Category Archives: Peter Shumlin

Single-payer price tag: the dollars matter less than what they bought

2 Replies

Another fine “Fair Game” column by Seven Days politimeister Paul Heintz, most of which is an attempt to put a price tag on Gov. Shumlin’s failed pursuit of single-payer health care.

The takeaway number: $2 million. But that comes with some major cutouts; if you changed the ground rules, you could come up with a much higher number.

Heintz sought that number for ten weeks before the administration finally came up with it. And after all that time, all they did was add up two numbers: $597,000 to ten consultants, and $1.33 million spent on the governor’s Office of Health Care Reform.

However… the consultants and the OHCR weren’t the only people who put in time on single-payer. Work was also done by staffers in “10 offices, departments and agencies.” There was lobbying and flackery on behalf of single-payer. And many millions were spent on the Green Mountain Care Board and other entities that might not have existed, or been nearly so expensive, if not for their work on single-payer.

So, $2 million. Or a lot more, your choice.

The big question, though: was that too much? And the answer is, it depends.

If it was spent well and wisely, then $2 million or even $20 million would be a perfectly reasonable investment in research on a huge policy initiative. If it was spent poorly, then $2 million or $2,000 would be a waste.

So it depends. If you oppose single-payer, it’s an outrage. If you favor single-payer and believe the governor did his best, it’s reasonable.

And if, like me and many other single-payer supporters, you have your doubts regarding the administration’s performance, then that $2 million figure will make you a bit more queasy about the whole enterprise.

Urp.

Shumlin’s numbers are down. In other news, Sun Rises In East.

Leave a reply

That’s not a Gatorade bath, Governor: it’s a big ol’ bucket of cold water.

For the first time in Gov. Peter Shumlin’s tenure, more Vermonters disapprove of his job performance than approve of it.

A new VTDigger/Castleton Polling Institute survey shows that 47 percent of those surveyed disapprove of the job Shumlin, a Democrat, is doing as governor and 41 percent approve.

You know, the fact that his numbers are down is completely unsurprising. Indeed, when you consider that he only got 46% of the vote last November, the bigger surprise is that 41% of us still got Shumlin’s back.

Look at what’s happened since that disastrous November vote: Shumlin abandoned his signature proposal, single-payer health care; the state’s budget deficit continued to grow; the Democratic legislature rejected much of his third-term agenda; the government faces major challenges on school funding, Lake Champlain, and that darn budget.  It’s not exactly shocking that he’s down to 41%.

Still, the Governor is underwater for the first time in his tenure. That’s not good.

The VTDigger/Castleton poll is very thorough, and offers a wealth of subsidiary numbers. The one that ought to worry Shumlin the most: only 62% of Democrats view him positively. That means he’s lost nearly 40% of the loyalists.

His 37% support among independents looks worse — and indeed, that’s how it’s interpreted by Vermont Pundit Laureate Eric Davis. He notes that neither party can win without the independent voters, who form a majority of our electorate. But when President Obama’s approval hit a low of 40% shortly before the midterm elections, he had 33% support among independents. Shumlin does better than that. But even at his lowest point, the President still enjoyed broad support among Democrats. That’s no longer true for Shumlin.

And that’s why you hear a lot of speculation around Montpelier about a possible Democratic primary. There’s a great deal of disaffection on the left, and definitely room in the Democratic Party for a challenge to the incumbent. It still seems unlikely; Vermont politicos show a great deal of deference to incumbents, and Shumlin would remain a formidable figure in a primary.

What’s more likely, if the numbers keep getting worse, is that Shumlin himself might think better of another campaign. “More likely” but not likely; it’s hard to imagine Peter Shumlin retreating into a hidey-hole without a fight.

It is interesting, though, that House Speaker Shap Smith appears to be laying the groundwork for a statewide run. On his own initiative, he has assembled two high-powered, and heavily centrist-leaning, committees to tackle tough issues: education and economic growth. That’s a sign of someone who’s looking to (a) craft new approaches to those issues while also building consensus, and (b) establish connections and build credibility with the business community and others who might prove useful in a run for Governor.

The Vermont Republican Party certainly sees him as a threat, given their endless series of (largely ignored) press releases about the alleged failures of the “Shumlin-Shap Smith economy.”

On the other hand, we are less than five months past the 2014 election and 19 months away from the next one. A lot could happen. There are definite signs of progress in the legislature; not on the budget so far, but on a range of other issues, from education to energy to child protection to the environment.

If the legislature has a productive session and manages to close the budget gap in a reasonable way, the Governor will get at least some of the credit. If things start to look brighter in Vermont by this time next year, so will Shumlin’s approval numbers. He could still get his mojo back. And betting against him is never a good investment.

Peter Shumlin, Tough Guy

8 Replies

One of my least favorite things about our incumbent Governor* is his tendency to adopt Republican talking points, thus giving them a validation they don’t deserve. It’s sometimes called “kicking the hippies” — talking tough about Them Damn Liberals, in an attempt to self-position as a reasonable centrist.

*Same is true of many Democratic politicians, including Barack Obama and the Clintons, which is why Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren can seem so refreshing.

"If one more person says 'G'day, Mate' to me, I swear, they're gonna get such a punch."

“If one more person says ‘G’day, Mate’ to me, I swear I’m gonna ball ’em up.”

So here he comes, by way of Administration Secretary and Hatchet Man WIth An Adorable Accent Justin Johnson, doing a little light sparring with the public-sector union punching bag.

Secretary of Administration Justin Johnson issued an edict to agency and department heads Tuesday that all new hires within the executive branch must be approved by his office.

The move, according to a memo Johnson sent to agency and department heads, is the result of signals from the Vermont State Employees Association that it is not willing to work with the administration on finding $5 million in personnel savings called for in Gov. Peter Shumlin’s budget proposal.

Yeah, really. How dare the VSEA react exactly how you’d expect them to react?

100 times out of 100, a union is going to balk at reopening a signed contract and acceding to personnel cuts. That’s What They Do. It’s the first round in the dance: management takes hard line, union takes hard line, they get together and work things out.

Johnson knows this. But he very publicly reacted to VSEA’s predictable “Fight Back” petition with a summary judgment: “The petition indicated that the union will not deal with the administration on labor savings.”

The petition indicates no such thing. VSEA is simply staking out a strong opening position for the inevitable deal-making. The administration did the very same thing by incorporating cuts in pay and staffing into its budget.

So why is Johnson going straight from the opening salvo to the dreaded Declaration Of Impasse? Because it makes the administration look serious about cutting spending.

Most of the conversation around the Statehouse these days is about tax and fee increases. Shumlin’s budget called for a mix of new revenue and spending cuts. The last thing he wants is for the public debate to center on the former and ignore the latter. So he sent out his H.M.W.A.A.A.* to stomp on the other end of the seesaw.

*pronounced “HIM-wah.”

He could just as easily, and more productively, said something like “We understand the VSEA’s interest in protecting its members. We do not welcome making cuts, but we believe that Vermont’s budget situation requires it. We look forward to working with the union to find ways to save money while preserving a strong, vibrant state workforce.”

But that wouldn’t have accomplished the mission, which was to make the administration look tough.

This would be nothing more than a harmless bit of political theater, except that it provides tacit support for a Republican talking point: that public sector unions are the enemy of the taxpayer. Shumlin does the same thing when he insists that Vermonters are Taxed Enough Already, or when he tries to cut social service programs, or when he frames health care reform not as a social justice issue, but as an economic growth initiative.

In doing so, he cedes the rhetorical ground to the Republicans. It gets him a bit of short-term shine as a Tough Guy and an Unconventional Democrat, but it hurts the liberal cause in the long run.

Plus, it makes me grind my teeth, and my dentist says I should stop that.

Postscript. Just in case there’s any confusion, I made up the quote under Mr. Johnson’s picture.  

Talk about a waste of money…

2 Replies

Governor Shumlin appears to have his knickers in a knot over Vermont Information Technology Leaders’ decision to buy ad time during the Super Bowl.

Bear in mind we’re not talking about a Budweiser-level national buy; VITL bought one spot on channel 5 at a cost of $13,000. A waste of money? Arguably, perhaps; but VITL is trying to raise its public profile, and that 13K was part of a $195,000 marketing campaign.

Shumlin told the Vermont Press Bureau’s Neal Goswami that he was “disappointed” by VITL’s move. Well, he put it more grandly: “Many Vermonters joined me in being disappointed that state and federal funds were being used for an advertising buy during the Super Bowl.”

Yeah, “many Vermonters.” Why, just the other day I heard the folks at Coffee Corner’s front table griping about that waste of $13,000.

Not.

And then Shumlin got to the real meat of his objection.

“This should highlight the need for the Green Mountain Care Board to regulate VITL’s expenditures,” Shumlin said Sunday.

Aha, the penny drops. VITL is currently an independent nonprofit organization that “helps health care providers adopt and use IT systems.” Shumlin wants GMCB to have authority over VITL spending. And now he’s publicly scolding VITL for its horrifically wasteful use of… ahem… $13,000.

Smells like a power play to me.

Now, I’d love to have an extra 13 large. It’s nothing to sniff at. But as part of a sizable organization’s marketing campaign? Certainly not worth the Governor’s attention. Let’s say, hypothetically, that GMCB already had the authority. Would it be micromanaging VITL’s budget to that extent? I don’t think so.

Besides, if you want to talk about wasting money, let’s look at the taxpayers’ $2.5 million donation to GlobalFoundries, as ordered by our provident Governor.

GlobalFoundries, you may recall, “bought” IBM’s computer chip operations, including the facility in Essex Junction, for a whopping negative $1.5 billion. Last month, Shumlin announced he intends to hand over $2.5 million in state incentives to GlobalFoundries. That’ll clean out the Vermont Enterprise Fund, which was created last year at Shumlin’s behest. It’s supposed to help encourage large employers to remain or relocate in Vermont, and spending it is a gubernatorial prerogative.

As VTDigger’s Carolyn Shapiro reported, it’s unclear “how the money will be used and what conditions, if any, GlobalFoundries will have to meet.”

If any. Snort.

The Governor said the money “will help the state build a relationship” with its new corporate occupant.

Think of it as a $2.5 million corsage for a prom date.

Because when you’re talking about a giant corporation that does business in billions, $2.5 million is nothing but a gesture. Will it do anything to keep GlobalFoundries in Vermont or get them to expand? No. Corporate decisions will be made with global concerns in mind. On that scale, $2.5 million is a rounding error.

The Governor might as well have taken that money, in bags of small bills, to GlobalFoundries’ front gate and set fire to it, in hopes that the sweet, sweet smoke would appease the corporate gods.

The fundamental problem is, Vermont can’t move the numbers significantly enough to affect decisions at that level. We will always be at the mercy of large employers, and we’ll be playing with a short stack against bigger states (and countries) that can offer much bigger incentives. We’d be better off taking that $2.5 million and investing it in something that might actually make a difference — say, in a revolving loan fund for startup businesses.

Or here’s an idea: A revolving loan fund for students pursuing two-year degrees in technology fields. Why, just the other day one of IBM’s top executives said that GlobalFoundries “is struggling to fill positions because they can’t find enough workers with a two-year technical degree.”

You want to keep them in Vermont and simultaneously grow opportunities for Vermonters? Access to education is much more relevant to GlobalFoundries than a burnt offering at their front gate.

Just spitballing. My point is that there have got to be better, more effective, business-friendly ways to spend that $2.5 million. And that’s a lot bigger waste than VITL’s $13,000 Super Bowl ad.

The drift

Leave a reply

The legislature is about a quarter of the way through its four-month session, and Governor Shumlin’s proposals are falling like tin ducks in a shooting gallery. Lake Champlain tax plan? Dead. Education plan? “A place to start the conversation.” Payroll tax to close the Medicaid gap? Flatlining.

Not that this is terribly surprising; the governor exited the 2014 election with significantly diminished political capital. So much so that when Shumlin unveiled his proposals last month, the question wasn’t so much whether they would pass or not, as whether he meant them seriously in the first place or knew from the start that they were doomed.

(Evidence for the latter: an education plan that did nothing to provide near-term property tax relief. That, at least, was a non-starter.)

Not sure what else he could have done after his near-defeat. He could have taken the George W. Bush approach, pressing on regardless of his mandate-free victory, but that’s not who he is. Shumlin likes to talk bold and act incrementally.

Now he’s added deference to incrementalism, and it’s up to the Legislature to generate some vision. The consensus-seeking, conflict-avoidant Legislature. I’m not holding my breath.

I do expect our lawmakers to do some good work; I just don’t expect them to produce anything truly impactful. And we face a bunch of issues that call for some strong, progressive action.

Take, for example, the House Fish, Wildlife and Water Resources Committee, chaired by one of the good people of the Statehouse, David Deen. The committee has already ditched Shumlin’s proposed tax hikes to help pay for Lake Champlain cleanup. The fertilizer fee’s down the tubes because the farmers didn’t like it; the fee for stormwater runoff from developed sites is as good as dead because it would be “difficult to implement.”

Instead, Deen’s panel is looking at a smorgasbord of tax and fee hikes — more numerous than Shumlin’s plan, and less directly tied to the sources of Champlain pollution. The governor’s plan was simpler and made more sense. The committee’s approach will open the door to Republican charges that the Dems are just raising taxes wherever they can. Deen is considering at least four separate tax or fee increases instead of Shumlin’s two.

More important than the specifics of the Champlain plan, though, is the strong signal it sends: Lawmakers — even those who are solid on policy — are loath to take risks. Or, as Deen himself put it:

“There are some very strong voices in the hall opposed to it. And we are reacting to political reality around here,” the Westminster Democrat said Friday.

This session is looking like a big fat lost opportunity given that this is an off-year, and new programs or reforms would have a year and a half to take root before lawmakers have to run for re-election. Ya think next year’s gonna be any better?

This is a typical duck-and-cover reaction, but it plays right into the Republicans’ hands. Let’s say Phil Scott runs for Governor, as everybody believes he’s going to do. He’s strongly positioned as a centrist willing to consider all ideas. And he’s a nice guy to boot.

If voters have a choice between the Democrats’ fear-based centrist incrementalism with a bias toward inaction and Phil Scott’s natural centrist incrementalism with a bias toward inaction, which one do you think they’re going to choose?

I hope I’m wrong about this. It’s still early in the session, and there’s more than enough time to come up with at least one piece of solid small-p progressivism. But I’m not holding my breath.

Shumlin Administration Dumps Ballast

Leave a reply

Frontrunner for Least Surprising Personnel Move of the Year:

Department of Vermont Health Access Commissioner Mark Larson is stepping down from his post in March and will be replaced by Deputy Commissioner Lori Collins on an interim basis, the Shumlin administration announced Tuesday.

First of all, I don’t know how much blame Larson deserves for the disastrous rollout of Vermont Health Connect, or in the fundamentally flawed oversight of its development. What I do know is that last September, when the VHC website was finally taken offline so it could be patched together, Larson was the only administration official to pay a price. He was benched from any involvement in VHC, but allowed to keep his job and perform other, undefined duties.

And as you may recall, when Gov. Shumlin announced his abandonment of single-payer in December, Larson was relegated to a seat across the room from the phalanx of officials backstopping the governor. Didn’t want him appearing in any press photos, I guess.

Either he was a scapegoat, or he failed. In any case, he got to keep his job and his salary, even though one of DVHA’s chief operations was no longer in his control. Nice work if you can get it.

Shumlin issued a statement on Larson’s departure, praising the soon-to-be-former Coffee Boy.

“Mark has worked as hard as anyone on my team over the last four years,” Shumlin said. “Mark led the Department through some challenging times, but no one cared more or tried harder to overcome those challenges so Vermonters could access affordable health care than Mark.”

I don’t doubt that he cared deeply or tried hard. The question isn’t how dedicated he was — it’s how effective he was. From all outside appearances, the answer is “not very.”

And yet, by the time he leaves, he will have occupied his position and drawn paychecks for a full six months after one of his primary responsibilities was removed.

One of Governor Shumlin’s best qualities is his loyalty. He builds a team, relies on them, and rewards them for their service. It’s also one of his worst qualities: he sticks by his people whether they objectively deserve it or not. Failure rarely results in punishment or removal; at most, there’s a mutually agreed upon parting of the ways. Shumlin’s been in office for four years now, and I believe the only high-profile person he’s ever fired is Doug Racine — his longtime #1 political rival, and definitely not a Shumlin insider.

In announcing Larson’s departure, both he and the governor noted that, during his tenure, the number of uninsured Vermonters has dropped by half. Which is true; but is that a matter of causation or correlation?

Available evidence suggests the latter.

If the Governor is worried about the wealth gap, he could maybe do something about it

Leave a reply

Gov. Shumlin’s budget address began with a bit of boilerplate that’s been a recurring feature in his recent public remarks: bemoaning the wealth gap in America.

At a time when the wealth gap between the people at the top and everyone else is more extreme than since before the Great Depression, Vermonters hear about the recovery both in Vermont and nationally; they hear about our state’s low unemployment numbers; and they wonder: Why aren’t I seeing it? Why is my family being held back?

The bemoaning is appreciated, but when he does so little about the wealth gap, it comes across as an empty rhetorical gesture — the last ghostly trace of a progressive agenda.

Okay, I don’t expect Peter Shumlin to single-handedly fix our profoundly unbalanced economy. But there’s one big thing staring him in the face that would help the middle class and help close the state’s budget gap.

Raise the effective tax rate on top earners. Not the actual rate, but the effective rate.

Yes, I’ve said this before; and yes, Shumlin blocked a House proposal to do just that a couple years ago. But our tax system has gotten worse since then, and our budget shortfall has grown.

Just look at this chart.

ITEP 2014 tax chart

Sorry, I should have warned you: seeing that chart may result in nausea and vomiting.

According to figures released this week by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), Vermont’s tax system hits the working and middle classes the hardest, while top earners pay the least of all (as a percentage of their incomes).

In the past, the Governor has praised the fairness of our tax system. He should never, ever do that again until he fixes it.

Not only has he failed to do so… not only has he blocked efforts to do so… but during the last two years, Vermont’s tax system has actually gotten worse. Here’s the ITEP chart from two years ago.

ITEP 2012 tax chart

Compare the two charts: Higher shares of family income for the bottom 60%, and lower shares for the very top. No relief for the middle class, despite the Governor’s rhetoric.

In many ways, our state tax system is relatively progressive, but there are problems. The sales tax is extremely regressive; the property tax hits the working and middle classes the hardest. And as Paul Cillo of the Public Assets Institute points out: 

“The regressive property tax is Vermont’s largest single revenue source supporting state and local public services, and the Legislature has been shifting more and more public costs onto the property tax.”

And while income tax rates are very progressive, the actual taxes paid are much less so. Vermont’s tax rate for top earners is 8.95% — but because of generous rules on taxable income and deductions, those top earners pay an effective rate of only 5.1%. 

In addition to the fairness issue, the disparity puts pressure on Vermont’s budget, as PAI points out:

If the nation fails to address its growing income inequality problem, states will have difficulty raising the revenue they need over time. The more income that goes to the wealthy (and the lower a state’s tax rate on the wealthy), the slower a state’s revenue grows over time.

What have we seen throughout the past several months? Income tax receipts coming in lower than expected, forcing cuts in the budget. Hmmm.

There was one modestly progressive tax proposal in the Governor’s speech: he wants to end a tax deduction for state and local taxes paid in the preceding year, a tax break that mostly benefits upper tiers.

Otherwise, he left our unfair, broken, and inadequate tax system untouched.

Just about every time he opens his mouth, he talks about how Vermonters are taxed to the limit of their ability to pay. This is clearly true for most Vermonters, but clearly untrue for the most fortunate among us.

There is a glimmer of hope. Shumlin yesterday took a tiny step away from his past opposition to raising income, sales, or rooms and meals taxes:

You have heard many times over the past four years my opposition to raising income, sales, and rooms & meals tax rates to fund state government.

When he delivered this line, he gave the word “rates” some extra oomph. And making the income tax fairer wouldn’t require a change in rates; it’d just mean closing loopholes and limiting deductions.

Reasonably. I’m not calling for confiscatory taxes on the rich; I’m just calling for them to pay their fair share in an economy that has bestowed most of its benefits on them.

How about it, Shap?

Same song, different verse

1 Reply
Hey, who switched the teleprompter to Español?

Hey, who switched the teleprompter to Español?

Reactions to the Governor’s budget address…

First, I hope the Republicans are happy. Last week they complained about a lack of attention to some major issues. Today they got a whopping hour and fifteen minutes. Be careful what you wish for.

This speech followed Shumlin’s usual pattern. There’s a whole lot of incrementalism — small, inexpensive approaches to big challenges — and, to spice things up, a handful of bigger proposals almost certain to go nowhere. It strikes many observers as a deliberate tactic: offer an unpalatable solution, and force the legislature to find an alternative. Example from a previous year: his plan for a major cut to the Earned Income Tax Credit.

I’ll give him credit, he’s very good at incrementalism. He finds modest improvements that don’t cost much, if anything. In today’s speech, he was constantly talking of leveraging federal funds, private-sector participation, and partnerships with entities of all sorts. A classic example: his plan to offer “motivated high school seniors” a free two-year Associates’ Degree in engineering technology “with no additional cost to the Education Fund.”

The plan involves the state Agency of Education and participating employers identifying students, and leveraging existing programs plus employer contributions to get them free tuition and a summer internship if they stay and work in Vermont after graduation.

It’s classic Shumlin. It sounds good, it will actually help some people, it’s cheap, and it can be effective as far as it goes.

But it doesn’t touch on the underlying problems: high college costs and stagnant earnings for all but the very wealthy. Even if the incremental stuff works, it seems like small potatoes for those of us who vote Democratic.

How big is the budget gap? It's soooooo big.

How big is the budget gap? It’s soooooo big.

Then there’s the other thing we get: the “big idea” that probably won’t go anywhere. I could mention a few; the double ban on teacher strikes and contract impositions, giving power to the state school board to close schools that fail to meet spending or achievement targets, the payroll tax increase to fund better Medicaid reimbursement.

Indeed, his entire education package seems designed for rejection. For one thing, it seems to do nothing to immediately mitigate rising property taxes. That’ll be lawmakers’ top priority, after last year’s election.

Shumlin’s broader reforms are an odd mix of distant and scary. Neither the teachers’ unions nor the school boards are likely to accede quietly to a plan that will strip them of their ultimate bargaining chips. The idea of eliminating “contradictory incentives” like the small schools grant may be good ideas, but they’ll be tough to support for lawmakers with small school in their districts.

Finally, the idea of Agency of Education “evaluation teams” going into every school to measure achievement and spending performance — with those who fail to meet benchmarks in line for state funding cuts or even closure — is DOA. It’s mandatory consolidation and top-down control via carrot and stick, rather than direct mandate. Kinda the worst of both worlds; no immediate impact, and a whole lot of state interference (as it will be perceived) in local decision-making.

He calls it a “partnership,” but one partner has the ultimate power.

If you think I’m too gloomy on Shumlin’s prospects, just take a look at this reaction statement from House Speaker Shap Smith:

…the Governor acknowledged Vermonters’ concerns about the unsustainable cost of health care, burdensome property tax increases, and the need to clean up our waterways. …I look forward to working with the Administration to make Vermont the best possibly place to work and live, and one that provides opportunity for all Vermonters.

He applauds the Governor for addressing the big issues — but not a peep about the Governor’s proposals. I expect lawmakers to consider Shumlin’s ideas, but he won’t get priority over others’ ideas.

This is all part of the game, as it has been since Shumlin took office. It’ll be even more so after an election that was largely a personal rebuke of the Governor, not the Democrats.

His budget message was a starting point. From here on, it’s a matter of top lawmakers devising proposals of their own that they can convince Shumlin to support.

Multimedia note: if the photos seem a bit blurry, it’s because they’re screengrabs from the Vermont PBS livestream. Workin’ from home today. 

The Shummy Shimmy

1 Reply

Before the November election, I’d planned to write a post-election piece offering my services to the Shumlin administration for the newly-created position of Shitkicker-In-Chief. The duties would include pointing out the flaws in administration reasoning, deflating egos when necessary, and the occasional loud guffaw.

The idea was based on my belief (hahahaha) that the election wouldn’t be close. When Shumlin won by a shoestring, I thought my idea was irrelevant. The election was a more effective shitkicker than I could ever be.

Seems I was wrong, because the Governor has quickly fallen back into to some bad habits. One of his worst is his almost-complete inability to admit that he was wrong about something — even if it’s something trivial. It makes him appear small-minded, overly defensive, duplicitous, and condescending.

This habit is again on display in the foofaraw over releasing documents related to single-payer health care.

For those just joining us, when the governor announced in December that he was ditching single-payer, WCAX’s Kyle Midura asked a provocative question. Here’s the exchange, as reported by Seven Days’ Paul Heintz:

“Will you waive executive privilege for all backdated documents at this point related to this question so we can see what you knew when?” Midura said.

“There is nothing to hide on what we knew when, so we’d be happy to show you any documents you wish to look at,” the governor responded.

Emphasis: “any documents you wish to look at.” And Midura’s use of “this question” is generally seen as referring to Shumlin’s decision on single-payer.

Naturally, multiple media outlets made public-records requests for any related documents. And that’s when Shumlin backtracked: the administration withheld “hundreds of pages of documents related to single-payer,” reports VPR’s Peter Hirschfeld.

Shumlin never wrongShumlin says he never intended for him comments on Dec. 17 to mean that he’d release all internal communications related to single-payer.

“Now no governor ever divulges inter-staff conversations, but what we did divulge was all the data that led us to the conclusions that we came to,” Shumlin said.

Okay, I can see that point of view. But why did he promise, on Dec. 17, to release everything?

Evasive maneuvers, Mr. Sulu!

So far, we’ve heard two different explanations.

In an email to Heintz, the Governor’s legal counsel Sarah London asserted that Midura’s question referred narrowly to “the specific question of Medicaid reimbursement rates.”

On the other hand, Shumlin told Hirschfeld that he thought the question referred only to documents involved in a lawsuit by Rep. Cynthia Browning.

“Well as you know we had a fairly well-publicized court case … where we were asked to divulge all the data, studies and information about every detail that led us to the disappointing conclusions that we came to about public financing,” Shumlin said. “I assumed that his question was simply, are you going to continue to withhold that data? Or are you going to share it?”

It got even worse when Shumlin tried to clarify his position at a news conference yesterday:

“If you listen to the entire question, I answered it very clearly. And what I said was, the question I understood — I had it played back to me, so I think I got it — was, ‘Are you going to release the documents that, frankly, hadn’t been released before?’ You may recall Cynthia Browning requested them and we went to court and the court ruled in our favor. ‘Are you now going to release those documents? The documents that give us the data, all the dates, what you’ve done, all the studies?’ And I said, ‘Of course, we are. We want Vermonters to have that information.’ If you took the question as something else, you should’ve asked it that way. You didn’t.”

The Shummy Shimmy.

It’s one of his worst features: ducking and diving in a transparent effort to avoid admitting he was wrong.

I guess they could still use a Shitkicker-In-Chief.

Here’s a little free advice. Or consider it part of my S-I-C job application. Here’s what he should have said — and it’s not much different from what he did say.

“I apologize for misspeaking on Dec. 17. I should not have promised to release ‘all documents,’ because every administration needs some measure of privacy in its internal policy discussions. Any chief executive would agree with that.

“We have provided as much documentation as we can. The information we have released should be more than adequate to understanding how we arrived at our decision. I hope you, and the people of Vermont, can appreciate our position.”

There. Was that so hard?

The occasional apology would go a long way toward changing Shumlin’s image for the better. The long-term benefit would far outweigh the immediate discomfort.

 

Here’s something Governor Shumlin should stop saying

Leave a reply

Ever since last Thursday’s inaugural ceremonies, Gov. Shumlin has been telling anyone who will listen that he was “saddened” by the presence of protesters. Like other Democrats, he singles out the one protester who crossed the line by singing during the benediction.

He has to highlight that one moron because otherwise, the demonstrators were not disruptive or offensive. They followed the rules of civil protest. The inauguration proceeded as scheduled until the very end.

Of course, what really offends the governor is that they dared to crash his coronation. The Vermont Press Bureau:

“The inauguration is an opportunity where we all say, ‘Let’s roll up our sleeves, cut out all this party stuff and get to work,’” the governor said. “And I just don’t think that they did their cause… much good by the kind of tactics they employed…”

Or in Brill Building terms: “It’s My Party and I’ll Cry if I Want To.”

The whingeing is excessive and self-centered. But I’d like to focus on one thing the Governor is saying, over and over again, that hurts his credibility. It goes something like this:

“I was really saddened by what happened yesterday, because I’m as frustrated as anyone with our health care system, and there’s no one that wants to see the goal of universal access as much as I do,” he said.

That’s from Saturday’s Burlington Free Press, but he’s been spouting variations on that theme in other outlets.

And he needs to stop. Now.

For one thing, it’s false. For another, it’s a two-sided statement: Shumlin is trying to emphasize his own political pain and loss — but at the same time, he’s downgrading everyone else’s.

Is there really no one who is more frustrated by Shumlin’s abandonment of single-payer? Is there really no one who more ardently wants to see universal access?

Of course there is.

Start within the administration itself. Are Robin Lunge or Mark Larson less disappointed than Shumlin? How about Anya Rader Wallack? Or Jonathan Gruber, who’s become a national laughingstock and has now lost his best chance to enact single-payer? There must be, at minimum, dozens of staffers and contractors who’ve put their heart and soul into Vermont’s single-payer initiative. That’s not to mention the single-payer advocates like Deb Richter and Peter Sterling, who served on the Governor’s Consumer Advisory Council and had the rug pulled out from under them.

Widening our scope, how about the entire Progressive Party, which put its own gubernatorial ambitions on hold for three straight election cycles in order to give Shumlin a free hand on single-payer? Might they be more frustrated than the Governor?

Which is not to overlook Democrats who’ve fought for single-payer. Maybe ex-Rep. Mike Fisher feels a bit of disappointment after losing his bid for re-election and then the cause he’d worked so hard for.

Finally, let’s not forget the tens of thousands of Vermonters who still don’t have health insurance, and the additional tens of thousands who still struggle to pay their premiums, in spite of the Affordable Care Act’s advancements. They are directly impacted by Shumlin’s decision in ways that he will never, ever be. He’s a millionaire who can afford any kind of health coverage he wants, up to and including concierge medicine from the Mayo Clinic.

That’s a partial list, but a substantial one. I think it’s safe to say that there is at least one person more frustrated and more disappointed than Governor Shumlin.

Whether he intends it or not, the Governor slights the feelings and experiences of all those people  when he claims special status as the number-one victim of single-payer’s demise.

As for what he should say instead, here’s a suggestion:

“My decision not to pursue single-payer health care has caused a lot of anger and frustration, and disappointed a lot of people, including many who have supported me politically. Our inability to move forward on single-payer has brought pain to thousands of Vermonters who are still without health insurance. 

“I apologize to each and every one of them. My commitment to universal access is as strong as ever, and as long as I am Governor, I will strive to advance the cause of universal access to the best of my ability.” 

There. That’s not too hard, is it?