As many of you may know, Democracy For America (DFA) is our nation’s largest progressive political action community, which has its headquarter’s right here in VT. DFA is looking for people in the Burlington area who would be willing to host interns. We have interns who come from all around the country to come help, but often times we have to turn away great candidates, because we do not have housing for them.

This is where you come in. We need people to host interns. Some interns are here for a month, others are here for 3 months. They are responsible for food and living expenses, all they need is a place to sleep.

These interns are vital to our success and we would love for you to help us out.

If interested, please contact us at intern@democracyforamerica.com

I’ve talked before about the difference between price and cost: it’s easy to look at the ticket price of something: you can find a cheaper food source, but the health benefits of that cheaper food source may be more poor, so the actual value of the food is not as good, and its overall cost may end up being higher due to poorer health resulting.

So I’m going to make another push here for local business and local purchasing.

Before I begin, let me note that I can be a hypocrite about this: I purchase books from amazon.com and the few books I’ve self-published have gone through a service in another state.  The CDs I’ve produced have been printed out of state and the new CD I’m working on will be a digital-only release, so locality is meaningless in that case.  There are a lot of reasons for these choices, primarily tied in with simplicity and convenience.  I rarely step in a physical bookstore any longer, even though when I do, I am often rewarded.  It’s a hobby of mine to do arrangements of old (17th – 19th century) tunes that are in public domain and I often find old books of sheet music at these bookstores.  I just rarely make the time to go looking for them.  I include this to explain that this post is not about chiding or cajoling, but about thinking through what we pay for and how.

But when it comes to produce, to foodstuff, we do our best to stay local, for multiple reasons:

1. local food tends to be fresher and, therefore, healthier;


2. food shipped locally does not require as many preservatives;


3. food supplied locally does not require nearly the shipping cost and, therefore…


4. …local food has a significantly lower carbon footprint.

So here’s what I find interesting.  If you visit this page, a part of the Vermont Department of Agriculture’s web site, you’ll see this logo:

But when you look at some of the specifics, you find the following:

The food supplier for the Waterbury state office building, the Waterbury correctional facility and the Pittsford Police Academy is Fitz Vogt and Associates.  

Though Fitz Vogt does have a Rutland location, their corporate HQ is in Walpole, NH.  

The Department of Corrections also has a contract to provide consulting for menu support and facility inspections.  Aside from the question of why that job couldn’t be done in-house, that contract appears to be with Around the Corner Catering (I’m not certain of this, but it looks likely, as they’re listed as “Corner Catering”).  Around the Corner is located in Pulteney, NY.

So I’m just making a simple proposal here: when we do business with an outside company to provide services for the State of Vermont, we should make it a priority to see to it that, whenever possible, those providing those services will be paying taxes on the profits they make on those transactions that go back into the state of Vermont’s coffers.   This isn’t about the services provided by these companies.  It’s about where are money is going and what the cost to those services are.

This isn’t a complicated concept, but I have a simple question: when our state government does business with private entities, is it cost effective to go with the cheapest provider of services we can find if their profits will not be used to pay Vermont state taxes?

Or, to put it another way, what’s the profit to getting our services from out of state when we could, instead, pay Vermont businesses?

I keep hearing about how we’re pushing businesses out of the state due to regulations and taxes, without any cogent argument to support this claim.  What I’m suggesting is that there are ways we can seriously support our local businesses that don’t involve lowering taxes and lowering support for services.

At this particular moment, the state has some very big ticket projects, the profits of which are going to the coffers of states some distance from Vermont.  Take, for example, the primary textbook vendor for Community College of Vermont.  This is a company called EdMap.  

Let me be clear: this post has nothing to do with the quality of service provided by EdMap.  It’s about the location of the company and whether or not it’s a good idea to have a company which is located in Nelsonville, OH

If you've been reading here or watching the news, you know that Douglas is trying to have it all his way, as in his way or the highway. We've started to see some alternate points of view being raised, but he's still had the bulk of the coverage.

Tomorrow is another chance to hear another voice. Paul Cillo was a great legislator from Hardwick until he was voted out in the “Take Back Vermont” civil union backlash. He's now the President and Executive Director of the Public Assets Institute, which is working on providing public policy and advocacy resources for Vermonters, right now primarily in the area of health care, education, and family economic security.

 Listen to Paul tomorrow on Vermont Edition, either on your radio or online, and get a different view of Douglas's neo-Hooverism.