As if he planned it all along Governor Phil Scott is getting his veto showdown and possible government shutdown.
In May a budget bill was passed in the Senate with tri-partisan unanimous support. Since that time the legislature has offered up a number of responsible alternatives and possibilities for compromise with the Governor. All of them were rejected.
And on July 1st – if no budget agreement is made – we face a government shutdown. Funding for state colleges, state police, state parks, Medicaid programs, food stamps, Department of Motor Vehicle services and more would be in jeopardy, and closures are definitely a possibility. Vermont State treasurer Beth Pierce has warned repeatedly that this upheaval would damage the state’s cherished credit rating.
And now as if on cue, Scott’s re-election campaign has jumped in with both feet and sent around an email to his followers charging: “A small number of extremist Democrat and Progressive party leaders, and their political allies, are trying to scare Vermonters about a government shutdown,” the mailer said. “Don’t believe them.”
Scott’s campaign spokesperson, Brittney Wilson, said “legislative leaders are trying to startle Vermonters with a government shutdown, which is very unlikely and being used as a scare tactic.”
Here’s a question Vermonters might want to ponder as Governor Scott prints out his “VETO” bumper stickers for re-election: Who else governs this way? And do we want it here in Vermont?
Maybe it is time or even past time for the popular notion that we have a special “Vermont way” of “doing” politics be laid to rest. Thanks Phil, for bringing brinkmanship and a taste of conflict induced dysfunction to Vermont government.
“Maybe it is time or even past time for the popular notion that we have a special “Vermont way” of “doing” politics be laid to rest.”
Or maybe it’s just time (or past time) to vote against those who have either forgotten or never understood the Vermont way.
It is at least worth noting — it’s the hidden premise of your whole article — that Scott is doing something we have NOT seen before in Vermont. Becca Balint points out in a Reformer column today that the entire Vermont Senate “took the perhaps unprecedented step of unanimously passing a resolution to rebuke a member of the governor’s team for publicly disparaging the JFO. Every senator present, regardless of political party, voted to support this resolution.”
We should not normalize what the governor and his team are doing by suggesting that there is no Vermont way. There is, but he’s clearly chosen another path.
I wish I believed he would pay for that choice. I suppose a fella can dream …
Once broken it’s tough one to put things back the way they were.
I’m not as sure of that as you are. In particular, the senate’s unanimous action suggests otherwise to me.
So far, Scott’s supporters are rallying around his message, but I’ve seen few signs of any support for tactics. If we begin to hear Scott supporters praising his style, praising the need to “break it in order to fix it,” then I’ll agree with you. On the national level, it broke a long time ago, and only goes from bad to worse, and Trump is (hopefully) the last straw in the progression.
One final comment. It will be hard to judge this, because Scott is highly favored to win re-election in any case. The mere fact of his winning will be used by some as proof of your thesis, but I don’t think that’s a reasonable conclusion. In the (alas) unlikely event that he loses, we would have a pretty clear clue as to the answer.