The Prog Blog

You’ll recall that news came out last month about Fairpoint’s proposed bankruptcy settlement. In the agreement, Fairpoint proposed paying unsecured creditors only 17 cents on the dollar. I recognized the impact that would have in our communities, as a range of individuals and companies, both large and small, are not paid for the services and stuff they have provided (electricity, water, office supplies, vehicle maintenance, construction, line clearing services, etc.).  At the time, I did not consider myself an unsecured creditor.

In my town (and many others) our town report lists delinquent tax payers.  This year we had a new addition–you guessed it–Fairpoint.  And so everyone who pays property taxes in my town, and in towns across the state where Fairpoint owns property, is also an unsecured creditor.

Governor Douglas is looking to shift the teachers’ retirement fund to local property tax.  Where he has failed so far, his PSB has succeeded.  In approving the Fairpoint-Verizon landline sale, they effectively allowed Verizon to sell off its non-wireless holdings and stiff us all with the tax bill.

Each year the administration proposes budget cuts, very often cuts they have tried before. The first candidates for the chopping block are those characterized as “new programs.” A frequent flyer on that list is a program called “Reach Ahead.” Reach Ahead was created by the House Human Services Committee during a snowy week in 2007 as we searched for ways to make our welfare-to-work programs satisfy federal law and actually do what they are meant to do – move families permanently out of poverty. The concept of Reach Ahead is pretty simple. Under existing income limits, even a low-wage job disqualifies a welfare family from most benefits. Then any financial setback – auto breakdown, furnace repair, sick child – can push that family back onto the welfare rolls.

So our modest idea was to give just a tiny boost to make that first year of real work more likely to succeed. Reach Ahead gives a family whose work income disqualifies them from Reach Up a food payment of $100/mo for six months, followed by $50/mo for the second six months. Our initial frustration was watching the implementation date of this “new program” pushed off months into the future. As the economy tanked, every proposal to cut the budget included eliminating Reach Ahead because it was new. The notion that “new” meant most recently examined and therefore most likely to work seemed lost on the administration.

Weren’t we surprised when the administration finally admitted that Reach Ahead works! Yes, it was finally implemented last July (on a trial basis) and the official report showed that it does what we hoped. It’s too early to be certain that it will actually save welfare dollars but it has helped Vermont satisfy federal rules (and avoid financial penalty) and it appears to be helping families and their children.

As the recession continues, it is no surprise that this legislative session has been dominated by budget issues. Unlike Congress, we must prepare a balanced budget regardless of economic pressures. This year we began the session with a projected $150 million gap between anticipated revenue and spending needs for the fiscal year that begins on July 1. The budget proposed by the administration included shifting expenses to property tax payers and potentially crippling cuts to services for Vermonters, neither of which could be supported by the House.

Following two years of severe budget cuts, there are no easy categories of additional savings. Happily, two groups have stepped up to make their own contribution to filling the gap. First, the state employees agreed to a 3% wage cut, saving more than $10 million; then the teachers’ association found a new retirement formula that saves another $15 million.

As we examine areas for further savings, we must assure that we are not merely shifting costs from state government to local communities. Many current state appropriations are used by community and regional agencies to knit together an entire system of services for children, elders, people with disabilities and the poor. Our partnership with those groups represents years of collaboration, and it is critical that we not unravel the fabric beyond repair. Much of our approach to services is based on Grandma’s adage that “a stitch in time saves nine.” That is true for children with special needs, for elders trying to stay out of nursing homes, for youth at risk of incarceration. We are analyzing all of the proposed cuts through the lens of long-term effectiveness.

One of the major pressures on the budget has been the cost of the teachers’ retirement fund, an obligation assumed by the state over 40 years ago. In tight budget years it has been common simply to short the annual contribution to that fund. We have all agreed that such an approach is unacceptable.

After much work by a commission, the state Treasurer and the Vermont-NEA, the House passed H.764. This bill will modify retiree benefits, save $15 million in the coming fiscal year and put the fund on track to be affordable and sustainable into the future. Most importantly, the bill keeps teacher retirement as a state obligation and does not transfer a large new expense to the education fund, where it would result in higher property taxes.

The essential elements of the redesign are as follows: (1) Those teachers already retired and receiving benefits are unaffected. (2) Teachers with 25 years of service can receive their expected pension and health coverage. (3) Teachers who are younger than 57 or have less than 25 years of service will have new eligibility rules for retirement: The new eligibility follows the “rule of 90,” where years of service plus age must equal 90. (4) The annual teacher contribution to the fund will increase to 5%. (5) Early retirement will stay at age 55, but benefits will be reduced.

The bill also sets a 10% per year limit on the annual salary increase that can be used in determining the average final compensation upon which the pension is calculated. It does allow the pension to increase from 50% to 60% for those who work for 34 years. And the bill adds a new formula for setting the health care premiums for retirees and their spouses.

As we observe the wonderful heavy wet snow today, my attention is drawn to the snow job that both House and Senate are attempting on health reform.

I have personally waded through hours of testimony regarding the needs of the health system by those who are operating and profiting from the current arrangements.

I have watched as a former vice president of a health corporation has testified in favor of some jigging here and some snake oil there in the form of “Accountable Organizations.” I thought that community non-profit hospitals were already accountable to both the community and the Banking and Insurance department.

I for one think of these AO’s as sons of HMO’S that were supposed to (in late eighties and nineties) keep health care costs in line. But they have shown to be a bust.

Why do we suppose that these new organizations will work? In spite of all else, the insurance companies will continue to charge as they will and collude with each other to fix prices. Remember that the only other organizations exempt from a law that prohibits price fixing are the professional baseball clubs.

Why are we shocked and horrified as to the behavior of health insurance companies, when the game is set up for them to do exactly what they do? Why is it so hard for our House and Senate health committees to understand that until we do away with health insurances companies as the portal through the majority of working Vermonters get health care, they will continue to milk the public for all they are worth?

Last week yet another consultant told the health committees that the State could save over a million dollars a year if they would manage the Catamount health system.

The State already spent over a million dollars to develop Catamount and then turned it over free to Blue Cross to peddle to Vermonters.  The State then spent another million to “educate” Vermonters to the benefits of Catamount. And of course the Blues make a profit in handling this insurance product.

So if your head is spinning as to just what the House and Senate Health committees are up to, join the crowd.

There will be no useful “product” to stem the ever-rising price for health insurance in this state this year, for there is a complete lack of leadership in both houses of the legislature.

Unless the people raise hell with the legislature at town meeting and demand accountability, no bill that deals with controlling healthcare costs will be made before adjournment.

Charlotte & I will be reading together from our recently published books:

The People v Bush - Charlotte Dennett; In The End A Circle - Peggy Sapphire

We would love to have your presence at this event: Thursday Feb 25 7pm Jeffersonville Libarary Main Street, Jeffersonville.

We are looking for venues statewide, in your barns, garages, homes, libraries, community centers, etc. so we can continue the Grand Tradition of Poetry & Politics! Please be in touch…Peggy suenos88@vtlink.net Charlotte charlottedennett@gmail.com

This past week the House passed S.117, an act relating to the date of the primary election, a seemingly innocuous bill intended to increase voter participation and to bring Vermont election law into compliance with federal law. The main idea is that if the primary election were earlier, there would be more time for overseas voters to receive and return their ballots. Progressives had been asked to testify and our position was twofold: 1) parties should decide their candidates for the general election, so primaries should be a Party function not a state function (and cost), and 2) if this will increase participation, then it is a good idea.

However, before third reading an amendment was passed that removed the opportunity for Independent candidates to enter the race after the primary. The authors’ goal was to remove the opportunity for someone who lost a primary to then enter the same race as an Independent. This however created a bias toward the three major parties, because those parties can nominate candidates for the general election for three days after the primary election. The reason for this is if a major party did not have any candidates in a primary and was therefore not fielding anybody in the general election, then they could have a “second bite” at the apple so that there would be a contested election.  Independents used to have the same rules (they had the same three days to file a petition with signatures). Now Independents have to file for the General election at the same time as major party candidates have to file for the primary election.

With the main reason given for this change being to stop a primary loser from running as an Independent, I asked for the statistics. It turns out that this occurs in only about 0.5-1% of the seats up for election each cycle. To solve the “problem” the House created a few others:

1) an unfair playing field for the 40% of Vermonters who do not consider themselves a member of the three major parties;

2) fewer choices for voters whose preferred candidate loses in the primary; and

3) a bias to become a member of the three major parties in order to have the opportunity to run in a situation where there might have been an unchallenged election field.

Our election system is already too rigged towards two parties, much less three. We should be making the system more open to involvement by people not less.

This amendment was a step backwards for democracy. It may have had the intention of solving one “problem,” but in fact has many other consequences.

This post originally appeared on Huffington Post.

One of the most remarkable things about England’s ongoing “Iraq War Inquiry” is how little has been written about it in the U.S. Though many Britons believe the so-called Chilcot inquiry is a whitewash, there are important facts to glean from the testimony of high level officials who led Great Britain to the war in Iraq, facts which reveal contradictions in their official stories and bear comparison with the U.S. government’s version of what happened.

Last week, thanks to the internet, the transcript of former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s testimony became available. His version of events leading up to the war, compared to the known facts about why the two most powerful nations in the world really went to war, revealed a high level of dissembling on his part — especially on the issue of “regime change.” The secret to unraveling his lies and omissions is simple: insert the missing context of oil. During the BBC’s roundup of the first day of hearings, a BBC reporter spoke to one of the first witnesses, a foreign policy official who spoke about the impact of 9/11 on the Foreign Office’s deliberations as to the advisability of military intervention in Iraq. Then the BBC interviewed a British soldier who had been to Iraq. The soldier got right to the point: “This war is about oil, I don’t care what they say.”

Blair and his questioners said absolutely nothing about oil during a full day of testimony, so I shall provide the missing context below.

First, the known facts. Republican neo-cons advising Bush on his war strategy, including Vice President Dick Cheney (like Bush an inveterate oil man) had plotted for years to seize Iraq’s oil. Iraq was the first issue on their agenda when Bush came into office in 2000. Bush said “Find me a way,” and his lawyers got to work, concocting the necessary legal pretext for invading Iraq. But they all knew that seizing the oil was only half the equation. The other half was transporting the oil, via pipeline, to market. Their terminal point of choice was the Israeli port of Haifa, which housed not only a large refinery that had fueled the British navy in World War II, but was the terminal point for a previous pipeline that had connected the oil of Iraq to Palestine until the Israeli war of Independence in 1948…

Read the full post here.

With current budget shortfalls and the legislature facing the painful possibility of cutting necessary social programs, it seems like an ideal time to revisit the notion of progressive taxation. The Douglas administration would, of course, veto any legislation to tax the wealthy at a fair rate and use that revenue to help out the neediest Vermonters, but the legislature has shown that it can pull together and override the governor’s vetoes when they need to. Let’s send a message to our legislators that now is the time to push for fair taxation. We can’t afford to cut more social programs.

This week we saw the real power of well-organized advocacy. On Tuesday the House voted down a proposed amendment to the Budget Adjustment bill that came to light over the weekend. The issue was the Canteen at the State Hospital in Waterbury. The Canteen has been run for many years as a snack bar where hospital patients approved for special privileges can mingle with other workers in the Waterbury complex. Some patients even work at the Canteen.

The administration closed the Canteen in December to save the modest subsidy it has needed for the past couple of years. Historically, the Canteen paid for itself and many believe that it can be managed to do so again. As the Senate reviewed the Budget Adjustment bill (H.534), they decided to add a provision that requires the Dept. of Mental Health to evaluate the possibility of reopening the Canteen on a cost-neutral basis. When the Senate’s version of Budget Adjustment came to the House, our Appropriations Committee voted to delete the Senate language regarding the Canteen.

Over the weekend, advocates discovered that their hard-fought Senate language was threatened, and mobilized to save it. Many of us received emails in support of the Canteen. On arrival at the Statehouse on Tuesday, we found letters in our mailboxes with hand-written notes imploring us to keep the Senate language. The upshot was that all of the conversation in the cafeteria focused on the Canteen. By the time the issue came to a vote on the House Floor, the proposal to remove the Senate language had support only from a few members of the House Appropriations Committee. The vote to save the Senate language was 115-6 by division of the House (where members stand up to be counted). It was a truly a victory for good advocacy.