Category Archives: Peter Shumlin

The second dumbest political statement of the year (so far)

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Nice try, Governor Shumlin, but you didn’t quite manage to equal State Sen. Dick McCormack’s comparison of Norm McAllister to Jesus and Socrates. But it’s not for lack of effort.

Speaking about the Legislature’s whirlwind effort to lift or repeal spending limits for school districts, the Governor actually said this (according to the Free Press):

“We have no time,” Shumlin said last week. “We don’t have time to debate whether we can find the smartest way to do this for this year.”

Yeah, that’s the ticket. Stop thinking and pass something!

I’m reminded of a famous saying. Something about fast, cheap and good.

The million-dollar greeting card

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Okay, here’s my promised post about the Vermont Enterprise Incentive Fund.

It’s garbage. It stinks. It’s an insult to everyone, liberal or conservative, who believes in good government.

It needs to die. Or at the very least, it needs a complete overhaul. Strong words, but I can back ’em up.

The Enterprise Fund, for those just joining us, is a program of state grants for businesses moving to, or making significant investments in, Vermont. It is meant to be used in “unforeseen or extraordinary circumstances.” Those are Governor Peter Shumlin’s own words, quoted from his own press release.

The Fund was most recently deployed last Friday with a $1 million grant to GlobalFoundries, in support of a $72 million investment in its Essex Junction facility. In a number of ways, this grant seems at odds with the Fund’s stated purpose. Let’s start with this: GlobalFoundries announced the investment in October. By November, it had already invested $55 million of the money.

So, absent a time machine, how could an investment made in October be contingent on a state grant approved three months later?

Even if you ignore that anomaly, if the investment is already well underway, how in the world can you classify it as “unforeseen or extraordinary”?

Well, you can’t. In the words of State Auditor Doug Hoffer, this grant was “basically a thank-you note.”

A million-dollar thank-you note. Next time, maybe just go to Capitol Stationers. They have a very nice selection.

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State of the State: Tough sledding

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Governor Shumlin’s State of the State address wasn’t quite the nothing-burger you might expect from a lame duck. But if early returns are anything to go by, the actual impact of his address may be a lot closer to a nothing-burger.

There were a few notable initiatives and ideas, but most of them got slapped around almost as soon as he left the podium. And I’m not talking about the predictable Republican naysaying; I’m talking about Democratic criticism. In past years, Shumlin has had a very hard time rescuing high-profile initiatives that get off to a rocky start at the Statehouse, and that’s likely to be even more true in his lame-duck year.

Other ideas are sure to garner opposition on January 21, when the Governor delivers his final budget address. That’s when he’ll have to explain how he wants to pay for new or expanded programs that cost money. (As opposed to, say, paid sick leave, which won’t cost the government a dime.) In the past, the Legislature hasn’t reacted kindly to Shumlin’s budget-cutting suggestions (see: Earned Income Tax Credit, 2013), and he hasn’t reacted well to legislative alternatives.

We can break down the new stuff into two categories: items that will cost money, and those that won’t. At least they won’t cost the state any money.

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This is the kind of thing that makes people mistrust the Governor

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Yesterday, State of the State Address: Governor Shumlin introduces a variety of people whose stories illustrate the impact of his policies. They include two executives from GlobalFoundries and two from BHS Composites. The latter was a surprise entry; Shumlin sprang the news that BHS had decided to open a facility in the Northeast Kingdom, creating an estimated 70 jobs.

Today, the state’s Emergency Board met on very short notice to approve state grants to both companies: $1 million for GF and $200,000 for BHS. VTDigger has the deets:

The Emergency Board, which includes the four chairs of the Legislature’s money committees and Gov. Peter Shumlin as the chair, voted at a largely hush-hush meeting that started at 8:30 a.m.

The Shumlin administration did not formally announce the morning meeting until Thursday afternoon, following his State of the State address.

The information in the meeting’s agenda packet, which was printed on Dec. 29, was considered confidential.

Hm. The agenda packet was printed eleven days ago, and the meeting wasn’t warned until yesterday afternoon — less than 24 hours beforehand.

Okay, so the administration sat on the news so the Governor could make a splash. Great. But if Shumlin ever wonders why he has a reputation as a slippery dealmaker, well, here it is.

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Phil Scott’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

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Pity our poor Lieutenant Governor. He had to sit directly behind Governor Shumlin during the State of the State address, and try to figure out what he should do with his face. Most of the time, he looked pouty and miserable. And then tonight, he’d scheduled a major speech of his own to react to Shumlin’s address — only to be bigfooted by Donald Trump.

I’m sure he’ll still draw a crowd of the Republican faithful, but he’s not gonna get much media attention. It’ll be lots of Trump and a goodly helping of Shumlin, with Scott hoping for a few crumbs off the table.

Phil Scott Trying Not To Be Seen during Shumlin's climate remarks. Screengrab from WCAX-TV.

Phil Scott Trying Not To Be Seen during Shumlin’s climate remarks. Screengrab from WCAX-TV.

To be fair, he was put in a difficult position today. He couldn’t afford to appear enthusiastic for fear of alienating the Republican base; but he didn’t want to seem like an ingrate either. The result looked more like dyspepsia than a firm stance. He rarely looked directly at the Governor; his eyes wandered around the room; he looked down at the floor for long stretches of time. (Especially when Shumlin talked about climate change, when he seemed to be willing himself invisible.)

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Oh, about that other thing happening Thursday…

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As we all eagerly await the arrival of Our Benevolent Overlord Donald J. Trump and the potential shitshow of a rally in a 1400-seat theater for which more than 20,000 tickets have been issued, there’s another high-profile political event tomorrow in Vermont. That would be, of course, Peter Shumlin’s sixth and final State of the State address.

He’s set the stage with a self-congratulatory website chronicling the progress made during his tenure. It’s chockablock with conveniently-limned graphs designed to emphasize the positive markers, sometimes sacrificing the nuance of truth in the process. And he has said this last year will be a process of consolidating the advances of past years, not an occasion for new initiatives.

Which would seem to imply a somewhat minimalist address. That makes sense, given his status as a lame duck dependent on the cooperation of Democratic lawmakers who will be campaigning without him in November. However…

Peter Shumlin isn’t exactly a shrinking violet. He has used past S0S addresses as springboards for major policy initiatives. Would he really go out with a whimper, not a bang?

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The Governor prepares a soft landing

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Is Peter Shumlin starting to act like a lame duck? It would seem so. To judge by this week’s paltry trinkle of news, he looks to have one eye fixed on the past and the other on his post-gubernatorial future. And he’s already given up on fixing one major debit in his administrative ledger.

As VPR’s Bob Kinzel reports, Shumlin opposes any tax increases to pay for Vermont’s burgeoning Medicaid bill, but he doesn’t want to cut eligibility or benefits either. In fact, he’s washing his hands of the whole mess.

“I don’t know which governor is going to get to solve this problem,” he added. “But I hope a governor gets to solve it soon.”

“…once I’m safely ensconced in the private sector with my lissome new bride,” he might have added under his breath.

Yeah, screw the 2016 session. The Governor, you see, proposed a Medicaid fix last year and the Legislature ungratefully rejected it. So he’s done his duty, and hereby washes his hands of the matter.

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Feeling a little jet-lagged, Governor?

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Okay, look. Personally, I don’t have a big problem with the Vermont Gas pipeline. It would mean Vermont is consuming more natural gas — but we already consume quite a bit, so it’s not like we’d be losing our fracking virginity. (Much of our natural gas consumption is in the form of electricity generated in out-of-state gas-fired plants and purchased on the spot market.)

You ask me, I’d say don’t build it. But Vermont faces far greater environmental challenges, and I’m not sure why the Vermont Gas pipeline became the poster child for activists. If they wanted to have a positive impact on climate change, they’d be better off advocating for renewable energy and lower dependence on out-of-state sources including natural gas, nuclear, and ecologically destructive “industrial” hydropower from Quebec.

That said, Governor Shumlin pulled a substantial boner upon being repeatedly interrupted by anti-pipeline activists at the Paris climate summit.

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Terms and conditions

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Phil Scott and Bruce Lisman have spent this week trying to define their positions on admitting Syrian refugees. The issue is a sure-fire hit in Republican constituencies across the country, but here in Vermont the blowback seems to outweigh the benefit.

The topline for both men is pretty much identical — a “pause” in the refugee program until we can be reassured about security safeguards. But the devil, don’tcha know, is in the details. And if you take them both at face value, they want to put the program on the shelf for a long time.

Scott makes happy noises about “a nation of immigrants” and our values and the Statue of Liberty. But look closely at his terms and conditions he presented in his essay on the subject:

…my goal is to ensure the federal program moves forward with security protocols Vermonters, and all Americans, can have confidence in.

And there’s the deal-breaker. If Scott means what he wrote, he wants the refugee program shelved until every American is satisfied. That will never happen. How can you possibly convince people who think Obama is a Kenyan and see Islam as a religion of hate?

Lisman’s position is essentially the same, but his rhetoric is angrier and his conditions are more overtly unreachable.

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Bruce Lisman sees an opening on the right

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This week has seen Republican front-runner Phil Scott having a bit of trouble articulating a clear policy on America’s refugee program. Of course, he’s not terribly experienced at the job; one of the main perks of being Lieutenant Governor is that you don’t have to articulate clear policy stances. You can just kind of fuzzle around.

Meanwhile, his opponent Bruce Lisman has been shading his positions in the other direction. You may recall that, at first, the two seemed to be saying the same thing. But while Scott has shifted in a more welcoming direction, Lisman has sharpened his attacks on the security of the refugee program and on Governor Shumlin and President Obama.

Sigh. I fondly recall the good old days of Campaign for Vermont, when Lisman insisted he was nonpartisan and, in fact, had been a Democrat for most of his life. Well, now he’s declaring that he has no faith in the President’s ability to maintain security.

It looks like he has realized his only shot at the Republican nomination is to run to Phil Scott’s right. His opening gambit: a chorus of dog whistles aimed at stirring up anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiment.

Good God, I hope he goes down in flames. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

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