Something old could be new again .Democrats are breaking out of the Douglas budgets cuts only mindset and finding alternatives .This one is particularly interesting because of it’s pedigree.Douglas keeps repeating that raising taxes during a recession will make it deeper and longer yet in 1991 this in combination with other actions was the bi-partisan form of dealing with that financial crisis. I don’t know if Douglas actually supported this action back in 1991 or not.It would be an interesting turn of events for Douglas to have to veto this if it moves forward and comes to that .  

MONTPELIER – A Democratic lawmaker wants to revive the income tax increase that the late Republican Gov. Richard Snelling persuaded lawmakers to enact to help the state cope with a 1991 financial crisis.

Rep. Michael Fisher’s call for consideration of new revenues to help solve the state’s financial crisis comes as the current governor and Legislature have learned that revenues declined precipitously in January – down about $13 million more than economists projected just a few weeks ago.

The plan Fisher resurrected would raise about $40 million, he said. “I’m calling it the Snelling surcharge because it’s not really my idea,” Fisher of Lincoln said. “The bill is really identical to what Snelling did in 1991.”



The legislation would impose a 3-percent surcharge on incomes between $46,700 and $171,950, 6 percent on incomes between $171,500 and $307,050 and 9 percent above $307,050. Fisher offered examples of the tax that would be added: An individual making $46,700 would pay an extra $50. A couple with the same income would pay $66. An individual earning $70,000 would pay $92.

Governor’s Douglas spokesperson responds “For lawmakers to try to apply an 18-year-old patch over a current crisis is really ignoring the uniqueness of this economic downturn,” Dennise Casey said. “It is irresponsible to ask more from Vermonters when they are earning less – especially when we know there are areas of state government that regardless of the economic downturn are growing at unsustainable levels.”

http://www.burlingtonfreepress…

… is apparently, to give Joe the Plumber a job:

You’d think Joe the Plumber’s 15 minutes would be up by now. But , no, after a stint as a correspondent in Israel, he took his act to Capitol Hill today.

The first order of business: giving political advice to conservative Republican staffers at breakfast, which, Wurzelbacher told us, “Went really well.”

His advice, essentially, was to take no prisoners in standing up for their beliefs.

“It’s not politically incorrect to say you’re Republican or conservative,” Joe said. “They need to dig their heels in and fight for what needs to be done.”

And no reason to be subtle, he said, as long as folks inform themselves. “I don’t believe there’s two sides to every story. It’s black and white,” Wurzelbacher explained. “There’s right and wrong.”

One thing that needs to be done, he said, is killing this stimulus package, because it’s just another example of “American government” — Republicans and Democrats — “kicking our butts left and right.” He also called it welfare.

Wow… eloquent and a deep thinker. Who knew?

And yet…

Ben Stein described the brouhaha over his selection as commencement speaker at the University of Vermont as “*laughable*” on Tuesday called the whole episode “*pathetic*.”

So much for “graciously.”

In a phone call to the Free Press on Tuesday, Stein said that describing his views as “antithetical to scientific inquiry” was “a wildly unfair characterization.” He said he was by no means “anti-science,” as some of his critics have described him.

Anyone who follows Scientific American’s 60-second science, knows better.  It quotes Stein from the film “expelled” as quoting Darwin:

“With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. Hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.”

Scientific American, however, continues the Darwin quote, completing it in full:

“The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil.”

Back to Stein from the Free Press:

“Mr. Stein has also expressed opinions on subjects unrelated to economics, most notably with respect to evolutionary theory, intelligent design, and the role of science in the Holocaust,” Fogel said in a statement to the UVM community Monday. “Those views are highly controversial, to say the least.”

Stein called the university’s response to the furor “chicken sh**, and you can quote me on that.”

As for the commencement speech, he said, “I didn’t really want to do it in the first place.”

I’d say this is win-win.

(Ed has the latest with the new NRC report… and it ain’t good.   – promoted by Christian Avard)

That’s the best way I can describe the NRC report released today on the cleanup fund for Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee.

The report ignores the fact that with the falling stock market, the amount in the fund has dropped by 20% since 2007. NRC staff take no notice of the drastic decline in the value of the cleanup fund.

While the report states

Should there be a material decline in the Decommissioning Trust Fund balance, the staff’s analysis and preliminary findings may no longer be valid

Entergy has not yet been required to officially report the dramatic loss in the fund to the NRC. So the NRC pretends that the fund has as much money as before the crash.

More on waste after the jump

By 2011, Entergy Nuclear VY will be storing an amount equal to two pounds of high level nuclear fuel waste per each man, woman and child in Vermont. This is the highest amount of waste per capita of any state in the US.

Entergy wants to use money from the cleanup fund to pay the costs of storing this waste.

Independent expert testimony before the VT State Legislature last week made it clear that the nuclear fuel waste is likely to remain in Vernon forever.

http://rutlandherald.com/artic…

Entergy’s waste storage cost calculations, based on the fiction that all the nuclear waste will be removed by 2042, undermine the NRC staff’s basis for approving Entergy’s funding plan.

When the legislature chooses a safe energy future based on renewable resources, and refuses to allow continued operation of VY after its license expires in 2012, steps must also be taken to ensure that Entergy pays the full cost of cleanup to Vermont standards.

If this weren’t so sad, it would be funny.

OK, it’s funny.

Apparently James Simpson, candidate for Mayor running as a Green, suffers from that same syndrome as men who drive Hummers (see http://www.urbandictionary.com…

Give it a read: http://7d.blogs.com/blurt/2009…

Apparently IBM has a plan.  H/t to Crooks and Liars

Under a program called Project Match, IBM will help workers laid off from domestic sites obtain travel and visa assistance for countries in which Big Blue has openings. Mostly that’s developing markets like India, China, and Brazil.

So here’s the deal: if you work at IBM and are worried about the economy, you shouldn’t be.  Why not?  Because you can get relocated to India, be forced to follow local laws and sell your home in Vermont for rock-bottom prices.

Way to go!

If you woke up on Christmas morning like I did and went to DailyKos, you saw kestrel9000’s (Ed Garcia) “Feed the World” diary at the top of the recommended list, followed by juliewolf’s (Julie Waters) “War.On.Solstice.”

So when I interviewed Ed Garcia recently, I had to lead with that.

good stuff

 The conversation got me thinking a lot about the relationship between the blogging and the radio worlds. I also got to thinking about the relationship between GMD and Dailykos. There’s GMDers I see over there regularly, some occasionally, some not at all. Some GMDers may be over there but use a different screen name.  So….

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