Author Archives: John S. Walters

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About John S. Walters

Writer, editor, sometime radio personality, author of "Roads Less Traveled: Visionary New England Lives."

No more listening and learning

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After his humiliating near-defeat at the ham-fists of Scott Milne last November, Governor Shumlin said the result was “a very clear message to this governor to listen, learn, reflect, be more inclusive.”

Sounded good. But if he ever meant it, he’s all done with that wimpy crap now. On Friday, Shumlin was a guest on The Mark Johnson Show; it was a full-on display of his least endearing qualities. He stuck to his rhetorical guns; he sidestomped inconvenient questions; he refused to acknowledge any mistakes or failings; he contradicted himself with blind insouciance; he belittled those who disagree with him.

It was pretty damned awful. Perhaps it was understandable, since he spoke with Johnson directly after House Speaker Shap Smith’s appearance, in which he openly differed with Shumlin on the way forward for Vermont Health Connect. Shumlin has set two deadlines for VHC to hit designated performance targets, at the end of May and October; Smith says May is the only one that matters. And he said so, repeatedly, on live radio, mere minutes before Shumlin stepped to the mic.

And when the mic went live, here’s what the Governor had to say.

On the subject of Auditor Doug Hoffer’s report on VHC, which related a litany of bureaucratic and IT horrors:

No big surprises. Frankly, I’ve been saying, we’ve been saying since the exchange went up it’s been a huge disappointment.

Yeah, well, a few days before it went up, you used the infamous phrase “nothing-burger.”

Technically, I suppose it’s true that Shumlin has consistently expressed disappointment. But he’s also consistently expressed optimism that everything’s under control and a fix is just around the corner. He has made promises and set deadlines, and failed to meet his own performance marks every time. He has doused his own credibility with gasoline and set it afire.

I don’t think that’s a surprise to any Vermonters that are frustrated by the exchange.

This is one of Shumlin’s tiredest tricks: positioning himself as shoulder-to-shoulder with us Vermonters, sharing our aspirations and frustrations. Man Of The People. Hey, he likes to hunt and fish and drink Budweiser down at the Legion hall.

Problem is, it comes across as completely phony. It doesn’t convince anybody, no matter how painfully earnest his voice gets.

So really, the Auditor’s report reflects what we’ve been saying all along. It’s a helpful document, but we have dealt with the issues that he reported. That’s what audits tend to do; they look back instead of forward.

Perhaps true, but misleading. Hoffer’s audit focused on several independent reports evaluating the VHC process and recommending changes. Many of those changes were not made. Indeed, some previously identified problems continue to bedevil VHC and may prevent it from becoming fully operational.

ImNotWrongThere’s a bigger, more fundamental issue with Shumlin’s statement. He hates admitting he was ever wrong or uninformed. Trouble is, we’ve heard it before and we’ve stopped believing it.

What he should have said: “The Auditor’s report is a troubling document, revealing a number of failings by me and my administration. I apologize for the difficulties we have caused thousands of Vermonters. We are doing everything we can to correct our mistakes and do better from now on. I remain confident that Vermont Health Connect will become fully functional and serve Vermonters as we intended.”

Back to the real interview. For several minutes, Johnson tried to pin the Governor down on the real import of the two deadlines, May and October. What emerged was a kicking-and-screaming acknowledgement that there’s only one real deadline, and it’s the end of October.

I’m saying if those two functions don’t work by November, the deadline I laid out in a press conference a month ago, whenever it was, we are gonna look at whatever other options we have.

Well, actually he gave two deadlines. What would happen, Johnson asked, if the change of circumstance function isn’t working by the end of May — Shumlin’s self-selected deadline? Would the contractor get more time to fix it?

I’m not going to speculate on it not working. My job is to make it work.

That’s wrong on two counts. First, Shumlin himself has been talking about what will happen if it doesn’t work. And second, he’d be an irresponsible administrator if he didn’t have contingency plans.

Johnson, a bit taken aback by Shumlin’s assertion that he wasn’t “going to speculate on it not working,” replied “You’ve got to give the people some idea of what you’ll do if it doesn’t work.”

I did. I said if the change of circumstance is’t workin’ and if you can’t sign up folks for re-enrollment in November, we’re gonna make that decision together, we should move on if it doesn’t work.

Okay, so now he did do the very thing he just denied he had done. And he conveniently deep-sixed his own May deadline, opening a line of retreat for possible use on June 1.

Finally, Johnson asked if November was the real, actual deadline. Shumlin said “Yes.” Johnson pointed out that “The Speaker says it’s May.”

I don’t see this as a test of dates. I see this as a challenge to make the exchange work the way we all wish it to work for all Vermonters.

Well, it wasn’t the Speaker’s idea to set dates; it was the Governor’s. Now he doesn’t want to talk dates. And in downplaying May 31 in favor of October 31, he has deepened the divide between himself and Smith.

All in all, it was a performance that echoed the worst of pre-election Shumlin — the overweeningly self-confident Master Of His Domain and ersatz Man Of The People. I guess he’s done all the listening he wants to do, and he didn’t like what he heard.

Surgery with hammers

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So the House passed a tax bill including a measure that will make Vermont’s income tax system more progressive by capping itemized deductions at 2.5 times the standard deduction. Since affluent taxpayers benefit from deductions far more than low earners, the deduction cap will (modestly) increase their taxes.

That’s a good thing. And of course the Senate can’t leave it alone.

Sen. Tim Ashe, D/P-Chittenden, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, wants to take a more “surgical” approach [to tax deductions].

… In a Senate Finance Committee bill he introduced on Tuesday, Ashe proposes three changes: A cap on mortgage deductions (to be determined, but between $12,000 and $15,000); a 3 percent minimum income tax; the elimination of charitable deductions and the creation of a 5 percent income tax credit for donations of over $5,000 made in Vermont.

Tim Ashe is a very smart man. He should consider developing a personality if he wants to run for higher office, but he’s got a lot of good ideas — such as wanting to take a comprehensive look at how our tax structure works and doesn’t work.

But “surgical” is a misnomer in this case. Using tax deductions and tax credits to influence public behavior is inherently inefficient.  Those tax breaks are almost always marginal and have little to no effect on most financial decision-making by individuals and businesses. This is especially true of state tax policy: Vermont’s deductions are worth far less than the federal ones, and their impact is feebler and harder to measure.

Don’t believe me? Well, when was the last time “tax implications” were a decisive factor in a purchasing decision?

Sure, it’s a factor, but the benefits are dwarfed by the costs. We’d be far better off if we stopped trying to micromanage how people use their money and created a much simpler tax system.

Still don’t believe me? Okay, let’s take a popular and very direct tax incentive: the sales tax holiday. Yes, it encourages people to buy goods on a given day — but most of those goods would have been purchased anyway, sooner rather than later. The tax holiday concentrates that purchasing in a single day, but it creates little or no additional demand. The state foregoes sales tax revenue for very little real effect on the economy.

Still don’t believe me? How about this: even when a tax incentive has an effect, it has even greater side effects. Take, for example, the mortgage interest deduction: it has encouraged home ownership — which may or may not actually be a good thing, especially in an age of greater mobility — but it gives the biggest tax breaks to those who need them least. A rich guy owning a million-dollar home and a country estate will get a whole lot more benefit than a median-income family scratching out a mortgage.

The mortgage interest deduction’s unintended consequence: We are all subsidizing the mansions and playgrounds of the wealthy.

Ashe’s ideas for a “surgical” approach seem okay, I guess, but I’d much rather take the House’s approach of a simple deduction cap. Let’s stop pretending we can steer our economy through the tax code. Let’s have a bias for simplicity when considering changes to our tax code.

Et tu, Shapleigh?

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Once in a while, even a jaded Political Observer sees something that cracks through his tough shell of cynicism and evinces a breathy “Whoa!” It happened last night when I was reading a report by VPR’s Peter Hirschfeld about Vermont Health Connect.

Background: Governor Shumlin has said he’ll be ready to explore alternatives to VHC if it fails to meet functionality deadlines at the end of May and October. The “Whoa!” comes courtesy of House Speaker Shap Smith, who flat-out said there’s only one deadline that matters, and it’s the first one.

Smith on Thursday morning said he’ll look to begin the transition to a federal version of the website if May passes without a change-of-circumstance fix. “If nearly two years after we try to bring the exchange online we still don’t have an exchange that works in an effective way, then I believe that we need to move to another system,” Smith says.

"Wait, what did you say?"

“Wait, what did you just say?”

That’s a pretty clear statement that pretty clearly puts Mr. Speaker and the Governor at odds. And Shap Smith is not one to speak without thinking. Carefully. Twice. At least.

If you had any doubt about that, Mr. Speaker doubled down on his comments today on “The Mark Johnson Show.”

If we don’t meet the May 31 deadline… we will need to explore other options.

He asserted that many Vermonters had “already lost confidence in the exchange,” and “at some point, they will lose all confidence.” And if May 31 comes and goes without success, “I don’t see how we can go to Vermonters” and tell them it will work eventually.

When Johnson noted that Shumlin has two deadlines, May and October, and asked “Is May your deadline?” Smith replied, “Yes.” He expressed hope that VHC will meet the May deadline, but sketched out a plan for legislative committees to work over the summer to develop alternatives.

Smith’s appearance before the Johnson microphone was followed, mirabile dictu, by Governor Shumlin himself. And Shumlin stuck to his guns.

“There are two dates. Change of circumstance needs to work by May 31, and re-enrollment by October 31. If those two functions aren’t working by November, we’ll be looking at other options.”

There it is. The two most powerful Democrats in Montpelier* have very different outlooks on Vermont Health Connect. If I were an irresponsible blogger, I’d be tempted to write something about “the opening salvos in the 2016 Democratic primary.” Good thing I’m not.

*John Campbell? Feh.

And really, that’s not what this is about. This is about identifying the best way forward. And in this case, Shap Smith is right: if VHC’s change of circumstance function isn’t working on June 1, it will be time to start finding another way — even if it can’t be implemented until the 2017 insurance year. Which everyone agrees it can’t.

Smith is acting less in his own political interest than in his party’s interest. Waiting until November would push the process of creating an alternative well into the 2016 campaign season. Democrats would only be able to offer promises to find a better way, which won’t convince anybody.

By this time next year, they must be able to articulate a clearly defined better way. Keeping to Shumlin’s timetable would risk immense harm to the Democratic Party in 2016. I suspect that Mr. Speaker isn’t willing to take that risk, even if the alternative is to throw shade on his own Governor.

Mind you, everyone — including Smith — wants VHC to work. They want all of this talk and speculation to be rendered moot. Smith doesn’t want to part ways with the Governor, and hopes he doesn’t have to take that step. But if May 31 comes and goes, he is prepared to move in another direction whether the Governor likes it or not.

THE IRONY!! IT BURNS!!!!!!

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Pardon this brief sojourn outside Vermont’s borders, but I just can’t resist.

As my readers are painfully aware, I’m a big fan of irony. But this… this is Irony Overload. This is irony so bright you can’t stare directly at it for fear of going blind. This is nuke-level irony that can destroy an entire city. This is Irony That Wiped Out The Dinosaurs.

This is… sick.

Jeb Bush is utterly clueless or completely shameless, one or the other. Because his own family is a walking, talking, multigenerational advertisement for American social immobility. Wikipedia:

Along with many members who have been successful bankers and businessmen, across generations the family includes two U.S. Senators, one Supreme Court Justice, two Governors and two Presidents (one of the two presidents also served as Vice President).  …Peter Schweizer, author of a biography of the family, has described the Bushes as “the most successful political dynasty in American history”.

So all we have to do is make Jeb the third Bush president in less than twenty years, and he’ll get right to work on that social mobility thing.

Time for Bill Sorrell to make a dignified exit

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One of the proudest moments of my blogging career was in May 2012, when Vermont Eternal General Bill Sorrell was launching his re-election campaign. In his speech, he said “I’ve been called a two-fisted attorney general, and there’s a reason for that.”

Welp, turned out that the only person who’d called him a “two-fisted attorney general” was Yours Truly. And it was meant as sarcasm.

Of course, when it comes to Himself, our E.G. suffers from extreme myopia. He can’t see that anybody might dislike or disrespect him.

But in fact, there’s widespread evidence that Sorrell is rapidly becoming the Chuck Noland of Vermont politics, marooned on a desert island, holding endless conversations with his sole companion, a volleyball named Wilson.

On top of that, there’s the continuing string of embarrassing revelations about Sorrell’s naked-emperor tenure as A.G. The latest, from Seven Days’ Paul Heintz, concerns a misbegotten lawsuit against major oil companies over the gasoline additive MTBE.

When Sorrell announced the suit last year, he billed it as a courageous gambit on behalf of consumers and the environment. But as Heintz reports, there are two big problems with that characterization:

— Sorrell filed the suit at the instigation of a top law firm that does a very healthy business in representing state Attorneys General in lucrative litigation. And routinely gives significant campaign cash to AGs like Sorrell.

— The suit was filed at a very late date, and will probably go nowhere as a result. Other states filed MTBE suits, and received big settlements, years ago. New Hampshire got its sweetheart deal way back in 2004. Which makes one wonder why the hell our Two-Fisted Eternal General didn’t take the copycat route way back then.

Apparently he couldn’t come up with the idea on his own, even though the New Hampshire suit was big news at the time. He didn’t think of it until his big-time lawyer buddies floated the idea.

Makes me wonder how many other times our T.F.E.G. was similarly asleep at the wheel. And remember, his supposed courage in taking big corporations to court is the foundation of his reputation.

The last time I wrote a piece about Sorrell’s dumbassery and possible crookery, I got a whole lot of compliments about it the next time I spent a day at the Statehouse. I have since gotten further communications that make it clear Sorrell has very few friends left in Vermont politics. Heintz’ column includes comments from some of our top officeholders who make it clear they want nothing to do with Sorrell’s increasingly self-soiled reputation.

If Bill Sorrell had any capacity for authentic self-examination, he would probably decide that this should be his last term as our T.F.E.G. He could coast out of office to broad acclaim — mainly from those who’d be relieved to see his retirement. It’d be like Derek Jeter collecting accolades while having a truly wretched 2014, playing every day and sabotaging the Yankee lineup by insisting on batting second, and yet being universally hailed as the Living Embodiment of Baseball.

However, since Bill Sorrell seems to be completely lacking in capacity for authentic self-examination, it’ll take quite a bit of persuading to convince him not to run for re-election next year. Here’s hoping the Democratic Party and its leaders are up to the task.

Also, here’s hoping TJ Donovan has the stones to challenge our T.F.E.G. once again. If he were to lose again, he’d put his political future in serious doubt. But if he were to win, or force Sorrell to take the Jeter route, he would be doing the state a huge service. We need a real Attorney General, not the uncritical doofus who currently occupies the office.

The Quango Follies

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Funny little piece of news, strikes me as just a bit off.

Mike Smith, former Douglas Administration functionary, then president of FairPoint and briefly co-prez of Burlington College, has a sweet new gig. He’ll be paid $70,000 for a six-month consultancy at the Emergency 911 Board.

This comes after the extremely sudden retirement of longtime E-911 chief Douglas Tucker. Smith’s brief is, curiously, both comprehensive and vague.

Smith will examine staffing and call volumes, and assist the interim executive director with day-to-day management issues.

… Smith will be responsible for developing a process to recruit and hire a new executive director. He will need to prepare a report for the E-911 board about how emergency telephone services should be organized in Vermont, and what models “could result in efficiencies.”

Now, the E-911 Board is what the Brits call a “quango” — a quasi-autonomous non-governmental organization. It’s an entity with a public purpose but not directly answerable to central government authority. Quangos can perform critical functions; they can also be dumping grounds for hangers-on who need to be parachuted into a well-paid but not terribly demanding job. (See the classic “Yes, Prime Minister” episode, “Jobs For the Boys.”)

The E-911 Board didn’t have to get approval for the Smith contract from the Shumlin administration. And the contract is an interesting move for a number of different reasons:

— Smith is a notable Republican who serves as part-time “political analyst” for WCAX-TV. He has also written some unflattering opinion pieces about the Democratic administration.

— The E-911 Board faces a substantial budget cut that would force consolidation of its four call centers into two.

— The Shumlin administration has proposed folding the Board’s responsibilities into the Department of Public Safety, which would bring an end to its quango status.

— Because of his tenure at FairPoint, Smith “will not involve himself in any matters concerning FairPoint in order to avoid any perceived conflicts of interest.” Well, considering that FairPoint is in the middle of implementing an $11.2 million state contract for a new E-911 system, Smith will have to recuse himself from an awful lot of Board activities. If he keeps his promise, it seems to me that his ability to fulfill his duties will be limited.

Know what this looks like to me? An independent but publicly-funded agency, under pressure to cut costs and submit to administrative controls, has hired a prominent Shumlin critic to look for ways out of its situation — thus inflating its spending in the short run. If Smith comes up with savings comparable to the proposed call center cuts, then the Board will have grounds for insisting that the cuts don’t have to be made and its independence doesn’t need to be taken away.

Yeah, kinda smells a little.

If Bill Sorrell needed a reason to throw another hissy fit…

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Pardon the recent light blogging; I’ve been out of town. Got some stuff to catch up on, such as the following.

Recently, Seven Days’ Paul Heintz reported that many House Republicans conveniently absented themselves when the House voted on a marriage-equality resolution. These folks, real Profiles in Courage one and all, opposed the resolution but refused to put themselves on the record doing so. Still, they made some delightfully juicy comments to Heintz, including this delightful outrage-gasm from Republican Representative and Man’s Man Tom Terenzini:

“I would have voted against the resolution because, you know, No. 1: I don’t like socialist Democrats and the Progressives shoving that crap down my throat.”

Oh, those people are so completely obsessed with things being shoved down their throats. Something you’re hiding, Tom?

Anyway, Vermont Democratic Party flack Ben Sarle couldn’t resist this Cavalcade O’ Republican Outrage, so he sent out an email blast documenting the anti-resolution comments.

Did he realize that he was also sending a link to a whole lot of anti-Bill Sorrell material?

The second half of Heintz’ column was devoted to Sorrell’s routine flouting of campaign finance reporting laws. Which is, you know, ironic and stuff because Our Eternal General claims to be our guardian angel of campaign purity.

A review of Sorrell’s recent filings shows that he has routinely ignored the rules. Sixteen times over the past four years, Sorrell’s campaign has reimbursed him for hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of dollars’ worth of expenses paid out of his own pocket. In each instance, the campaign provided only a vague explanation of what Sorrell bought with the campaign cash — and never once did it disclose who it paid.

Heintz goes on to document the incredibly under-documented state of Sorrell’s filings. If any other Vermont pol did that stuff, Sorrell would be all over them like funk on a wet dog.

It’s damning stuff. And the Vermont Democratic Party effectively blasted it to their entire list.

I’m guessing it wasn’t intentional. On the other hand, there are a lot of Dems who can’t stand the guy, see him as out of touch, mediocre, full of himself, and quite possibly corrupt. Is there any chance that this was a subtle shot across Sorrell’s bow? An indication that the party wouldn’t be averse to a primary challenge in 2016?

Oh, we can only hope.

The old boys’ network at Liquor Control

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The Burlington Free Press’ Mike Donoghue has been doing what he always does — carpet-bombing government agencies with public records requests* — and his mighty labors have once again brought forth a mouse. Relative to other public-sector featherbedding scandals.

*I wonder how much he’s cost the taxpayers of Vermont with all his requests. Gee, somebody ought to file a public records request for that.

But it is an interesting mouse, I’ll give him that.

The story concerns an off-the-books arrangement between Liquor Control Commissioner Michael Hogan and LCC staffer WIlliam Goggins, whereby Goggins was promised at least ten hours per week of paid overtime “without having to provide any documentation.”

This arrangement went on for 14 1/2 years, and enriched Goggins to the tune of $162,857. That’s about 12K per year; not that many dollars, really.

But while the money isn’t huge, the process stinks to high heaven. It’s a fine example of the Old Boys’ Network, where unwritten deals between longtime colleagues can fly under the radar for years without any questions being raised. It’s not the Shumlin administration at fault; it’s the Vermont Way. This arrangement began when Howard Dean was governor, continued throughout the Douglas years, and came to an end by Jeb Spaulding’s order this January. And only then because the budget was so tight, the administration was looking everywhere for ways to save.

As Donoghue reports, the Hogan/Goggins deal was unusual for state employees of equivalent rank and responsibility: top administrators don’t usually qualify for overtime. They’re stuck with their salaries. (In Goggins’ case, $75K per year.)

Hogan and Goggins insist there was nothing untoward about their arrangement. I’ll acknowledge that Goggins may well have earned his pay, although since he didn’t have to keep records we’ll never know; but the nature of their deal raises a giant red flag. And yes, I’ve got some questions:

— How many other sub rosa deals are there in the back offices of state government?

— How many such deals might exist in bodies like the LCC, which is directly overseen by the Liquor Control Board, not the central administration?

— Are there any other irregular arrangements in the LCC specifically? Mr. Hogan’s occupied that chair for a long time, and he seems to enjoy a liberal interpretation of his administrative discretion.

— And finally, should we perhaps take a second look at Auditor Doug Hoffer’s examination of the LCC, which got nary a glance the first time around? If the Hogan/Goggins agreement is any indication, the commission might need a good air-clearing. Now would seem to be the time to ask more questions, instead of blithely accepting Hogan’s response to the Hoffer audit:

“There are some things in the report that we could do, and are doing,” Hogan said. “But time has proven [this system] works. I don’t think it’s a broken system.”

Perhaps Michael Hogan isn’t the best judge of whether Michael Hogan’s own administration is “a broken system.” Reminds me of Bill Sorrell blandly assuring us all that Bill Sorrell has done nothing wrong.

The cop video and Vermont

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One of my first coherent thoughts after viewing the Walter Scott video (after the outrage and disbelief and gratitude that the incident was recorded) was, “In Vermont, the police don’t shoot black guys. They shoot the mentally ill.”

It’s obvious to me that if the killing of Walter Scott hadn’t been recorded, it would have come down to the word of a live cop versus the silence of a dead victim. The result, almost certainly, would have been the exoneration of the cop and the staining of the victim’s reputation.

We don’t have enough black people to have our own Fergusons or Walter Scotts or Abner Louimas. But we do have our Mac Masons and Woody Woodwards and Wayne Brunettes. And in every case, the police version is accepted without serious question.

The Walter Scott video calls that presumption into question. That South Carolina policeman not only gunned down a fleeing man; he tried to frame him. If that officer is capable of such callousness and deceit, how are we to believe other officers who may be well-trained and may have a commitment to justice, but also have the most profound self-interest in avoiding prosecution and disgrace?

We have seen it with our own eyes: in that situation, a cop is as capable of lying as anyone else.

Encounters with the mentally ill are particularly troublesome for all involved. People with mental illnesses may not be able to respond appropriately to police commands. Indeed, the usual police tactic — brandishing a weapon and shouting instructions — may well be counterproductive.

It’s unfair to expect a policeman — who may be making less than a living wage — to react with the insight and diplomacy of a mental health professional. These are tough situations that play out in mere seconds of real time.

But the Walter Scott case shows us that we can’t assume the police are telling the truth in all cases. And that is clearly the default position of Vermont authorities, particularly Attorney General Bill Sorrell.

Are police in tough situations? Yes. Do they often, or usually, do the right thing? I’m sure they do.

Are they always blameless — as blameless as Sorrell and his fellows seem to believe? Hell, no.