By Heidi Spear and Seth Henry
Vermont state politics are focused primarily on three major issues: climate change, education and health care. We are glad to live in a place where there is broad recognition of the critical nature of these issues. At the national level, given our views on these issues and others we hold dear, we will vote the Democratic ticket on November 8. At the state level, however, nearly all our votes will go to Independents or Republicans. We hope other moderate Democrats will consider doing the same.
The reasons we are splitting our tickets are as follows:
1) The Vermont Democratic leadership has cost us dearly with outsized ambition that doesn’t recognize the limits of our budget or our policy reach as the second least populous state in the country.
2) The Vermont Democratic leadership has continuously prioritized ideology over administration to a point that borders on gross negligence of public interests, confusing grandstanding for governing.
3) The Vermont Democratic leadership has allied with and entrenched special interests for political gain, engendering rent-seeking behaviors and undermining affordability and healthy competition.
On the energy front, despite our proximity to cheap and renewable hydropower, Vermont electricity rates have risen significantly faster than other states. In 2009, our rates were 30 percent higher than the national average. Today, they are more than 40 percent higher. It is no wonder, when Vermont Democratic leadership have cozied up to our utilities and energy developers providing them unfair advantages, including tax credits, rate-setting, metering and siting legislation that boosts their profits and hold on markets, while higher costs fall to ratepayers. Efficiency Vermont is a perfect example of the impact of these political alliances, enjoying a full 50 percent of taxpayer funding as overhead. Thanks to questionable credit swaps and the closing of Vermont Yankee, our carbon footprint has not even improved while our costs have risen. Yes, we care about clean energy, but how we get to a reduced carbon footprint and being able to afford to live and grow businesses in Vermont matters too.
The health care grandstanding is worse still, resulting in spending over $200 million on Vermont Health Connect with the bills still coming and a system still not working for Vermonters. Burning through all this money instead of leveraging the Federal Exchange arose and persists out of a false premise that we can somehow finance and contain costs in a European single-payer health care system in a state with just over 626,000 residents, an aging population, zero population growth and open borders. The direct effects of this delusion include extreme consolidation of health systems, massive rate increases, hospital profits tripling and the creation and funding of myriad new state bureaucracies. The indirect effects include perpetuating uncertainty that discourages current and would-be employers from expanding in Vermont. Even now, Vermont Democrats and Progressive leadership continues to try to resurrect this beast, while the public pays the price.
As for education, statistical analysis of statewide education spending proves that it is not correlated to district size. Despite that fact, the Vermont Democratic leadership has ignored the need for education funding reform to restore spending restraint and led the public to believe that size is the issue. With Act 46 dolling out lush tax incentives that represent a monumental cost shift, we can be sure costs will go up – not down– for the foreseeable future and that those who can’t hop on board the gravy train quickly will be unfairly (and unconstitutionally) burdened with higher taxes. While we see advantages to consolidating into PK-12 educational systems, to pretend that district size is the cause of our out-of-control education spending is intellectually dishonest and leaves the spending problem and affordability problem entirely unresolved. Ignoring that reality is grossly irresponsible and it remains the party line for Vermont Democrats.
In aggregate, the costs of the failure of our Vermont Democrats to effectively govern are staggering. State spending has increased by over $3,000 per year per household since Shumlin took office. Given the choice, households could use that money in any number of constructive ways to support these causes or improve their lives. Like us and unlike the federal government, states can’t print money. Interests must be balanced.
Vermont Democratic leadership won’t solve our problems when they won’t even acknowledge they exist – let alone their instrumental role in creating them. Allowing affordability and economic opportunity to be undermined by delusions of grandeur, ineffective governance and gravy for vested interests is bad for Vermont. There is only one cure for the dry rot of entrenched power – turn them out. We will vote for those who are willing to face Vermont’s problems honestly and prioritize restoring fiscal responsibility and affordability. We hope other Democrats will do so too.
Spear and Henry live in Fayston.
