“Our patchwork of broad-based taxes that have accumulated over the years, combined with overburdened property taxes, require our attention. But let me be clear — as we tackle the difficult challenge of balancing our budget, we must not and cannot succumb to the idea that Vermonters have the capacity to pay higher taxes right now,” he said. “In order to grow jobs and be more competitive with neighboring states, we must resist the temptation to raise broad-based taxes.”
I want to start by saying that I am thrilled that Shulmin is governor and very happy to have him in office. But that doesn’t mean we, as activists, bloggers and liberals, don’t have an immense amount of work ahead of us. It’s our responsibility to push him in the right direction.
So in that vein: of course some Vermonters have the capacity to pay higher taxes and to try to give the wealthiest Vermonters relief from tax burden will do nothing to stimulate the economy, nothing to promote growth, and nothing to help our state.
A common refrain from the more wealthy comes from people who do not wish to pay taxes on their 2nd homes or part time residences. The problem is that these people are not doing nearly as much to contribute to the economy of Vermont as the full time residents. They, apparently think of it as though it’s a hotel that they should only pay for part of time.
While I can understand this, people who do not live in an area they reside some of the time still use up state resources and civic services: fire stations and police are still on call to protect their house, even if they’re almost never there. Dead end roads to private residences still need to be maintained.
Yet they do not buy much of their food from the local vendors. They do not go to local stores. They don’t put nearly the contribution to the local economy that people who are of their primary residence put in.
We can talk, in general, about tax burdens, but the real question is one of what we get for the taxes we pay and whether they are fair.
Taxes that focus on the poor, such as sales taxes, would be great to lower, especially for essentials. Taxes that focus on the wealthy, such as high-end property taxes, taxes on large business that can be used to alleviate their health care costs? Those aren’t just good to increase. They’re actually of benefit to do so.
How do you stimulate the economy? You give relief to people who are holding on to their money because they’re scared to spend it. How do you just help people line their pockets? You treat the wealthiest among us as though if you just give them money, they’ll give it back. They don’t. They hold on to it, save it, and accumulate it. I’m not criticizing them for that. I don’t blame them for that. I just don’t think we need to be rewarding it with tax cuts.
Like I said, I’m thrilled Shumlin is governor, and I could spend a lot of time writing about all the things I love about his opening address (and there are quite a lot), but I don’t think we’re going to find our way out of this recession by treating taxes as a necessary evil that must only used in the most dire of circumstances. Taxes are what fund and fuel the works of government, and without them we would be lost. The important thing is not how much we pay, but if they’re administered fairly and if we get what we pay for.
Hey all– I will be live “tweeting” the Vermont Worker Center’s Healthcare is a Human Right rally in Montpelier today– normally I’d just live blog this on GMD, but we figured out how to integrate the twitter feed with GMD so to make my life easier, I am going to foray into twitter for this specific event, so if all is working as planned, you should be able to see the twitter feed as it happens here. The “VT Worker’s Center” link will take you to the whole feed.
More info about the rally itself is at the press release here.
This post is scheduled to go up at noon. The rally starts at 12:30.
UPDATE I lost internet when we moved to the 2nd venue, but I did get this photo of the fairly huge crowd. Photo links to version double its size:
update: at least one paper (The Caledonian Record) has the wrong date listed for this event. The event is definitely this Wednesday, regardless of what any local papers might say.
For those unaware, the Healthcare is a Human Right campaign is having a rally at the statehouse, bringing in the first day of the new legislative session. The plan is to deliver a petition supporting universal health care to the legislators and governor-elect Shumlin:
Vermonters Converge on Statehouse to Demand Universal Healthcare & Deliver Thousands of Petition Signatures to Legislators
As Peter Shumlin prepares to take office this week, a sampling of the challenges facing him will already have gathered at the Statehouse in Montpelier.
The Health Care Is a Human Right campaign is planning to stage a rally Wednesday, bringing together people from around the state to demand a single-payer health care system, the kind that Shumlin has said he supports.
Shumlin will be inaugurated as our next governor Thursday, and how he responds to the expectations of single-payer health care advocates will be an early test of his leadership.
Already he has accepted the premises of a single-payer system, and he has argued that cost savings achieved through single-payer would help solve Vermont’s budget dilemma.
Vermont has a unique opportunity here to push healthcare in the direction of single payer and away from the piecemeal approach we’ve been using in which the poor get covered through an entirely separate system from the rest of us, even other people seeking public assistance with health care via Green Mountain Care. With a new governor who has pledged to push for single payer, we’ve got a chance, now more than ever, of finding our way into a new system and leading the country away from for-profit, you’re too ill to be covered, screw you if you don’t have the proper resources, health care. This rally will serve as a reminder of campaign promises and a way to ensure that the legislature know how critically urgent this work is.
The Vermont Department of Children and Families has promised to hire 20 news staff members… to eliminate a backlog of benefit applications in just over a month.
The department and Vermont Legal Aid released the details of the plan that will include the hires and the elimination of the backlog by Feb. 1.
Legal Aid, which called the agreement a “corrective action plan,” had threatened to sue DCF for failing to process in a timely fashion applications for public benefits such as food stamps and Medicaid benefits within 30 days. In the plan, DCF has agreed to comply with a 30-day processing standard for new applications by July 1.
Of course, when Vermont Legal Aid first threatened to sue over this, Dale claimed that “legal action against the state could complicate efforts to solve the problem. Vulnerable Vermonters, he says, are better served if the state is focused on fixing the problem, not fighting litigation.”
So, clearly, without the lawsuit, we would have seen serious progress in the last five weeks, because without groups like Vermont Legal Aid in the mix, everyone’s just climbing all over one another in the effort to find better and more helpful ways to provide aid and services to the poor. It’s really quite a shame they had to go in and you know, force the state to hire enough people to follow the damned law.
I’m sort of in shock over this– Obie’s been my rep for most of the time I’ve lived in Vermont. He’s one of my favorite members of the house– whenever I’d send him questions, he’d respond with depth and detail, even if the answer wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I’ve got an immense amount of respect for the man, and figured he’d be my rep forever. Here’s the message from Shumlin:
…Rep. Michael Obuchowski to serve as Commissioner of the Department of Buildings and General Services. The department employs more than 350 people and oversees construction, renovation, maintenance and other services — including security — related to state buildings and grounds. The department also manages the state’s vehicle fleet and coordinates worker compensation claims.
I’ve no idea who Shumlin plans to appoint to replace him, but, just… wow. I’m kind of stunned.
I love Vermont. It’s one of my favorite places in New England. It’s even one of my favorite places in the country. But there are other places with colors and patterns we pretty much never see here and from time to time it’s worth a visit.
New Mexico is one such place, and specifically Bosque Del Apache.
The trip to New Mexico didn’t go exactly as planned. Our original plan involved going north before going down to Bosque, but a fairly major snowstorm came in. Bandolier National Monument may happen eventually, but it wasn’t going to be on this trip. I even tried to go east of Albuquerque to the foothills going to look for Pinyon Jays and Juniper Titmouse, but snow ruled that out, too. So, on Friday, a day before planning to go to Bosque, I decided to go ahead and swing down there for the day to check it out and get the lay of the land for the weekend. If I’d known how bad the Thursday weather was going to be, I probably would have gone down to Bosque then, too, but by the time I’d figured it out, it was a little late.
But either way, the extra trip was worth it. Over the course of those three days I had some amazingly close looks at familiar birds as well as some fairly unusual birds (at least where I come from) as well as a few life birds and some extraordinary views of things that didn’t involve birds at all (and one that involved one bird in a very unfortunate fashion.
I’ll start with the familiar ones:
American Coots
Pied-Billed Grebe
Northern Shovelers
Merlin
Northern Pintail
And perhaps some of the best photos of a Northern Harrier I’ve ever had:
Other birds I’ve seen before, but not in New England:
Last time we visited New Mexico, I got a Black Phoebe at percha dam, but not close. This one pretty much posed for me.
Similarly, Gambel’s Quail did their best to thwart me last time, but this time one just popped up on top of a feeder at the Bosque visitor’s center:
Chihuahuan Raven’s are cool to look at — similar to our Northern Ravens, but a little smaller and more willing to interact with crows– they are not as skittish of humans as the common ravens we get in New England:
The only previous photo I’ve had of a White-Winged Dove was pretty awful, so it was awesome to get this outside our Bread and Breakfast in San Antonio:
This Eurasian Collared Dove was the last bird photo I took before we headed out Sunday morning:
It was taken at sunrise, right around the same time I took this photo:
At Percha Dam last time around, we got Ladder Backed Woodpecker, but not this nicely and not at the refuge itself:
Ladder-Backed Woodpecker
Last time, I got one photo of a Pyrrhuloxia, but it was obscured by trees and only a partial. This time, I got a bit luckier:
I never get decent photos of Eastern Meadowlarks. I have a couple spectacularly bad ones. Western Meadowlarks, however? Both visits to Bosuqe presented amazing opportunities to photograph them, but I never quite expected something this nice:
One of the things I regretted last time we went to New Mexico is that I didn’t attempt any night photography. This time I took some evening time to get outside for a bit. The first shot is of a church in San Antonion I photographed last time, but in the morning. I particularly like this shot– it’s almost exactly what I was looking to do but actually a little better. The second shot is not at all what I expected, but I still love it. It’s 38 minutes of eposure time. During that time, there were cranes and snow geese nearby and I could hear them constantly. At one point, a train went by, and the birds all flew. I could see snow geese flying against the clouds illumated by the full moon, though I knew there was no possible way to capture that in photograph.
Speaking of cranes and snow geese:
Of course, with such numbers, there are always predators:
And some of the scenery was incredible. This is a photostich photo– several photos merged into a single one to get the whole scene together in once from the canyon trail:
And some of the non-bird wildlife was pretty cool as well:
Mule Deer
Random Fish (I have no idea how I got this photo)
And though red-tails are common, I’ve never seen a Harlan’s before:
And I think this is also a red-tailed, but the marking on the back of its head is very odd to me:
So now– a question to western birders. These birds? Verdins? Bushtits?
(and if they’re verdins, did I mislabel this image from my last visit?)
Aside from those guys, I managed to get a few other life birds during the trip: Boat Tailed Grackles (hanging out on a wire outside a power station)
Western Grebes (very distant view– I’m amazed these photos worked at all)
Yellow-Headed Blackbirds, mixed in with a larger flock of red-winged. I didn’t know I’d photogaphed these at the time. I was just getting the flock as a whole, but looking at the photos later, I spotted the yellow-headed in the mix:
And finally, while we were eating lunch, this Curve-Billed Thrasher just sort of popped its head up so I stalked it for a bit:
All in all, it was a wonderful trip. Not sure when we’ll be able to get out West again, but I think that if we go to New Mexico again, we’ll put more effort into heading north towards Taos and Bandolier National Monument. I’ve loved our time at Bosque, and it is an amazing place, but there are birds we’ll never get at its relatively low elevations. The sweetie was there a few days before me (for work) and she found black-billed magpies, a ferrunginous hawk and golden eagles in the north end, and I’d love to investigate that area some.
As I write this, I’m sitting in the in-laws place in upstate New York, looking out at their feeders. There are goldfinches, black-capped chickadees, titmouses, downy and hairy woodpeckers, tree sparrows, red-breasted nuthatches, juncos, blue jays and a red-bellied woodpecker coming back and forth to the feeders. New Mexico was awesome, but I love the Northeast.
As usual, these are not the only photos I got. I didn’t see a way to fit 160 photos into Dawn Chorus (I probably have overdone it as is). The whole set of New Mexico photos (including a bit more landscape work and a lot more photos of the birds, including Spotted Towhee, Say’s Phoebe, Ring-Necked Duck, Canvasback — another life bird for me–, Kestrels, Eagles, White-Crowned Sparrow, Northern Flicker,) is on my web site via the New Mexico keyword.
An addendum: among the Christmas gifts I do not desreve, but somehow received nontheless, is a new lens: it’s a relatively low end 800mm mirror lens from Opteka. I’ll be playing with it to get more distant birds and shots of the moon and other astronomical phenomenon. I’m hoping that combining it with a 1.4x converter (making for a 1120mm equivalent) will produce some very nice results. This may or may not improve the sort of photographs I get, but it will be fun to experiment 🙂
Also, as I’ve mentioned before, I sell prints and I design web pages. If anyone’s interested in either, please feel free to touch base with me. I also have a 2011 Calendar of Birding for sale:
I obviously didn’t include everything, so here’s a quick text link to thumbnails of pretty much every photo I took this trip:
As you all know, the secular-hedonism forces in the country are doing everything they can to attack the valuable cultural icon of the Solstice. To wit:
People are refraining from saying “joyful Solstice,” replacing it with such heathen phrases as “happy holidays,” “happy New Year,” “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Chaunakah;”
Our traditional solstice symbols, such as the star and wreath, have been co-opted by the forces of Christmas;
Stores across the country have abandoned their stock of solstice-specific merchandise. You can find Dradles, mangers and other merchandise, but nowhere can you find solstice-specific items;
Want to help end this anti-Solstice scourge? We at the Department of Pagan Enthusiasm (DOPE) have prepared a short list of tasks you can incorporate into your everyday life. See below the fold for this list.
Great. So you’re on board with our pro-solstice campaign and ready to fight the scourges of the anti-Solstice agenda. There’s a lot you can do to help:
organize letter writing campaigns: see a store that ignores our great and glorious Solstice? Write them a letter. Get your friends to do it, too. Use phrases like “merchants of the forces of hedonism” and “supporting the powers of darkness;”
picket people who refuse to say “joyful solstice.” Be sure not to just picket their places of business, but their homes as well. If they object, leave sheaths of wheat on their doorstep. They’ll get the message and shape up in no time;
see a tv program that doesn’t sponsor any pro-Solstice activities? write them letters, too, but also focus on their advertisers. Ask the people who advertise on their show if they’ve ever had a bunch of angry pagans outside their offices. If that doesn’t scare them, nothing will;
sabotage events supporting other holidays that exclude the Solstice: get a job as a mall Santa and eat lots of cabbage and beans before your shift. If anyone asks, blame it on the elves;
bumper sticker your car: there are some great bumper stickers available form our shop: “Remember the Solstice!” and “12-21: not just a palindrome” are two of our best sellers. But be sure to not stick to just bumper stickering your own vehicles. Be sure to bumper other peoples’ cars as well. Best to do this late at night so they drive around with our message of hope and peace for hours before they find out;
there is no number six;
see a manger scene? Get a bunch of “it’s a girl!” balloons and tie them to the hands of the wise men. Tie them to the crib as well and make sure to put a pink bow on the baby’s head;
fight the snowmen: snowmen have been transformed from their traditional pagan status so as to no longer have their connection to traditional pagan rituals and rites. They are no longer our allies and must now be seen as our enemies. When you encounter a snowman, you may fight it through a variety of means. Hair dryers are effective, but it’s difficult to find an easy to use outlet near many, so we recommend carrying a carafe of hot coffee. Its effect is similar to that of “holy” water on vampires. (vampires are neutral in this fight, so please don’t make your coffee with holy water. It will be perceived as a threat by them, and the last thing we need is for them to ally with Christians);
We hope this update on the War on Solstice has been helpful. With your help, we can defeat the forces of anti-paganism and bring society into conformity with our pantheistic tree-hugging dirt worship, which everyone knows, is the One True Religion. And remember, if anyone challenges you, you’re doing this for their own good. Just tell them that and everything should be fine.
I will end this message from the front lines in the culture wars with a traditional pagan litany:
Years ago, AT&T had a promotional program where they would offer anywhere from $50-$100 for you to switch to their long distance service. I, being fairly devious, decided to go ahead and try it, even though I hardly ever used long distance at the time. So I switched over to AT&T, got $100, and then switched back to my original carrier six months later. Six months later, they did it again: I switched over to AT&T, got $75 and then switched back to my original carrier six months later. I never in the time I was using AT&T racked up nearly as much in phone bills as the amount they offered me to switch. I did this, I think, four times, getting several hundred dollars from the company.
It’s not uncommon for us to offer tax breaks to companies and other incentives for them to move into Vermont, only to have them shut down after a few years, move out of state, with us having little to show for it except a bunch of unemployed people and a vacant building.
But what if we stopped offering taxes as incentives but offered technology that would stay with us if the company left?
What if, instead of just offering cash incentives, we were providing zero-interest loans in order to fund projects such as this?
Omega’s new solar panels will generate an average of 23,000 kilowatt hours of clean, renewable electricity per year, which will offset about 10 percent of the building’s total power needs during peak production conditions.
We give tax breaks to companies to entice them to come to the region, but why couldn’t we give other types of breaks to them? Provide them with a state funded solar or wind power generation source, free of charge, and allow the savings from these projects to pay back the state for the cost of the system? We end up with companies interested in doing business with and in Vermont, who have an investment in being here for the long haul but haven’t just been handed a bunch of money by the state that will disappear if they decide to just leave.
And what if they company decides to leave anyway? We’ve got a building in-state that will still generate clean energy that we can use to entice the next company that wants to set up shop.
A Vermont company that makes components used in electric vehicles is marking a milestone.
On Monday, SB Electronics of Barre is going to hold a ceremony to mark the completion of its new high-volume manufacturing facility.
This is a facility which will add around 100 jobs over the next three years. This probably wouldn’t have happened with the stimulus package. You know, that thing that was paid for with our tax dollars that conservatives bitch about.
Omega, by the way, is an employee-owned company in Bellows Falls. Its president thinks that the company would be a lot better off if it had higher taxes and less costs for health care (this starts around 1:30):
Taxes, when administered properly, build jobs, build infrastructure, and build community. It’s about time we started to treat them with respect, rather than derision and scorn.
Brattleboro Christmas Tree Lighting: 50 minutes in 64 seconds:
This is a series of sequential still shots (each one 2″ – 4″ exposure) and then gathered together into an animation, covering a 50 minute span in Brattleboro, on Friday the 3rd of December, 2010.
