Good grief. Douglas has made the choice for wavering lawmakers on whether or not to override his coming veto on the budget an easy one – whether those waverers are on the right or on the left. At least if they’re capable of paying attention.

For the left, this budget opens up on the full spectrum – medicare, education, the safety net (including welfare-to-work programs), more people thrown out of work – with Secretary of Administration Waylon Smithers Neale Lunderville justifying it with defensive, ideological cries of just how good all those poor, sick and unemployed folks have had it in Vermont for so long.

For the left and the right (and everyone in between) is the incomprehensible raid on the education fund and the massive shift of the burden to local communities. According to a press release from Appropriations Chairs Bartlett and Heath (emphasis added), “Governor Douglas is burdening an average $1,100 property tax increase on 13,000 middle income families. In fact, the actual impact on individual Vermont families could be as high as $8,000” (yes, I am a tapped-out property taxpayer, if that helps explain my ire this morning).

It begs the question as to whether or not Douglas is simply declaring war, not just on public schools, but on local government itself. This huge shift in the burden would simply be more than could be absorbed, even if they cut like fiends. This is not just Grover Norquist’s plan “to get (government) down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub”, this is tying an anvil around local government’s ankle and tossing it into the Mariana Trench. There is no way the result won’t be both a massive local tax increase as well as a virtual collapse of local and school services as we’ve known them. No politician – Democrat, Republican, Progressive, or Independent – wants to face their constituents after that depth charge hits.

Oh yes, and even more tax cuts for the wealthy then we’re already stuck with.

Of course, expect the usual suspects – Emerson Lynn, Vermont Tiger, and the one-bad-day-away-from-joining-a-militia editorial squad at the Caledonian Record to fall all over themselves stroking the Governor and using Wealth of Nations Cliff Notes they don’t really understand to sound smart in uncritically backing him up. This GOP Public Relations squad does its job well.

But the fact is, that the striking thing about this so-called budget can be summed up in one word, and its not “ideological,” – it’s incompetent. Jim Douglas dragged his feet on putting forward an alternative (as opposed to throwing out vague, half-baked ideas and trash-talking Dems) for months, and now we know why.

Because he’s in way over his head. This “budget,” coming as it is during a monumental financial downturn, would do to this state what his pal Bush did to the nation and the world; leave it (and us) in an economic shambles.

There is no further compromise to be had with incompetence. There are little PR gimmes included in the proposal, such as an increase in cigarette taxes, designed to make it possible to sell this to friendly news outlets as a “compromise” from the Governor (a “compromise” to a budget that is already far more of a compromise than many of us wanted to see in the first place).

Take the veto and do what it takes to override.

UPDATE: The following letter went to the Governor from the Legislative leadership:

Dear Governor Douglas:

Yesterday we received copies of your revised budget proposal.  In the coming weeks, we intend to give due diligence to your ideas outlined in the proposal.  Therefore, we respectfully request that you direct your staff to submit your new budget in bill form to us no later than Friday, May 29.  The actual language of your proposal is critical for all of our members and our staff to fully understand and evaluate your proposal.

Thank you in advance for the attention of your staff to this matter and please know that our doors remain open to you and your ideas.

Sincerely,

Representative Shap Smith                                          Senator Peter Shumlin

Speaker of the House                                                 Senate President Pro Tem

ROFL!! Douglas clearly has commitment issues.