(cross-posted to Vermont Watch, here)

Yesterday, during his interview on Vermont Public Radio (VPR) VT Edition (here) and in defence of Governor Peter Shumlin‘s budget cuts to human service programs, it was rather disheartening to listen to Agency of Human Services (AHS) Secretary Doug Racine make the veiled threat of going before the state legislature to offer alternative cuts to other programs they would find even more unacceptable than the ones already offered.

This would of course merely serve as a Hobson’s choice of sorts in terms of being a way to try to get the state legislature to accept the budget cuts to human service programs offered within Governor Shumlin’s budget or else.

This was a tactic often employed by the Douglas administration and is pure Douglas 2.0 on the part of the current administration. Shame on them!

As far as making other recommendations of what to do in terms of attempting to address the FY2012 budget shortfall, my own recommendations can be found, here (via vtdigger).

However, looking on the brighter side of things, it just warms the heart to know how much as well as how hard the Governor and his administration has been working on one of his recent top priorities in ensuring that small amounts of real maple sugar will be offered with servings of Fruit and Maple Oatmeal at McDonald restaurants located within Vermont (*updated*).

How sweet it is! — save for anyone who is diabetic or whom otherwise must refrain from consuming added sugars and the like.