Crossposted @ www.vermontbloggernaut.blogspot.com

So I guess I have a different opinion of what to with the State Of Vermont’s Rainy Day fund. The total I’ve heard tossed around is like $60 million, but I could be wrong. That’s a lot of money when social programs and jobs are being slashed because of budget shortfalls. Should we use up this reserve? I really don’t think it’s time yet.

If the state needs to dip into the fund to do some triage work, that’s one thing. Options and plans are what we need most right now. Some of that money could be used, and wisely so, to keep the state, and some programs running in the interim. But I think to exhaust the fund would be a grave mistake. We have not hit rock bottom yet, and that is when we’ll need the rainy day fund the most!

Maybe make a quarter to a third of the fund available for the next year, but preserve the rest intact. Our turmoil right now is a result of Vermont’s broken system. How we tax, build revenue and provide money to programs and run the state needs to be overhauled. This is obvious, but no one seems to want to take the lead and provide some good foresight. This is why I say use at most only a portion of the fund as a crutch to limp us along into the next year.

We can’t raise the tax burden on people already struggling to get by. At the same time I don’t think we should have to bail out every jerk that’s decided to live beyond their means. It’s no fault of the rest of us. There has to be some sort of balance. I chose to go to college, I chose to hang that noose of of loan payments around my neck. I accept that. Other people with their expensive new cars and enormous homes need to accept they did that to themselves as well.

We as an American, and Vermont society are at an impasse. Free market capitalism has been replaced with social capitalism, as we all shoulder the burden of irresponsible people and their failed American Dreams. I’ve heard so many people say that they make all their payments on their mortgages, and live within their means, why not just stop paying the mortgage and get bailed out as well? I totally see their point.

So getting back to the rainy day fund, I think we need to have some foresight and look beyond the budget shortfalls of 2009, to 2010, 2011, and 2012. If we use all the money now, there will be none for the future shortfalls. As a state, Vermont needs to tighten it’s belt, and reduce spending. But at the same time, address how we will fund the state of Vermont in the future as obviously what we have been doing does not, and will continue not to work.  

Crossposted @ www.vermontbloggernaut.blogspot.com

This started out as a comment, but I decided it was worth expanding and building upon.

I was embarrassed this week to see Jim Douglas, governor of Vermont giving testimony in Washington. It seemingly amounted to nothing more than a beggar looking for handouts. Maybe if he surrounded himself with able, qualified, intelligent, outside-of-the-box thinking people in his administration instead of this cronies, Vermont might have more options. His appearance did not make me proud to be a Vermonter, we take care of our own, and are in much better of a position to do so than the Federal government at this point.

Hopefully this will get a few others to chime in with their thoughts. If you don’t learn history, you are doomed to repeat it. We’ve been through hard economic times before, and we need to do what we know works. It’s time for the 2009 New Deal For Vermont, there is no better time to invest in Vermont and Vermonters.

Vermont has one of the best bond ratings of all the states in the union. It’s time we take advantage of that to secure funds to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. Put Vermonters to work rebuilding, and preparing our state for the next 100 years. We INCREASE state goverment, the biggest employer in the state of Vermont IS already the state of Vermont.

Run with this for the short term, and turn the whole state into a massive public works project to put people to work and prepare us for the future. Put forth a massive concerted effort to rebuild our bridges, roads, and telecommunications. Also of priority would be environmental conservation projects aimed at waste and pollution reduction, recycling and reuse, controlling/eradicating invasive species, and assisting Vermont communities with growth center and economic development. From working on the facilities at state parks, to turning wastes into resources, or building new businesses, there is very little we can’t do.

Today’s Freeps ran with an article that 2,ooo more Vermonters just signed up for unemployment benefits last week, bringing the total to more than eleven thousand receiving benefits. They may have to up the unemployment costs to businesses because here’s more money going out than coming in, ad that’s not going to help businesses already struggling with payrolls. We’re gonna be spending the money whether we get some bang for our buck or not. Let’s get these people some work to do! Vermonters are a hardy lot, and would rather do something than nothing.

This is not nearly a complete picture or plan, but it’s a start. Dialogue and Yankee ingenuity can and will get us through these hard times. We all need to sit back, look at the big picture, and say what can I do to help Vermont get through this, we’re in it together. Right now Vermont’s future is being decided for us, let’s take a stand, invest in Vermont and Vermonters!  

This is the sound of me beating a dead horse.  Governor Douglas does a lousy job for Vermont.  Jim=Jobs(FOR HIS CRONIES).  How many of us are better off now, heck, even as well off as when he took office?

Douglas bashing is easy, and I’m a great fan, don’t get me wrong.  But how productive is this in the long run?  I think this is where the Governors race this year bogged down.  The democrats were able to paint Douglas in a negative light, but unable to make their candidate a better, more logical choice.

The fact is he’s our Governor, unless we come up with the votes to override his veto, we have no choice but to work with him.  He’s going to run our state into the ground unless he gets some help.  Our roads will crumble, the budget shortfalls will be huge.  He needs to be met at the table with ideas, and if he chooses to reject them, that will be his undoing.

No democrat thus far has been willing to assume a true leadership role or be a leading voice in challenging the governor.  Not on his failures, but with new, well thought out ideas.  The person Vermont is comfortable getting behind to move our state forward, and pull Vermont out of this slump.  

If this person already exists I apologize.  It’s just that I’ve never seen any media coverage of you, or heard any of the great things you say we need to do.  Where are you?  We could really use you……..

Crossposted @ www.vermontbloggernaut.blogspot.com

For six years Jim Douglas has been at the helm, how can we again elect a captain who cannot bait his own hook?  That was a very telling moment on that riverbank when Douglas’s own Fish and Wildlife employee had to bait his hook for him.  Everyone should take notice.

Did the state employee feel that his boss was unable or unwilling to bait his own hook? Did Douglas not want to dirty himself, but just enjoy some photo-ops with a rod in hand? This is again to me a central theme in the whole Jim Douglas theory of governing Vermont.

He sets himself to look like he’s doing all these great things, but its fake. If our governor does not grasp the concept of baiting a hook for himself and searching out a fish, how good will he be at attracting new business? That’s indeed the very thing Vermont must do, fish for some businesses to grow here, using incentives as our bait. Incentives to relocate here, expand, and grow their business here.

Again with the fishing analogies, but we also need a governor who knows what to do when s/he’s got one on the line. They need to know how to finesse the fish into the net, so we don’t go home empty handed. We need to work with businesses that are already here that we’ve “hooked”. We need to keep them here, and help them to grow here. Their successes are our successes.

That’s why Jim Douglas’s failure to bait his own hooks makes me question his ability to lead Vermont through these troubled times. If he needs other people to do his work for him, why are we electing him in the first place? I understand delegating responsibility and such, but this is where the governor needs to rise to a leadership role.

The next governor of Vermont needs to say it’s their responsibility to find work for Vermonters and they’re not gonna rest till they do. That’s not the vibe I get from Douglas when he has state employees bait his hooks for him. It’s more like, I have people do my work for me so if they fail, the blame doesn’t fall on me, and I can point fingers elsewhere.  

Crossposted at www.vermontbloggernaut.com

This little ad on the TV has me amused. This is not the first time we’ve seen this ad, with the very same people. It’s the one he uses campaign cycle after cycle, and to effect. It’s not an attack ad, nor is it negative really. Kind of a neutralizer ad suggesting the democrats may not fully support their candidate.

I must say hands down this is my favorite go to tool in the whole Douglas Campaign re-election chest. It’s predictable, we see it campaign after campaign. But my question to Governor Douglas is that are we to think the ad’s still current? I mean here we are a couple years later, has their opinion of Douglas not to have changed? How will these “democrats” vote this election cycle?

To me it’s kind of reminiscint of the whole Douglas theory of governorship; take old ideas, give them a new spin, repackage it, and sell it to the people as what they need. I’m not buying it, it’s a rope a dope, a shell game. Watch one hand while the other does what it wants.

He’s had a fair shake at being Governor of Vermont, what has he really done for us? Sure, he can point fingers and blame everyone but Douglas, but is that moving our state forward? Are any of us better off now than we were before he became Governor? We need to think about this dearly as we vote for the next governor.

I still don’t know how this election will playout with the record turnout predicted. It’s quite possible that a vote for anyone other than Douglas, may do nothing but help Douglas out. It’s a sticky situation. If the election gets tossed to the legislature, a majority of Vermonters would have not voted for Douglas, but he’d be the candidate with the most votes. This would mean Vermonters wanted a new governor, but were unsure of who among the other candidates.

What would the legislature decide? Boy, that’s a whole other can of worms, makes who you vote for this fall awfully important. Lots of things to think about in the weeks leading up to the election…….  

Absentee ballots are out in case people want to vote early.  Call and have one mailed, or drop by and pick one up.  The reality is with the absentee ballot, election day really is just the “last” day you can vote.

Interest will be at a peak this year so if you want to avoid waiting in line vote early.  Don’t have worry about rushing to the polls before or after work.  Quite a handy piece of democracy.

This year your vote will contribute to the most important election in Vermont and U.S. history.

Vote.

Vote Absentee ballot.

Vote at will.  

Guess what?  It hasn’t gone away.  We’ve just had record rainfall, and it was all acid rain.  Nope, they haven’t stopped using coal-fired plants in the Midwest to generate electricity.   Yup, we haven’t solved this yet, but we’re already forgotten about it and moved on to Global Warming.  

That’s what I hate about causes, once one becomes boring and passé people move on to some cause that’s new, exciting, and getting all the press.  There’s no success story here like gaining in the war on water chestnuts here in Lake Champlain.  It’s not like personal choices affect acid rain either, like reducing your carbon footprint.  There is nothing individuals can really do to make a difference with acid rain other than try to mitigate its affects.  What’s a person to do?  Walk around with pieces of limestone tossing them here and there?

If acid rain had a headstone it’d read “RIP Acid Rain, There’s Nothing Any Of Us Can Do, So There’s Nothing Any Of Us Did.”

I worry about stuff like this.  Will people get exasperated and give up on global warming too?  Plant trees people!  Global warming and carbon emissions are a much easier problem to keep up with.  Just think, if people plant a dozen trees a year, and increase garden space in their yards (instead of mowing), you’re actually making a difference.  Ride your bike instead of taking your can a few short trips a week and you’re a carbon footprint hero.

But what are we going to do about Acid Rain?

Anyone driven down Route 7 from South Burlington to Shelburne lately? Not quite the thriving business district it once was, to say the very least. At least a half dozen empty buildings that haven’t been reoccupied. Noted businesses that have left include the Tuscan Sun, Sirloin Saloon, Vermont Country Kitchen, and Climb High. Roche’s Casual Furniture/Kasazza Kids made the move across the street to the old Climb High building, leaving their old venue vacant.

Is competition from the box stores in Williston leaving Shelburne Road in the dust? Does Route 7 just not have the draw to bring people like it once did? Tough saying really, but every rush hour Shelburne Road is literally clogged with cars. The people are there, they’re just not stopping to buy or eat. Why is that?

Hate to point the finger, but it didn’t seem like things were this bad before the Route 7 redo a couple years back. Maybe all those businesses were right and their worst case scenario’s have been realized? Could it be that all those traffic medians in the middle of the road did hurt business? Could it just be that the area is so known for it’s traffic that it’s just avoided in general? Or is it simply that the State of Vermont played with the traffic patterns and was too successful? After all, they were looking to lower the amount of time it took to get from one end of Shelburne road to the other, kudos to Agency of Transportation for this success.

But the vacant businesses? I think a couple factors are at play here. While it is easier to get from one end to the other, it certainly is harder to cross the road and get from one business to the next. Not having people crossing the road constantly does allow for better thru flow, but makes it trickier to visit the places you want. You have to consciously plan out where you’re going to start and end, and how best to navigate the flow of traffic. That’s a feat for seasoned Shelburne Road shoppers, let alone the visitors in town for the first time.

Looks like only time will tell. Will Shelburne Road become a ghost town, or return the profitable business district it once was?  

The state of Vermont is going about reducing it’s solid waste output in completely the wrong way. Why crack down on Vermont Compost and Intervale Compost, two entities working hard to do the right thing and reduce the amount of trash we bury in landfills? Enforcement is not the way here, the state needs to work with responsible people trying to do the right thing. After all, where else is this waste to go but the landfill?

Yes, ok so there’s some site issues. I’m not disagreeing, but come on, suggest/help find an alternative. Food waste to compost is such a noble and worthy cause. Making a resource out of a waste, that’s what we need more of, not less. What’s the alternative? Burying it in the ground and letting future generations deal with the issue? Not that I think it’s much better than landfilling, but at least New Hampshire has kept up with technology. With modern pollution controls, they incinerate all their waste and generate electricity from it.

No landfills, plus. Electrical generation, plus. Unfortunately there is still hazardous ash left over, minus. Also some pollution that eludes the controls set in place, minus. I see it as breaking even, versus lanfilling which is just a minus. Is this what Vermont should move toward???? What options do we really have left if the state won’t let anybody do anything with waste other than landfill it?

In this case we’re not really talking about dangerous pollutants or hazardous household chemicals, its just food waste. The only problems that you can run into both relate to the site. The first is leachate of the nutrients from the compost into the groundwater. The second is animals, whether it be flies, rats, raccoons etc. Solve these two issues and you’ve got a successful waste reduction operation. Even Martha Stewart in the latest issue of her magazine uses Vermont Compost for her garden.

So please State of Vermont, work with these good people, don’t arbitrarily regulate them. Let VT compost go back and get whatever permits they need, don’t close them down. If there turns out to be issues still, then work with them to solve them. Same with the Intervale, so there’s site issues that can’t be overcome. Work with them, help them find a new site that will work, it’s in everyone’s best interest. Move forward, not backward, after all they’re just good people trying to do the right thing for everyone!.  

There is something the Governor of our state of Vermont is really good at. It’s taking a very unfortunate occurance and turning it into political gain. In a small state like ours, big news like our first amber alert had everybody concerned. Everyone watched, everyone waited, what would be the missing girls fate?

Then a disappearance turns into one families horror, and a statewide travesty. A convicted sexual predator, was released into the public on probation by our department of corrections. Released after completing the sex offender treatment program, where he was a “model inmate” and hailed as a success. Apparently the program doesn’t work, after his release he reportedly begins molesting a nine year old, and within a couple years effectively stalked and hunted his own niece. The abrupt and tragic end to her life is a testament to the failure of our state corrections and sex offender treatment program.

Here we are in an election year and a hot button issue lands in Governor Douglas’s lap. So what does he do, he picks it up and runs with it. Now he’s talking about civil confinement, the death penalty, and even chemical castration. Do I disagree, hell no!! This is one of the few instances where I actually agree with the governor. I don’t think we can ever go far enough with regards to protecting our kids.

However, there is nothing I hate worse than people who use tragedies for political gain. This is exactly the card Douglas is playing now. He is not calling a special session of the legislature because “”If I thought for a minute that the legislative leaders would embrace a serious package of reforms that we have talked about this afternoon, I’d have them here tomorrow,” Douglas replied. “Their past action does not give me a lot of confidence that in the aggregate they are prepared to take these steps.”” (BFP 7/11/08)

This is playing politics pure and simple. If the legislature were to meet, and pass the reforms he talks about, than the issue would go away. But this is an election year, and he can’t let it go away. He needs to keep beating this drum right thru November so he can sound tough on crime and make the Democratic legislature sound weak on crime. If the legislature is weak on crime, than his opponent who led that legislature is also weak on crime. It’s the forked tongue that Douglas speaks with that spews a whole lot of BS.

Governor Douglas, get off your butt and call a special session or get off the high horse. Take steps now to solve this obviously important issue before another kid gets hurt. Otherwise the failure here won’t just be corrections released someone who was a danger to the public. It will be a failure of the governor to protect the people, and more importantly kids, of his state.