as your own, work off of misleading websites, you would at least have a conversation with me about these important issues – which, by the way, you have never done!

First, about property taxes. You almost got this right – please remember, the changes to Act 60 which evolved into Act 68 were the brainchild of the 2003 GOP-controlled House and Governor Douglas. And, frankly, I also believe property taxes are too high and we need to develop a better method of funding.  It is true that Democratic majorities in both House/Senate supported the Governor’s December 2005 recommend, implementing a decrease in the statewide property tax rate. That should be greeted well b in his budget to INCREASE property taxes on Vermonters with his $+17 million  proposal to raid the Ed Fund for transportation dollars and a bailout of the state’s failure to properly fund the teacher’s retirement fund. Also, in your editorial, you make up a 50% increase in the assessment of a mythical house. While there probably are rare examples of house values spiking like that, this is hardly a common example. As the real estate market cools down – and that is happening even as I write – it will become apparent that tax bills will also moderate as well. The fact is, though, that property tax bills WILL be some 10% lower as a result of the Legislature’s work than they otherwise would be.

Next, you moan on, inaccurately, about “income sensitivity” and “prebates.” How can you not know that the amount all school tax payers pay, whether on the basis of their income or property value, is related directly to how much they and their neighbors choose to spend in their own school district? It is basic to the law’s arithmetic: the more a district chooses to spend, the more every taxpayer pays – if school district spending is higher than what the state provides per pupil, as is the case virtually everywhere in the state. Please try to get a handle on this basic aspect of Vermont’s law: everyone pays in proportion to spending, but those below certain household income levels have the choice of paying on the basis of their property value or their income, whichever results in a lower tax bill. By the way, you and the Governor rail on about an expansion of the income sensitivity (a law the Governor signed in a previous year) – the percentage of Vermonters receiving income sensitivity is roughly the same as when Act 60 was first implemented.

And, you’ve bought into the gibberish about my support for “two more grades to the public schools.” Wrong, plain wrong. Current law, unchanged in the years since I’ve been a Senator, in fact, enables school districts to make use of education funds to provide early education for 3 and 4 year olds, either in the school or with private providers. This policy pays for only 10 hours per week of pre-school services either in a school or with a private provider – hardly adding grades.  I have no idea what – or whose – statistics you’re using purporting to attach low test scores to states offering “long-standing pre-school programs.” Vermont has long-standing pre-school programs. Sound and truly scientific research over the past several decades tells us the critical importance to student achievement of greater attention to brain development during what are now pre-school years. That’s why almost every state is discussing this very important issue and why we, in the House/Senate Education Committees, continue doing so on behalf of all Vermonters. Alarmist rhetoric, and plain, purposefully bad math by some who just don’t like the fact that we offer education as a fundamental public service have misled some providers and, apparently, you into believing there is a conspiracy to raid the taxpayers and shut down existing private providers of early education.

Just plain nonsense!

Finally, I don’t “jump” at the behest of any group in the state. I suggest that, someday anyway, you actually engage in a conversation with the folks at Vermont-NEA – they represent working Vermonters. You might find some mutual interest in the welfare of our kids, our communities, and our state.

Senator Condos does a good job of shining a light on all the nonsense, while acknowledging that the only salient point in there – that property taxes are too damn high – is valid.

But that’s the point – that it is nonsense – nonsense built around an emotional truism: the property taxes are just too much of a burden. But this is the strategy of the Take-Back-Vermontists these days. You press an emotional button to get a sympathetic response, and then you just start saying everything and anything that will build you to your ultimate thesis. And that thesis is inevitable a purely reactionary and radically conservative one.

In this instance, the CBR gets emotional resonance with property taxes, and then its off to the races to get to their real point – that the teachers’ union (which is, of course to say, the teachers) is evil, and the Democrats are their willing slaves, out to destroy and corrupt our children and gleefully prey on Vermont taxpayers. How they get from point A to point B hardly matters. So what if the steps of their so-called “reasoning” aren’t sound (such as, you know, misrepresenting the law, or conveniently leaving out the Republicans that must also be in the thrall of their union masters) – there’s just too much rhetorical ground to cover to get all the way to crazyland in just three paragraphs to spend much time sweating the details.

Senator Condos does a good job in refusing to let the matter go unchallenged (presumably the CBR fingered Senators on the other side of the state as to stay under their target’s radar…nice try), but we should never forget that the CBR and the Take-Back-Vermontists are not interested in debate. If they were, they’d get their facts straight. What they are interested in is a crude sort of arch-right thuggish orthodoxy that – among other things – demands (not simply advocates – demands) we “privatize the school system, put in school vouchers and push out the NEA.”

I strongly recommend a few minutes of True North from time to time for anyone who needs a reminder of that.