Tag Archives: Craig Bolio

Scott Asks Legislature to Fix His Terrible, Terrible “Plan”

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Gov. Phil Scott intended for his weekly press conference to be another rant against what the Legislature might do on housing reform. His basic message: Give me the bill that I want.

Which isn’t how things work when you have divided government, and the Dem/Prog supermajority has just as much claim to a mandate as the Republican governor. There’s give and take. There’s compromise. It’s called governance.

Eventually, the subject of Tax Commissioner Craig Bolio’s ill-fated trial balloon came up. You know, the one where he wanted to defer an unidentified bunch of school expenses for an unspecified number of years in order to artificially reduce property taxes this year? Yeah, the one that was shot down right quick by Treasurer Mike Pieciak due to concerns about what that kind of borrowing to pay for ongoing expenses, not any kind of capital investment would do to the state’s credit rating.

Scott, a fiscal conservative all his political life, seemed rather blasé at the prospect of triggering a credit downgrade that might hurt state finances for years if it bought him some short-term tax relief.

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The Word “Cockamamie” Springs to Mind

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Sometimes when you’re a political appointee, you have to say stuff in public that you’ve been told to say. I’d like to think that’s what Tax Commissioner Craig Bolio was doing on Friday when he had the stones to approach the House Ways & Means Committee with a scheme that should never have seen the light of day.

Giving him the benefit of the doubt, Bolio was sent by his superiors to propose a painfully belated, half-baked plan (to call it a “plan” is being generous) that amounted to what Ways & Means chair Rep. Emilie Kornheiser later called a “payday loan.” Without the benefit of the doubt, I’d have to conclude that Bolio is unfit to hold a fiscally responsible position.

The idea, in short, was to reduce this year’s high property tax increases by deferring expenses over the next several years. Hey, let’s put our public schools on the layaway plan! What could possibly go wrong?

I wonder how Gov. Phil Scott would react if a Democratic or Progressive legislator made such a suggestion. Somewhere between “conniption” and “aneurysm,” I’m guessing.

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