Category Archives: Peter Shumlin

Shumlin’s Newsdump-a-palooza rolls on

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If you regularly read this page, you don’t need to be reminded what a newsdump is. But just in case: it’s the popular maneuver of unloading bad news when the media and the public are least likely to notice. Friday afternoons are the most common times. The final working day before a holiday weekend is ideal.

The Shumlin administration has been making a habit of this lately, and now there are two more newsdumps on the horizon. The first, regarding budget cuts, and the second, Shumlin’s long-awaited big reveal on single-payer health care.

The administration hit a two-fer on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, ensuring minimal and shallow coverage of its planned $17 million in budget rescissions, and little to no coverage of its plan to make two-thirds of the cuts in Human Services, an agency already said to be underfunded and understaffed.

Shumlin.NewsdumpWell, there’s a sequel to the rescission newsdump. All affected agencies are supposed to submit their proposed cuts by December 5. Hey, what do you know — it’s a Friday!

This should ensure that news about specific cuts will leak out slowly. Or, will perhaps be dumped all at once in a news release issued around 5 p.m. Friday.

It’s also worth noting that the administration gave its agencies less than one business week to make these tough decisions. Its call was issued on Thanksgiving Eve, which meant that the work couldn’t commence in earnest until Monday, December 1.

But wait, you might be thinking. Didn’t the Administration decide not to pursue immediate cuts?

That’s right. Rather than risk a confrontation with the Legislature, it opted to hold off on rescissions until January.

However, the December 5 deadline remains in effect. So state agencies are being rushed into critical budget decisions, even though no action will be taken until more than a month later.

Curious. Methinks the administration might get an early start on those cuts, despite its abnegation of unilateral action.

As for the second newsdump… the Governor announced Wednesday that he would unveil the proposed benefits offered by a single-payer health care system by mid-December, and that his financing plan — the real bone of contention — will come out on December 29 or 30.

What, does he have plans for New Year’s Eve? Or would that be just too damn obvious?

Well, I guess it was too damn obvious anyway. Paul Heintz:

…he swears he’s not trying to bury the news in the lull of the holiday season.

“That’s exactly why I wanted to give you the date now,” Shumlin said during a wide-ranging discussion with reporters at Burlington’s Hotel Vermont. “Because I didn’t want to wake up on December 31 and [read], ‘It was a late-night news dump.'”

So I guess I’m helping out by labeling it a newsdump well before New Year’s Eve Morning. Wouldn’t want to spoil the last cappucino of 2014. (Or maybe I shouldn’t assume he drinks Gucci coffee. Folger’s?)

He claims that he wants to get the plan out early to “get it to the legislators before they’re sworn in.” But the specificity, to use a grand old Watergate word, is a little strange. His team, he says, “is working really hard to get this together.” A task involving that much intensive work with a bunch of people would seem, by its nature, to be somewhat open-ended. And the Governor has particularly avoided deadlines in the health care reform process because so many have been flouted in the past.

And yet he can predict, with certainty, that it will all come together on the 29th or 30th.

Somehow I doubt an extra week or so, including a long holiday weekend, will make a whole lot of difference for lawmakers. If the early release isn’t a newsdump, it will certainly have the effect of one: limiting coverage and blunting immediate reaction to the plan, allowing the Administration to prepare counter-arguments and perhaps even refine the plan before it’s formally submitted.

To me, it looks like a newsdump, walks like a newsdump, and quacks like a newsdump.

A moment of sanity in the corner office

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Apparently the Governor realized it wasn’t a good idea to begin a new biennium with an inter-branch standoff over budget cuts.

The Shumlin administration has decided not to unilaterally cut $6.7 million from the current fiscal year’s budget. The rescissions instead will be included in the executive branch’s budget adjustment proposal to the Legislature in January.

Can we hear a brief rendition of Fanfare For A Single Kazoo?

[Administration Secretary Jeb] Spaulding said the administration agreed to wait on rescissions, but will “slow down” spending in the meantime.

“(G)etting into a fight with the Legislature on this would be counterproductive,” he said in an email.

In the words of some great philosopher somewhere, “Well, DUHHHHH.”

The Administration, for those just joining us, had claimed the authority to cut current-year spending by up to one percent without legislative approval. And, as reported in this space (and, regrettably, nowhere else), the outlined cuts were very heavy on Human Services. Which probably would have caused even more conflict with the Legislature, as it has done on previous occasions when the Administration sought to balance the budget on the backs of the working poor.

Lawmakers weren’t convinced by the Administration’s legal rationale for unilateral action, even though Attorney General Bill Sorrell rubber-stamped it. Legislative Council had a different view:

In a draft memo drafted Nov. 24, Legislative Council attorney Rebecca Wasserman said the rescissions already approved by the Joint Fiscal Committee in August preclude the administration from making unilateral cuts now.

I hate to say it, but I’ll take Wasserman’s word over Sorrell’s. Finance Commissioner Jim Reardon somehow managed to make a big concession sound like a veiled threat:

“We do believe we have the authority based on the consultation with the AG’s office,” Reardon said. “But for the sake of working with the Legislature, we decided we will propose all of the budget adjustments in January.”

“For the sake of working with the Legislature,” meaning, “We let ’em have this one, so they’d better play ball come January.”

Perhaps I read too much into this. And perhaps, in a more cooperative atmosphere, the massive Human Services cuts will be mitigated. We can but hope.

Messaging 101: Don’t make mistakes in press releases about education

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So this happened. Governor Shumlin’s office issued a press release on Monday about education funding — specifically its projection of a two-cent increase in the state property tax for the coming year.

And there was an oopsie. First to spot it was Dave Gram of the Associated Press (and now, apparently, chief Statehouse correspondent for the Burlington Free Press):

And here is the error in context:

“The bottom line is that education spending in Vermont is supported by a wide variety of state revenue sources, not just the property tax,” Gov. Shumlin said. “That’s why I do not think simply shifting more education spending to other sources will address the burden Vermonters feel. We need to tackle this first as a spending challenge because education costs have continued to rise faster than Vermonter’s ability to pay for it, even though our student count has declined.”

It’s bad enough when a gubernatorial missive goes out with a big fat juicy typo. It’s even worse when the subject of said missive is education. Does newly-minted communications chief Scott Coriell need a little proofreading help?

About those rescissions, part 1

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On Thanksgiving Eve, the Shumlin Administration took out some trash. And before I go on, may I just say that pre-weekend newsdumps — and especially pre-holiday newsdumps — are a cowardly way to govern? If you guys think you’re smart enough to manage this state, have the courage to own the bad news. A newsdump might help minimize the immediate impact, but you’d be better off to face the bad news head-on. Be honest with the people who elected you.

(There was a similar Administration newsdump the Friday before Labor day. That one was a damning review of the management of Vermont Health Connect’s IT infrastructure. I look forward, not at all, to the news we might get on Christmas Eve.)

This newsdump concerns a second round of budget rescissions, made necessary by shortfalls in income tax revenue. Which were caused by an anemic economic recovery that has left the middle and working classes behind. Stagnant wages, stagnant tax revenue. While the top earners continue to depress their tax bills through loopholes and high deductions.

The Shumlin Administration wants to cut $17 million from this year’s spending. I’ll have more to say about the specifics in a later post. For now, I’m focusing on the Administration’s claim that it can cut $6,7 million without the Legislature’s approval. The Administration has an Attorney General’s opinion that approves its legal argument for doing so.

That doesn’t sit well with top lawmakers:

Legislators on the House and Senate’s Joint Fiscal Committee share the administration’s sense of urgency, but do not believe that the Shumlin administration has the legal authority to make most of the planned cuts. The Legislative Council, which advises lawmakers on legal matters, supports that position.

“The statute does not give them the authority to do this,” said Sen. Jane Kitchel, D-Caledonia, co-chair of the Joint Fiscal Committee.

I guess we can conclude that Governor Shumlin’s post-election period of listening and learning has come to an end. One seemingly obvious result of the razor-thin gubernatorial election was that Shumlin would need to repair relations with the legislature and act in a more cooperative manner.

Seems like a lesson unlearned there. And it’s not exactly a good portent for what’s going to be, at best, a contentious and difficult biennium.

Our favorite country lawyer spins a yarn

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Joe Benning, top Republican in the State Senate, has made a decision. And he wants us all to know about it.

In a short essay posted by VTDigger, the good Senator reveals that when the legislature reconvenes in January, he will vote for Scott Milne for Governor.

Gee, “Scott Milne.” There’s a name I haven’t heard in a while.

Benning’s vote, to hear him tell, has nothing to do with partisanship. The fact that he’s backing the #2 vote-getter, who happens to be a fellow Republican, over the top finisher, a Democrat? Nothing about that in his essay.

Well, not by name. He does, however, depict his vote as an attempt to block the imminent ruin of Vermont at the hands of a certain incumbent governor.

But he begins with a veiled shot at any lawmaker who fails to follow his example in publicly revealing his vote:

 Other legislators may feel differently, but this legislator feels a responsibility to explain his intended vote to his constituents.

Well, yeah, but the choice will be made on a secret ballot. A phrase which conspicuously includes the word “secret.” Feel free to tear back the curtain from your own voting booth, Senator, but don’t imply that those who fail to do so are acting improperly. And yes, that’s what you did.

The next paragraph points to the closeness of the election and Milne’s lopsided majority in Benning’s district, and then creates a false equivalency between the tradition of electing the top vote-getter and the freshly minted “tradition” of voting with one’s district. Uh-huh. One tradition has been unbroken for over 150 years, while the other has never been heard of in Vermont until this month.

Myself, I prefer the weightier term “precedent” in referring to this consistent principle in electing a governor. I can see why Benning does not. But there is wisdom in this precedent; to elect someone other than the top finisher creates the appearance that the legislature is thwarting the will of the people, and sows the seeds of partisan rancor.

Which is exactly what happened the last two times that precedent was flouted, in the 1976 lieutenant governor’s race and in the 1853 contest for governor.

The final cowpat in Benning’s castle is his citation of John F. Kennedy and his self-branding as an embodiment of political courage — a Gandalf staring into the gaping maw of chaos and bravely crying, “You shall not pass!”

Sorry, senator. You’re no hero; you’re just another opportunist.

Gruber contract officially downsized

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One argument the Republicans have made in their desperate effort to fan the flickering flames of Grubermania is that, although Gov. Shumlin cut off Jonathan Gruber’s pay, his contract remained intact and would require a formal rewrite.

Well, mission accomplished, per the Mitchell Family Organ:

State officials released an amended contract with MIT economist Jonathan Gruber Tuesday evening, lowering the maximum amount payable to $280,000.

… Some Republicans had maintained that the original contract required official changes, and said Gruber’s “handshake agreement” with Lawrence Miller, Shumlin’s chief of health care reform, was not sufficient.

The amended contract reflects the change in pay for Gruber.

The full contract can be viewed at the link above.

I’m sure the Republicans will come up with fresh rationales for their obsession. But the contract can no longer be cited as an issue. And if they possess a shred of intellectual honesty, they’ll stop referring to the Gruber contract as a $450,000 deal and adopt the true figure, $280,000.

Ball’s in your court, guys.

At this rate, Lake Champlain will be cleaned up about the time the sun goes nova and the Earth becomes a cold, dead husk

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Among the news stories buried in the avalanche of Grubermania are three separate developments regarding Lake Champlain. They adhere to a familiar pattern: one baby step forward, one big step back, and yet another dopeslap from the feds.

Yep, we’re making progress by… uh… well, it’s not leaps and bounds. Creeps and crawls?

A reminder before we begin on this week. The stoutly environmental Green Mountain State would still be ignoring its stewardship of Champlain if not for the Conservation Law Foundation’s 2008 lawsuit that compelled the EPA to enforce the Clean Water Act for Lake Champlain. Specifically, to set a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for phosphorus, the chief nutrient responsible for our festive annual outbreaks of toxic algae.

Our pride and joy.

Our pride and joy.

Yeah, Green Mountains and, er, a green scummy lake. Nice.

In response to the suit, EPA decided to force tighter standards on Vermont. That happened in January 2010. In the nearly five years since, EPA has been chasing the state in an extreme slo-mo version of a Benny Hill scene, with Yakety Sax playing at 78 r.p.m. (Ask Grandpa, kids.)

(Historical sidelight: In January 2010, Louis Porter was CLF’s Lake Champlain Lakekeeper, and he hailed the EPA decision as signaling a new day and “a new, science-based approach to cleaning up Lake Champlain and making sure it remains a safe and enjoyable resource.” Today he’s a top Shumlin Administration official, which either means he’s a double agent working from within or he’s gone over to the Dark Side.)

Since early 2010, the state’s response has consisted of delay, baby steps, delay, lip service, promises, delay, half-baked initiatives, delay, pleas of poverty, delay, and… checking my figures here… delay.

Fast forward to this week.

First, the Shumlin Administration proposed a new fee on “impervious development” and a 1% hike in the fertilizer tax. The moves made sense, because agricultural fertilization and impervious development are two prime contributors to our plentiful nutrient flows into the Lake. Problem is, the two measures combined — assuming the Legislature approves them — would raise $1 million a year for lake remediation.

With cleanup costs estimated at $150 million, that’s a drop in the bucket.

(Addendum, 12/4/14. According to DEC Commissioner David Mears, the $1 million figure was basically a “for-example” sort of thing, and the administration wants to set the tax and fee rates high enough to produce $4 million to $6 million in annual revenue.) 

Second, the Administration released a 36-page Clean Water Initiative that promises to tighten water-related regulations and establish a Clean Water Fund (revenue sources decidedly sketchy) to help pay for needed improvements, One of the Initiative’s provisions involved a pirouette by the Governor; in August he downplayed the need for upgrading wastewater treatment facilities, but the Initiative called for more investment in wastewater treatment.

Then there was a step back. Or, at least, a refusal to step up, from Ag Secretary Chuck Ross. He decided not to mandate “best management practices” for farms in the Missisquoi Bay watershed, one of the most phosphorus-laden parts of the Lake. Ross gave two primary reasons, per VPR: 

— Mandating best practices “would be inconsistent with EPA’s ongoing process for water quality improvement in the Lake.” Which sounds downright Orwellian to me; limiting ag runoff “would be inconsistent” with EPA’s efforts to, uh, limit ag runoff?

— Also, “the state doesn’t have the resources available to help the basin’s farmers achieve compliance.” As if EPA is hat in hand, making a polite inquiry, rather than enforcing compliance with the Clean Water Act. Does Ross expect that, upon hearing his plea of poverty, EPA will say, “Oh, sorry. Never mind, then.”

And finally, a regional EPA official said the newly-minted Clean Water Initiative “does not go far enough to comply with federal regulations.” Stephen Perkins noted that phosphorus loads are still on the rise in many sections of the Lake, and said:

It’s going to take an awful lot of work to take those red trend lines and get them to bend down in a different direction.

VTDigger’s John Herrick summed up the bad news:

Even if the state’s plan were fully implemented, projected phosphorus levels in South Lake A and B and Missisquoi Bay would still exceed phosphorus limits set by the EPA. These are sections of the lake where phosphorus levels already must be cut by more than 50 percent to meet the federal requirements, according to the EPA.

And let me remind you that some of the worst pollution, caused by us Vermonters, is at the upstream end of the lake, in southern Quebec. We’re lucky Canada isn’t suing our asses.

In response to his comments, Perkins got some vintage rope-a-dope:

David Mears, commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation, said Monday that his agency has no other proposals to present to the EPA at this time. “We’ll continue to have our sleeves rolled up and we’ll continue to work.” he said.

Mears pointed to the additional but intangible impact of “technical assistance and educational outreach” programs, which he admits cannot be quantified, “but we expect it will be substantial.”

If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we’d have a clean Lake by Christmas.

And then Mears pulled a Chuck Ross:

“We don’t want to put forward a plan that we can’t actually achieve,” he said.

Instead, I guess, EPA is supposed to be happy with a completely inadequate — but achievable — plan.

This isn’t all the Shumlin Administration’s fault. They’re dealing with the consequences of decades and decades of ignoring the problem and letting it get worse. But it has fallen in their laps, and their response has been… how did I put it… delay, lip service, delay, pleas of poverty, delay, half-baked initiatives, and delay. It’s safe to say the only way we’ll get a good cleanup plan is if EPA holds our feet to the fire until they’re glowing red.

For a liberal administration in a state that’s supposed to have a strong environmental ethic, this just sucks. To think that Vermont is having to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to do stuff we should have been doing all along, well, it makes me doubt the existence of our strong environmental ethic.

The public response to all this has been underwhelming, to say the least. Little attention seems to be paid. Even the environmental community, which ought to be spitting fire, seems oddly passive. (I’m sure CLF would say they’re working hard behind the scenes, but I don’t see it.) We look at that $150 million figure and shrug our shoulders. What can we do?

Well, apparently, our inclination is to keep loading our prize jewel with guck, and put off our day of reckoning as long as we can.

How to dismantle an atomic bomb, Shummy style

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Tweet O’ The Day, Vermont Division:

ICYMI, Grubermania hit flood stage today, with the Pitchfork Brigade growing ever louder and — so we hear — Fox News prowling the halls of the Statehouse. (BTW, congrats to Sen. Joe Benning for scoring a primetime Fox appearance out of all this. When life gives you lemons, squirt ’em in your enemy’s eye.)

But the rising waters, laden with political opportunity, almost immediately washed away after Gov. Shumlin dynamited the logjam. Health care reform chief Lawrence Miller:

“…we need solid economic modeling in order to move forward with health care reform. I have told Mr. Gruber that I expect his team to complete the work that we need to provide the legislature and Vermonters with a public health care financing plan. I’ve informed Mr. Gruber that we will not be paying him any further for his part in completing that work.”

A cleverly-worded statement that took a little decoding: Gruber won’t get paid any more for grubering the gruber, but his minions will. And considering that (1) the contract with Vermont expires in three months, (2) the renowned Gruber model is well-entrenched by now, (3) Gruber’s got so many contracts (and so many bigger fish to fry), that Vermont is a drop in his bucket, and (4) I bet the staff’s been doing most of the work anyway… well, I don’t imagine this is much skin off Gruber’s nose.

For Shumlin, it allows the continued use of the Gruber model to finish work on his single-payer plan while also lancing a troublesome political boil. He’s always been at his best in crisis.

We probably should have seen this coming, what with the complete silence from legislative Democrats. Really, did a single Democrat call for Gruber’s firing? I don’t recall any. They must have known that a bacon-saving solution was around the corner.

And what’s that I hear in the distance? Methinks it’s the sound of Fox News’ mobile unit getting outta Montpelier as fast as it can. Nothing to see here, folks.

I’m sure the Republicans will find ways to tend the flame of Grubermania… but from now on, it’ll be more like a votive candle than a bonfire. A votive candile lit in memory of an all-too-brief political opportunity.

Ah, Grubermania, we hardly knew ye.

Here’s a pleasant surprise

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I didn’t think the Governor had it in him, especially in the wake of his Election Night smackdown. But he’s not giving in to the Pitchfork Brigade’s call for the head of Jonathan Gruber. Neal Goswami of the Mitchell Family Organ:

Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin said Monday that a state contractor under fire for derisive comments he has made about American voters and a Vermont commentator will not have his state contract terminated despite calls to do so by Republicans.

Jonathan Gruber, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist, has a personal services contract with Vermont that will pay him up to $400,000 to test economic models related to Shumlin’s universal, publicly-financed health care proposal, often referred to as a single payer system.

The Governor’s stand does come with strings: He will not exercise an option to extend Gruber’s contract beyond its expiration in Februiary. And he did his best to dump all over the contrator whose economic model is too valuable to do without:

…”for me it’s not just what he said, it’s that he actually thinks this stuff. It’s not the way we do things in Vermont.”

Shumlin was also careful to delineate between Gruber the technocrat and Gruber the policy advisor:

“It’s our plan, not his. It’s our policy, it’s our hope for the future and it’s our plan. We’ve used him as a calculator not a policy advisor,” Shumlin said.

Okay, fair enough. Keep him on, and do what you must to distance yourself from his arrogance. Much better than to give in to the howling mob.

Grubermania: Catch it!

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Well, Vermont conservatives finally have a live one: a get-your-blood-boiling, wave-the-bloody-shirt phony “issue” of the kind that rarely presents itself in our green and pleasant land. And boy howdy, are they ever jumping on the outrage train.

Critics of the Shumlin administration are demanding the dismissal of a state consultant whose remarks about the Affordable Care Act last week went viral on Twitter and was picked up by major news outlets…

The target, of course, is Jonathan Gruber, health care expert and creator of the best economic model for health care systems. And utterer of some completely charmless comments on a handful of occasions over the past few years.

Just think, in this age of digital media, how many Young Conservatives are being gainfully employed searching through endless hours of Gruber’s public appearances, trying to locate bits of marketable outrage. Gruber’s been a high-profile figure in health care reform for many years; because of the unique usefulness of his model, he’s been hired by the feds and a whole bunch of states. He’s given testimony, he’s given speeches, he’s been on countless panels.

But never mind the inherent unfairness of tearing a man’s reputation to shreds over a few words. We’ve got some rabble-rousing to do! And our junior-league rabble-rousers are in full force: Rob Roper, Darcie Johnston*, and oh wait — here’s a new entrant to the Pitchfork Brigade: the previously cool-headed, plausibly nonpartisan Campaign for Vermont!

*And again I say, why in hell is anybody listening to Darcie Johnston after the faceplant of the Dan Feliciano campaign added another chapter to her Little Book of Failure?

Between this and CFV moneybags Bruce Lisman’s recent mouth-foamer of an opinion piece (about which more in an upcoming post), it looks like CFV is finally shedding its chrysalis of nonpartisanship and emerging as the Butterfly of Fiscal Conservatism we all suspected was in there all along.

All this Grubermania has a purpose: to toss a can of nails in the Road to Single-Payer, as VTDigger’s Anne Galloway reports:

Gov. Peter Shumlin… is moving ahead with his signature single payer health care initiative. Gruber’s work is crucial to that effort.

“Crucial” because Shumlin has to show that single-payer won’t hurt the state’s economy. Gruber’s model is by far the best tool for the job.

No Gruber, no model. And Shumlin’s task gets a little bit harder.

Now let’s see what kind of cojones the Administration has. WIll they stand by their guy in the face of grossly exaggerated attacks? Or will they toss him off the dogsled in hopes of distracting the wolves?

Based on past experience, I hope Gruber is packin’ a Bowie knife. After all, one of the great saints of Vermont liberalism, Peter Welch, fell for a similar outrage over alleged malfeasance at ACORN. Welch, you may recall, played a small and ignominious role in ACORN’s termination. Sadly, I expect nothing better of Governor Shumlin.