Screw the Farmers Market. Here’s how to spend Saturday, May 17.

With legislative elections approaching, we must be active and effective. We must learn to organize and communicate our message at a grassroots level. We need new leaders to come forward at the local level, to take a stand for free-market and limited government principles. …

American Majority, in partnership with the Ethan Allen Institute, is pleased to announce that we will be holding a New Leaders and Activist Training in Rutland, Vermont.

Oh boy oh boy oh boy.

The session costs a mere 20 bucks (10 for students) and “includes lunch.” Such a deal.

Topics include planning a campaign, fundraising, and “connecting with voters.” Presumably the latter category includes How To Avoid Saying Stupid Shit About Women, How To Avoid Saying Stupid Shit About Minorities, and How To Make A Tired Discredited Message Seen Fresh And Relevant.  

American Majority’s purpose is to develop a “national farm team of conservative leaders.” It’s another cog in the vast right-wing machine of innocuously-named “educational” organizations. More damning details from SourceWatch:

American Majority is involved in organizing protest and the health care “Recess Rallies” occurring in August 2009 in House districts. They also participate in Tea Party rallies…

Kenneth P. Vogel of Politico.com credited the organization with providing “deep-pocketed backing” of groups involved in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race in 2011, and grouped them with the Tea Party Express.

American Majority works with Michelle Malkin, RedState.com, American Liberty Alliance, Smart Girl Politics, Americans for Limited Government, FreedomWorks, the Sam Adams Alliance and other groups to organize opposition to health care reform.

That about sums it up. Welcome to Vermont, conservative nutbars! And our thanks to Rob Roper and the Ethan Allen Institute for bringing these folks to our state.  

The multi-tool of Vermont journalism, Pete “Mr. Microphone” Hirschfeld, has been up to his ears in coverage of the Legislature’s waning days… and yet he somehow found time to break a bit of political news:

Bruce Lisman, the former Wall Street executive and founder of Campaign for Vermont, confirmed Friday that he’s “seriously” considering a run for governor.

… “I think about it now because so many people ask me, and the numbers of people asking me have escalated,” Lisman said.

Ooh ooh ooh! Please please PLEASE, Bruce, pleeeease run! If you do, I will never have been happier to be dead wrong in all my life.

I’ve insisted for some time that Lisman is too smart to run for Governor: he’d have to know that, aside from his Wall Street fortune and the self-generated buzz of publicity around Campaign for Vermont*, he’d bring very little to a campaign against Governor Shumlin. He lacks charisma, he’s a lousy speechmaker, he has no political experience whatsoever, he has no relationships within any of Vermont’s political parties. Indeed, he’s pissed off a fair share of top politicos due to Campaign for Vermont’s relentless self-promotion and credit-grabbing. Plus, of course, he’d be battling an entrenched incumbent with a very strong party machine, a record-breaking warchest, and a lengthy record as a winning politician. In a state that virtually always re-elects incumbents.

* A buzz primarily limited to the political classes of Vermont. Even though Lisman made a big show of putting on CFV events around the state, I seriously doubt that the vast majority of potential voters have any idea who he is.

But hey, if Lisman has that bad a case of Rich Man’s Self-Delusionary Syndrome, then by all means, let him run. I will happily shout it from the housetops: “I WAS WRONG!”

Because, by swooping in and hogging the anti-Shumlin spotlight, he could do so much damage to the VTGOP, the conservative movement, and the faux-centrist movement. It’d be the best thing to happen to the Vermont Democratic Party since, oh… since Lenore Broughton entrusted her fortune to Tayt Brooks, International Man of Mystery.  

Lisman’s self-absorbed musing has already tossed a monkey wrench into the plans of a close political ally, State Rep. Heidi Scheuermann, who’s been edging toward a gubernatorial candidacy of her own. Indeed, I’ve heard that she was all set to announce — until Lisman started his little Hamlet act. As I’ve said before, Scheuermann’s only hope to run a competitive race is if Lisman gives her a big financial boost. And if he’s running, he won’t be supporting her campaign.

But Scheuermann’s ambitions would be the least of the collateral damage from a Lisman run. He would, in one fell swoop, deal a potentially fatal blow to his own advocacy group AND to Lt. Gov. Phil Scott’s effort to drag the VTGOP into the 21st Century, handing control back to the Darcie Johnstons and John MacGoverns of the world.

Let’s take those one at a time.

First, Lisman has assiduously tried to position Campaign for Vermont as a nonpartisan organization, willing to consider any and all ideas for improving state government. He has trumpeted the fact that CFV’s membership includes conservatives and liberals, Republicans, Democrats, and Progressives. (And downplayed the fact that the conservatives and Republicans vastly outnumber the liberals.) But if he launches a gubernatorial campaign immediately after stepping out of CFV leadership, he will lend credence to the idea that CFV was never serious about policy — it was just a stalking horse for Lisman’s personal political plans. And, whether he runs as a Republican or an Independent, his main target will be Governor Shumlin — which means he will have to campaign against Democratic Party policies, which will make him look like a Republican even if he doesn’t run as one.

He’s already in danger of shredding CFV’s credibility with his recent spate of Republican contributions: at least $35,000 to Republican groups this year alone (plus his top-ticket presence at December’s Chris Christie fundraiser) and Jack Diddly Squat to Democrats.

Second, Phil Scott and his allies have promoted the idea that the VTGOP must broaden its appeal. This is such anathema to the conservative true believers that they were willing to vote for proven loser John MacGovern as state party chair rather than accept Scott’s choice. (David Sunderland, who ain’t exactly a liberal himself.) If Lisman runs as a Republican, he hijacks the centrist movement, turning it into an instrument of his own objectives — further demonizing it in the precincts of the right.

And if Lisman runs as an Independent, he’ll give the VTGOP two choices, both of them bad. Stay out of the race and support Lisman, in which case the True Believers may sit on their hands in November and never forgive Scott and the centrists; or run a Republican candidate, splitting the anti-Shumlin vote and ensuring the Governor’s re-election. Either way, Lisman loses, and he sows further discord in Republican ranks.

Postscript. This being a story about Vermont Republican politics, Hirschfeld was legally obligated to get a quote from Darcie “Hack” Johnston, political grifter, consistent loser, and current paid official of a campaign in Arizona, for God’s sake. (She does have the advantage of always, ALWAYS being available for comment. Handy for busy reporters.) The Hack told Hirschfeld that she welcomes Lisman’s financial support for Republican causes, but that his potential candidacy points out the failure of current VTGOP leadership.

“Leaders of the Republican Party have failed to stand up and support candidates within the party that offered Vermonters real opportunity,” Johnston said. “And as a result, Bruce Lisman is able and willing to step into that vacuum.”

Ahem. If the Hack would assign blame for a shortage of Republican candidates for Governor, I suggest she consult a mirror. It was, after all, the abject failure of the Randy Brock campaign (expensively managed by one Darcie Johnston) that gave potential Republican candidates the very strong idea that running for Governor was a sure ticket to political oblivion.  

You know the old joke about the kid who wakes up on Christmas morning and finds a pile of manure under the Christmas tree? And he’s so optimistic that he starts digging through the shit, exclaiming “There must be a pony in here somewhere”?

Yeah, well, meet Art Woolf, the guy who sees a pony and starts looking for the manure pile.

The weekly bleat from Vermont’s Loudest Economist™, published in the Thursday Freeploid, considers the news that our unemployment rate has been plunging of late — hitting 3.4% in March, down a half-percent from January and a full point lower than October’s rate.

Good news, right?

Not so fast, says Art Woolf, Horseshit Whisperer.

It’s almost too good to be true. And it may not be.

Get that: “it may not be.” He then explains that he can’t explain the drop. And since the problem can’t possibly be Woolf’s lack of insight or imagination, the figure must not be real. He surmises that the 3.4% may be “due to sampling problems” and may be revised upward in the future.

On the basis of precisely zero evidence. Because, I guess, the world ought to have the decency to conform with Art Woolf’s expectations.  

He acknowledges that even if the rate is revised, it’ll remain pretty darn low. But even so, he insists, it must be bad news one way or another. And he offers some suggestions:

— It might be a sign of an aging demographic, with fewer people in the workforce and more benefit-sucking laggards draining our Body Politic of its life essence.

— If, perchance, 3.4% is accurate, Woolf asserts that the rate is TOO LOW for a healthy economy. It’s a sign of a worker shortage, which means higher costs for employers. Yeah, we need a steady supply of desperate job-seekers to make life easier for business.

And then Art puts it all together in the Manure Pile Of His Mind:

With higher training costs on top of a potentially higher minimum wage, and higher payroll taxes on the horizon to fund Vermont’s new health care initiative, businesses should be nervous, uncomfortable, and worried about their future.

Yeezus H. Christ, Art. That’s a helluva lot of pessimism in a brief paragraph. And all founded on your evidence-free assumption that a low unemployment rate is an evil omen.

This is all too typical of the pro-business outlook in Vermont, not just from surface-skimming “experts,” but from conservative politicians and industry lobbyists. It’s like they’re hoping for failure. This may be politically expedient — if liberal policies produce a sound economy, it puts the lie to decades of Reaganite dogma — but it’s also a constant shower of cold water on Vermont’s prospects.

Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the then-owner of the Detroit Tigers, renowned Catholic insane person (and founder of Domino’s Pizza) Tom Monaghan, was lobbying furiously for a new ballpark to replace the venerable Tiger Stadium. He and his chief minion, Bo Schembechler (former Michigan football coach and then President of the team), railed on and on about the decrepit ballpark and its unsafe surroundings.  At one point, Schembechler gave an angry speech which included the famous line, “It’s unfair for you to think that you can shackle us to a rusted girder in Tiger Stadium…”

Well, between that consistent drumbeat of gloom and the fact that Monaghan mismanaged the team into a lengthy period of consistent losership, attendance fell precipitously. Team officials were telling their fans that the stadium and the neighborhood were downright dangerous, and the fans rightly concluded that maybe they should stay away.

Eventually it worked: a new ballpark was built. The canyonesque, soulless Comerica Park.

Contrast that with the John Henry-era Boston Red Sox, who embraced the equally decrepit Fenway Park and turned it into a bustling temple of baseball — and an extremely profitable one, to boot.

Henry was all about the pony; Schembechler was complaining about the shit.

For all his flaws, Governor Shumlin is taking the John Henry route: emphasizing the positives about Vermont and making a case for investment and growth based on our strengths. People like Art Woolf, Phil Scott, George Malek et al., persistently talk Vermont down. Which is good political tactics, but horrible strategy. When you constantly harp on Vermont’s negatives, real or imagined, what message does it send to potential businesses and investors?

When you say “businesses should be nervous, uncomfortable, and worried about their future,” what kind of atmosphere are you creating?  Especially when, in the case of Woolf’s latest bleat, it’s fueled by speculation based on his preconceived notions and lack of insight into the real strengths of Vermont and how they might actually be creating a positive environment for business, even if it’s not via the traditional “cut taxes and regulation” route. Which is, in Art Woolf’s limited mind, the only way forward.

I realize I’m not a tenured professor of economics and creator of a $150-per-year newsletter. But it seems to me that Woolf should put his thinking cap back on and try to Say Something Good About Vermont.

I’ve even got some suggestions.

— Thanks to our relatively small population, our financial-services market is relatively unpenetrated by giant banks. Locally-owned banks and our numerous credit unions are relatively open to small-business lending, which spurs entrepreneurship.

— Our retail sector is also relatively unconquered by giants. This leaves a lot of space for small retailers. And, more importantly, it provides openings for small producers. It’s much easier for, say, a specialty food maker or a craft brewer to earn a place in locally-owned stores and co-ops. In other states, small producers are in an uphill battle for shelf space with big corporations.

— We have a strong entrepreneurial spirit in some untraditional fields. But Vermont’s entrepreneurs are inspired by the products they make, rather than turning a quick buck. We don’t have Wall Street-style sharks, but we have a lot of folks willing to work hard and make things worth buying.

— We do, of course, have a relatively unspoiled natural environment. That’s the motor for our vital tourism industry. (And our thriving local-food sector.) And it makes Vermont just a darn great place to live.

From the way people like Art Woolf talk, you’d think that it’s time for “The last one out, turn off the lights.” But in fact, a whole lot of people choose to live in Vermont in spite of the fact that they could find greater financial rewards elsewhere.

Sure, we’ve got work to do and problems to solve. But the relentless doom-and-gloomism is (a) inaccurate, and (b) not helping.  

So, WCAX-TV has this daily interview program called “The :30.” A couple weeks ago, noted Vermont climatologist Alan Betts was scheduled as a guest to talk about his work on climate change and its implications for Vermont.

Emphasis on “was.”

From Paul “The Huntsman” Heintz at Seven Days…

…just hours before Betts was slated to appear, [WCAX producer Alexei] Rubenstein canceled. In an email, the producer explained that station “higher ups” had spiked the interview due to a lack of “opposing views.” In a separate phone call, Betts says, Rubenstein “said it’s because management is afraid of the hostile reactions they get.”

Profiles In Courage, Republican broadcaster style.

Former GOP functionary and current WCAX news director Anson Tebbetts had a different explanation:

“We were overwhelmed with material yesterday and wanted to do something more thoughtful and have a bigger discussion with those involved,” he says.

… Tebbetts says the station wasn’t necessarily looking to match Betts with a climate change denier. Rather, he’d like his audience to hear from representatives of the sugar and ski industries, and others affected by climate change.

Nope, sorry. Not buying it.

Rubenstein specifically said the cancellation was due to a lack of “opposing views.” (“Bob Hartwell, please pick up the fire-engine red courtesy phone.”) The sugar and ski industries would be “complementary,” not “opposing” views. In fact, I daresay those two industries are well aware of climate change and its existential threat to their businesses.

And even if Tebbetts is telling the truth — as opposed to frantically trying to cover his own ass — he’s missing the point. “Balance” and “context” isn’t something required of each and every single program or segment. It’s something to be achieved in the complete context of a media outlet’s work. You don’t have a Democrat on the air every time you have a Republican, and vice versa; but over time, you try to achieve some kind of balance.

As Heintz reports, “Betts was shocked” by the cancellation. He’s been studying climate change for three decades and given numerous talks and written commentaries around Vermont, and:

Never once, he says, has a news outlet demanded an “alternative viewpoint” to a phenomenon almost universally agreed upon by mainstream scientists.

Yeah, well, Mr. Betts, meet WCAX-TV, traditional supporter of conservative causes.  

To wit: Does a political officeholder have an obligation to work for policies supported by a large majority of her/his political party?

Related questions: How substantial does the majority have to be? And what if the officeholder opposes said policy?

From the general to the specific: This week, VTDigger published the results of a statewide survey on gun issues. It found 57% of respondents agree with requiring permits for carrying a concealed weapon. 39% were opposed, and 4% did not answer.

A pretty significant majority, and kind of a surprise in a state where gun control is believed to be political poison.

But, for purposes of my question, the more pertinent result is that 80% of Democrats are in favor of concealed-carry permits.

That’s quite a lot. And this poll, conducted by the Castleton Polling Institute, appears to meet current standards for professional quality: a statistically significant 682 interviews were conducted by phone, with a margin of error at the usual 4% plus or minus. Also, 13% of them involved voters who use cellphones, which would seem to minimize the potential bias in a landline-only survey.

I think it’s fair to say that the 80% figure puts my philosophical question directly before our top political leaders, who generally oppose any gun control measures. I don’t attempt to answer the question, but I believe it must be asked.  

Monday’s Washington Post delivered a devastating account of scandalous behavior by self-proclaimed leaders of the Tea Party movement. Basically, they are raising millions of dollars from True Believers and spending it, almost entirely, on themselves and their expensive fundraising operations. Little or nothing is going to Tea Party candidates.

Out of the $37.5 million spent so far by the PACs of six major tea party organizations, less than $7 million has been devoted to directly helping candidates, according to the analysis, which was based on campaign finance data provided by the Sunlight Foundation.

… Roughly half of the money – nearly $18 million – has gone to pay for fundraising and direct mail, largely provided by Washington-area firms. Meanwhile, tea party leaders and their family members have been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees, while their groups have doled out large sums for airfare, a retirement plan and even interior decorating.

The poster child for Tea Party grift is one Jenny Beth Martin, head of the Tea Party Patriots, who is on track to earn roughly $450,000 this year. Her group’s Super PAC has spent $7.4 million since January 2013; a mere $185,000 has gone to support like-minded candidates.

And, as the Post reports, “The dearth of election spending has left many favored tea party candidates exposed before a series of pivotal GOP primaries next month.” Such as Matt Bevin, the formerly red-hot challenger to Mitch McConnell. In fundraising appeals the Patriots named Bevin as a top priority, but they’ve spent only $56,000 on his behalf.

So why am I writing about this in a Vermont political blog? Because our state’s conservative movement is weighed down by some notable grifters of its own — small-time though they may be, compared to the likes of Jenny Beth Martin. To name names: Darcie “Hack” Johnston and Tayt Brooks, International Man of Mystery.  

I can’t tell you exactly how much our Green Mountain Grifters have benefited from the gullibility of conservative donors, because most of the relevant organizations have very lax reporting requirements. But what I can say, should be enough to make any sensible conservatives put their checkbooks in a secure lockbox.

Throughout 2012, Brooks was livin’ high on the bankbook of Montgomery Ward heiress Lenore Broughton, racking up $8,000 per month in consulting fees while spending over a million Broughton Bucks on expensive ad campaigns and mailers or Vermonters First. And failing to move the needle any farther than Johnston did. Vermonters First hasn’t been nearly as active since it rolled snake eyes in 2012, but it still exists, and Brooks is still VF’s head. Kinda makes a mockery of Broughton’s supposed devotion to free markets; in the marketplace of ideas and expertise, Brooks is a known loser. And yet he still has a job. Must be nice.

The Hack, as I reported after the November 2012 election, fleeced the Randy Brock campaign to the tune of more than $100,000 in compensation, or nearly one-fifth of Brock’s total expenditures. This was, you will recall, a desperately underfunded effort that leaned heavily on Brock’s own money. And, thanks to Johnston’s pricey “wisdom,” Brock finished with a dismal 38% of the vote. The Hack failed to move the needle one single iota.

Now, thanks to the wet sloppy French kiss she got from the Burlington Free Press yesterday, we know the Hack is now running the campaign of Arizona gubernatorial hopeful Frank Riggs while simultaneously sending out fundraising appeals for her anti-health-reform group, Vermonters for Health Care Freedom.

Funny: the last time Johnston took a leave of absence from VHCF (to run the Brock campaign), she parachuted in Jeff Wennberg to keep her seat warm. This time, she’s been in Arizona for months, and there’s been no activity on the VHCF website since January. But she’s still listed as the VHCF contact person; no second act for Wennberg.

Which makes me wonder if she’s drawing a salary from VHCF, and what exactly she’s doing to earn it. Of course, she’s #1 in reporters’ Rolodexes when an anti-reform comment is needed; but it doesn’t take much effort to crank out a couple of generic sentences.

There are probably those who think I hate Darcie Johnston — probably including the Hack herself. But really, I don’t. I’ve never met her, and from all accounts she’s a nice person. What I do hate is people who scam the system, who take money and don’t provide any value in return. Yeah, I’m a left-winger, but I do believe in giving full value for payment, and I don’t like grifters.

Recent conservative history is littered with grifters — again, ironic for people who supposedly cherish achievement above all else. The current crop of Tea Party opportunism is of a piece with the Fox News/speaking circuit/ex-candidate Carousel To Nowhere symbolized by the utter cipher that is Sarah Palin, the Kardashian of politics. Not to mention the parallel scam-o-rama of overpriced political “geniuses” like Karl Rove and Richard Viguerie.

And the granddaddy of ’em all, the profiteers of religious broadcasting — Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, et al.

Our homegrown grifters are, by comparison, penny-ante in scope. But they are part of the same, ignoble tradition.  

The all-new, MORE MORE MORE Burlington Free Press, now specializing in wide margins, oversized fonts, and giant photographs, found a new way to waste ink, paper, and its readers’ time in the Monday paper with a front-page profile piece on Darcie “Hack” Johnston, overpaid conservative strategerist and consistent loser.

In itself, this doesn’t make the Freeploid unique; indeed, Seven Days performed its own personal servicing on Johnston last fall with a very friendly profile piece. But the ‘Loid’s offense is worse because: (1) the front-page placement (the 7D piece was well inside the paper), (2) the lack of any connection to current events (last October, Johnston was very active in the conservative vs. moderate battle for the VTGOP), and (3) the fact that Johnston isn’t even in Vermont these days. With local Republicans perhaps having realized that her wrong-headed consultancies cost a lot of money and yield no discernible results, Johnston has been forced to traverse the continent to find a candidate willing to pay for her (cough) political savvy: she’s in Arizona, heading the campaign of Republican gubernatorial candidate Frank Riggs.

(Based on her track record, we should expect her return to Our Green And Verdant Land shortly after Riggs loses the primary and she cashes her last paycheck.)

So how did the Freeploid justify a front-page story about a consultant who’s 2200 miles away?

Well, she posted something on Facebook about single-payer health care in Vermont.

Er, she posted something a few weeks ago.

Yeah, that warrants the front page. Headlining tomorrow’s Freeploid: Randy Brock Tweets!!!

Sheesh.  

The Facebook post is, natch, a mere pretext for a rehash of Johnston’s undistinguished consultancy career — with the emphasis on her devotion to principle. Largely concealed in deep shadow: the fact that every campaign she’s worked on has lost, and that she’s collected ample paychecks while failing to produce measurable results.

And buried deep in the article is the sad truth about her diminishing role in Vermont politics: her anti-health-care reform group, Vermonters for Health Care Freedom, appears to be hanging by a thread. I say so, first of all, because if VHCF had any money, do you really think she’d be spending this election season in Arizona?

Second, the Freeploid reports that a recent VHCF fundraising appeal seems not to have produced much return: Johnston is still bemoaning the lack of resources for any kind of media campaign.

And third, Johnston bestie Wendy Wilton conspicuously referred to VHCF in the past tense:

As for Johnston’s legacy, Wilton in Rutland suggested, “Whether Vermonters for Health Care Freedom made any kind of mark will be seen in the legislative races in the fall and in how hard lawmakers look at alternatives to single payer in the next session.”

Which, again, leaves me honestly puzzled by the Freeploid’s decision that Johnston was worthy of full-length treatment and front-page placement.

There is, however, a story worth exploring about Darcie Johnston: She sent that VHCF fundraising letter earlier this month — when she was already in Arizona, engaged full-time on the Riggs campaign. Unanswered in the Freeploid piece: is anybody running the show at VHCF? (Someone actually based in the state of Vermont, I mean.) Is VHCF conducting any activities in Johnston’s absence? What, exactly, can potential donors expect to get for their money?

And finally this: is Johnston collecting any compensation from VHCF? And is she doing any work?

Besides, y’know, the occasional Facebook post.  

During my recent absence, Senator Bob Hartwell, putative Democrat and chair of the Senate Natural Resources Committee, pulled off a rare feat of athletic flexibility: simultaneously putting his foot in his mouth and his head up his ass.

As previously documented by GMD’s Sue Prent, the alleged Democrat and environmentalist said some very curious things to Seven Days’ Paul “The Huntsman” Heintz a while back:

“I think what I don’t like about the extremists on the climate issue … is that somehow this is all being caused by human behavior. There is a significant natural phenomenon that is also going on, in my view,” Hartwell told Seven Days.

…In Hartwell’s view, “There’s a lot of science that says it isn’t happening the way the really aggressive commentators say it is. There’s other very credible people who say it isn’t true.”

In addition to pushing this obvious straw-man argument (does anyone really claim that climate change is 100% due to human impact?), Hartwell also threw shade on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, accusing IPCC of making “extreme statements” and allowing as to how he doesn’t “know whether they are true or not.”

Heintz’ column apparently caused some trouble for Hartwell, as it rightly should have, since he was practically quoting from the Climate Change Denier’s Little Red Book. Because Hartwell issued a statement denying that he was a, um, denier.

In the process, he didn’t really change the substance of his earlier position. He still believes that climate change is due to a combination of natural processes “exasperated by the influence of human behavior.”

Um, Bob? The word is “exacerbated.” “Exasperated” is how I feel when listening to you.

Heintz responded to Hartwell’s pushback by posting a transcript of their interview, which shows that Heintz accurately quoted the Senator and did not take his comments out of context. Score one for the Huntsman.

To be fair to Hartwell, he can’t be called a climate-change denialist. But he’s clearly a climate-change skeptic, and again, he’s using the language developed by denialists intent on undermining the scientific truth.

That is, of course, not Hartwell’s only offense against environmentalism.  

He has also, as Heintz reported, “pushed for a moratorium on large-scale wind projects, opposed the recent expansion of the state’s net metering program and raised questions about the safety of smart meters.”

On top of that, Hartwell has also openly called for repeal of the Bottle Bill, criticized Vermont’s goal of 90% renewable energy by 2050, bubbled about North America’s vast oil and gas reserves, and framed his discussion of energy entirely in terms of cost, instead of environmental impact. And he talked up natural gas as an alternative to coal-fired power plants — which sounds like he might have a favorable view toward the proposed Vermont Gas pipeline.  

Hmm, sounds more like a lobbyist for the Koch Brothers than the Democratic chair of the Natural Resources Committee.  

Which brings me to the big question: Why the hell is this guy chair of the Natural Resources Committee?

Well, the quick answer to that one is that the Lords of the Sandbox, the Senate’s Committee on Committees, put him there in 2012 as part of its obvious attempt to stack the committee with Senators opposed to wind energy. At least two of the CoC’s members — Phil Scott and John Campbell — are ill-disposed toward ridgeline wind.

But whether you like or dislike wind energy, there are lots of good reasons for believing that Bob Hartwell has no business chairing the Natural Resources Committee. He should be replaced when the committee assignments are reshuffled this fall. His presence is an offense to the environmental community and to the good faith of environment-minded voters who have helped fashion the Democratic super-majority in the Legislature.  

I see a connection between a couple of recent articles regarding higher education — specifically, the affordability of a college education.

First, from the Freeploid (paywalled, sorry), a national study finds that Vermont is near the bottom in support for higher education. 49th, in fact, in state appropriation per full-time student.

And such a bad 49th that, as Vermont State Colleges Chancellor Tim Donovan notes, if the state increased its higher-education funding by 50%, Vermont would rise from 49th all the way to… 47th. The root cause: a steady diminishment of higher-ed funding in the state budget in recent decades.

Over the last 30-plus years, state-supported aid has not kept pace with tuition growth, with the model trending toward “high tuition, low aid” and the financial-aid burden falling increasingly on the institutions. UVM spends about half of its annual $41 million state appropriation on aid just for its Vermont undergraduates, who account for about a third of total enrollment.

According to the Freeploid, restoring state aid to 1980 levels would require “that the state roughly double” its higher-ed appropriation. In 1980, state funding accounted for about half of Vermont State Colleges’ revenue. Today, that figure is down to 20%. The other 80% comes from tuition. (The national average is about what Vermont’s used to be — roughly fifty-fifty.)

Second, an Associated Press story published Monday in the Mitchell Family Organ (paywalled, but might be available somewhere else) reporting that Vermont ranks high in the number of college students who transfer out-of-state before finishing their studies. According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center…

…nationally, 6 percent of students who started at a four-year college in 2007 and completed their degrees by last year did so in a different state than where they began. New Hampshire and Vermont were among a dozen states where more than 10 percent of students took that path – in New Hampshire, it was 11 percent, and in Vermont, 13 percent.

Why so high? One factor common to both states is extremely high tuition for out-of-state students. At UVM, in-state tuition and fees amount to $15,700, while out-of-staters fork over a whopping $36,600.

The element that ties the two stories together: political expediency.  

When budgeting each year, Governors and lawmakers have held down higher-ed funding without apparent awareness of the long-term effect. A little trim here, a little trim there, and pretty soon you’ve got a buzzcut.

Expediency is also obvious in the disparity between in-state and out-of-state tuition. I checked a few other states, and Vermont’s proportions aren’t that unusual — it’s common for public institutions to charge out-of-state students double or even triple the rates for in-staters. The difference with Vermont is that both rates are so damn high. (The SUNY system charges out-of-staters almost three times as much as New Yorkers; but even so, SUNY’s out-of-state tuition is cheaper than UVM’s in-state tuition.)

Which makes a four-year education unaffordable for many students, which leads to Vermont’s high transfer rate.

Which, obviously, has an effect on our oft-bemoaned “brain drain.” If an out-of-state student starts in Vermont but transfers out before graduating, s/he’d be much less likely to come back to Vermont to pursue a career than the student who stays the course and graduates in Vermont.

But these are tight budget times. Governor Shumlin’s budget proposal would increase higher-ed funding by 1%, which would almost maintain last year’s purchasing power. The Legislature, casting about for solutions that don’t actually, you know, cost any money, has come up with two cups of weak tea: a bill that would reimburse part of a student’s tution if s/he stays in Vermont and pursues a career related to his/her course of study; and the every-popular “set up a study committee” to search for ways to return state funding to 1980 levels.

That’d be a magic trick worthy of Criss Angel, considering our tight budgets, reluctance to increase taxes, and all the other demands on the public purse. I’d fully expect the study committee to labor mightily and come forth with a bunch of recommendations that will mostly sit on a shelf in an attractive binder, gathering dust.

Meanwhile, our economy is paying the price(as are our students) for three decades of short-sightedness on higher education.  

Strategically placed on the Main Street roundabout in Montpelier:

Nice slogan.

Peyton is, as you may know, the only declared candidate for the Republican nomination.

“Paging Heidi Scheuermann. Heidi Scheuermann, please pick up the red courtesy phone.”