Just In: The Latest Damage Report

Posted by Jack Hoffman on September 27, 2011 at 8:46 am

The damage caused by Tropical Storm Irene is clearly evident to anyone driving even a few miles in south-central Vermont. The damage from economic policies of the last 30 years has been harder to spot, but it’s becoming visible in statistics like those released on Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau. In Vermont, between 2008 and 2010:

• Median household income dropped 7.0* percent.
• The poverty rate for female-headed families

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‘Level funding’ is rarely level

Posted by Paul Cillo on August 24, 2011 at 8:14 pm

“(Governor) Shumlin says he plans to present a level-funded budget to the Legislature in January,” Bob Kinzel reported on Vermont Public Radio last week.

Level funding: The words suggest two things: no cuts, no increases.  For that reason, politicians love to use them. But what does level funding really mean?

Any one of three different things, depending on the speaker and the context.

1. We’ll maintain services, hold the…

How about trusting voters with health care?

Posted by Jack Hoffman on August 15, 2011 at 3:37 pm

Despite the national publicity Vermont received when Gov. Peter Shumlin signed the new Green Mountain Care bill into law, there is still a lot to be done if universal health care is to become a reality here. Funding is one of the biggest unknowns, and that won’t start to take shape for another 18 months or so. Nevertheless, critics already are making dire predictions about runaway taxes and warning about…