Shummy pats himself and his Democratic majority on the back:

As the whole country waits to see if Congress can come to a budget agreement before the current spending bill ends at midnight, we can’t help but notice the stark difference between Washington and Vermont. Our budget woes are no less difficult than those faced by our U.S Representatives and Senators. In fact, Vermont is faced with the task of cutting a larger percentage of our budget.

…

We as a state have had to make a bigger reduction, yet Vermont does not have a government shutdown looming. We are not months late in passing a budget. In fact, our budget is moving through the legislative approval process quite smoothly. Sure there has been debate out how much to cut and where. That is inevitable when you are facing the type of tough spending choices we’ve had to make this year. 

What's missing from his post?  The same exact thing at the national level: honest discussion of revenues.

I don't see an appreciable difference between DC and Montpelier when our Democratic leadership is failing to ask the wealthiest of the wealthy to kick in their proportion to safeguard necessary state services for the rest of us.  I'm going to be a broken record on this through the 2012 campaign and suggest we follow Republican Governor Richard Snelling's lead.  We can start by raising the top marginal rate instead of kowtowing to a few hundred rich folks who stomp their feet and threaten to leave their communities in the lurch.

Save the self-congratulatory posts for when we see real courage on taxation.

ntodd