TAKE A SIP OF......
FREEDOM
“
The Vermont Tea Party salute Reps Tom Burditt & Dustin Degree for having the fortitude, when others were severely lacking, to vote NO on the Adjusted Budget!! Maybe their courage will become contagious under the Golden Dome! We Taxpayers thank you both!
Also taxpayer praises go out to the Town Mgr, Clerk, Staff & Select Board for decreasing West Rutland's Tax Rate for the second year in a row!
If you know any other Vermont towns that havve done the same, please let us know...we want to give them a bit of applause as well!
Tom Burditt's vote on Adjusted Budget
January 20, 2011
The adjusted budget for the last half of the fiscal year came to the floor today. Compared to the total budget, percentage wise the increase was very small. Dollar wise..... not so small. A $5,000,000 increase was proposed.
To most in Montpelier $5,000,000 is not considered a lot of money. To me $5,000,000 is still a large sum and I hope it will continue to be just that. $5,000,000 is equal to approx 3% of the state deficit. Not a small percentage. We find this amount 30 times or so somewhere in this bloated mess and we will bw headed in the right direction to cure our fiscal whoas.
It was the second reading of the bill. The third reading will be tomorrow with amendments and another vote. The final vote in the house before it heads to the senate.
The tally on the vote today was 129-2 for passing the increased budget along. This was my first roll call vote. I sat at my desk listening to member after member give their yes votes. It went through my mind, “someone say NO before it gets to me”. They didn’t! It was a continual YES! YES! YES! YES!
The next call was for me “The Representative from West Rutland”….. “NO!“….. The first time I utter a word on the floor... and I am in solidly in the minority voting against a bigger budget. When I gave my NO vote…. collectively 131 heads turned in my direction to see who this dissenter was. I was proud of what I did, it was “The Right Thing”. Also, send a thank you to Dustin Degree from St. Albans City as he was the other member with the guts to say NO.
After the vote, 10-15 representatives came up to me and said, “I can’t believe as a Freshman legislator you had the “guts” to vote NO and go against the party.” I told them it was the right thing to do and if my name is anywhere near a budget increase my constituents will hang me out to dry. Most told me I was right and that they too should have voted NO.
We obviously need to get more to stop drinking the kool-aid and start drinking the "Tea".
Representative Tom Burditt
District Rutland 1-2
Clarendon - Ira - Proctor - West Rutland
Ingesting Chemicals, Sugar and Taxes
by Tom Burditt
January 15, 2011
The sugar tax / fat tax / obesity tax is all the buzz in Montpelier. In Vermont sugar has become the enemy just as big business, banking, insurance and pharma has nation wide. By attacking sugar people begin to believe that it is a bigger enemy than it really is.
So by dissing and taxing the natural sweet stuff people will move to "diet" drinks deamed safer by many of your friendly neighborhood legislators.
I know just from using common sense that cane sugar is not the demon that aspartame, sucralose and saccharin are. I dare you to search the side effects of these chemical sweeteners.
I have personal experience with sucralose. Also known as "Splenda". I can hear George Carlin saying "It must be good for you, it's "Splenda"". The calories in sucralose are eliminated using a process that includes chlorine. The effects I suffered will haunt me for the rest of my life.
The tax is just burdening Vermont families and workers even more. Just what the highest taxed state in the country needs, another tax.
If we are so unhealthy and need government to take care of us then where does information like the links below come from?
In this survey we are the 5th skinniest state.
http://calorielab.com/news/2010/06/28/fattest-states-2010/
In this survey we are the healthiest state 3 years in a row.
Aspartame side effects.
http://www.sweetpoison.com/aspartame-side-effects.html
Sucralose side effects.
http://splendasickness.blogspot.com/2006/03/heart-palpitations-accelerated.html
Sacchrin side effects.
http://www.medicinenet.com/artificial_sweeteners/page6.htm
CALL YOUR STATE REPRESENTATIVES AND SENATORS AND TELL THEM NO BEVERAGE TAX!!! (802) 828-2228
Reports from the various Committees under the Golden dome via Rep. Tom Burditt:
Appropriations Committee: (Rep Phil Winters) This week we continued to listen as Secretaries and department heads present their budgets. Most of the week was spent on the Corrections budget and on the Human Services budget. The Medicaid budget proposes major changes such as merging catamount health into an enhanced VHAP program. Also included is a proposal to assess hospitals an additional $17.4 million dollars, as well as assessing Nursing Homes, Health Agencies and Dentists an additional provider tax.
Corrections and Institutions Committee: (Rep Linda Myers)
The Corrections and Institutions Committee continued its ongoing discussions of sections of the governor’s proposed Capital Construction Bill. This past week we heard several times from the Department of Buildings and General Services that also included discussions on the proposed new state Health Lab; the Department of Information and Innovation; the Agency of Natural Resources; the Agency of Commerce and Community Development/Historic Preservation; the Department of the Military; and the Vermont Telecommunication Authority.
We held a joint meeting with the Senate Institutions Committee to discuss the proposed two-year Capital Budget cycle to try to see if there was agreement between the two committees on going with a two-year budget.
In the corrections area, we heard from Commissioner Andy Pollito who offered us insight into the department’s policy, direction and budget. We also had a discussion with Michael Schirling, Burlington chief of police, and Chittenden County State’s Attorney T.J. Donovan on Chittenden County’s Rapid Arraignment policy and a criminal justice update. We also had preliminary discussions with BGS on the governor’s plan for a proposed move of Vermont’s women prisoners from the Northwest facility in St. Albans to the Chittenden facility in South Burlington, and the move of men from Chittenden to Northwest. Those talks will continue.
This previous week the committee started getting into the meat of the Capital Bill. Our major on-going discussion is to decide whether we want to go with the governor’s recommendation of a two-year Capital Bill or stick with the usual plan of one year. There are many opinions about this and we don’t know how Senate Institutions feels about it. To that end we are having a joint meeting with Senate Institutions this coming week. While we are taking testimony on the bill, the “one-year/two-year” questions looms.
In regards to the various sections of the bill, we heard from the Agency of Agriculture concerning programs and grants for pollution issues; the Agency of Natural Resources dealing with forest parks and recreation, pollution control and drinking water; Department of Buildings and General Services and its major maintenance issues which are huge; the Vermont Telecommunications Authority and the costs of full access throughout Vermont; and Vermont Interactive Television and its programs throughout Vermont. We also began talks with BGS about their five-year planning process which will entail a great deal of further discussion.
On other issues we had a joint session with House Human Services to discuss the Agency of Human Services information technology needs; we heard testimony from Rep. Paul Poirier about H. 115, his bill about reinstating driving privileges for offenders on furlough; and we heard testimony from a huge contingent of residents of Maidstone about H. 24 and plans to turn over Maidstone Road to the town of Maidstone. That is still an on-going discussion.
Fish, Wildlife and Water Resources Committee: (Rep Peter Fagan)
We are working to determine how to treat Mr. Nelson’s, 800 acre enclosed with a 9 foot fence, captive hunt facility. He has approximately 140 white tail deer and 12 Moose, including Pete the Moose, in the enclosure along with imported elk and other imported animals. They all feed from feed troughs with the concern being the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease although no case has ever been recorded with every animal taken being tested for the disease. This issue has to do with wild animals being a part of the public trust. Another bill we are working on would address deer doing damage by clarifying current law and directing the ANR to study (no legislators involved) how best to address the issue.
General, Housing and Military Affairs Committee: (Rep Brian Savage)
This week started with the Committee hearing from Michael Hoyt of Leg. Council regarding liquor laws and any changes to them that might be considered this session.
We took additional testimony on H.42, an act relating to employment decisions based on credit information. We heard from a number of individuals on this ranging from representatives of the Vermont Workers Center, to the Vermont Bankers Association as well as from the Credit Reporting Agencies.
There was also testimony taken on H.41 an act relating to requiring employment breaks. We heard from the Commissioner of Labor, a representative from the Vermont Workers Center and from management at Fletcher Allen Health Care. It was reported by the Commissioner of Labor that out of the 6,665 calls from workers to their department last year, only 95 dealt with the issue of not being allowed to take breaks.
We took lengthy testimony on H.57, an act relating to disclosure to potential buyers of a building’s energy performance. This bill would <span>require </span>the seller of any building, including homes, to obtain at their expense an energy audit. Most of the testimony received was against this bill and we heard from realtors, attorneys, Vermont Fuel Dealers Association, Gaye Symington, and others.
We heard additional testimony on H.114, an act relating to electrical installations. After discussion and vote, this bill was passed out of committee on a 8-0-0 vote and will be voted on the House floor next week.
We also took introductory testimony on bill H.101 relating to voting requirements in common ownership communities and on H.182, an act relating to payment of emergency personnel wages.
Government Operations Committee: (Rep Mark Higley)
Labor Savings: Michael Clausen, Deputy Sec. Agency of Administration and Jes Kraus VSEA Vermont State Employee Association, discussed voluntary reduction in hours for some employees in the work force. This has also been referred to as a furlough. Details have to be worked out.
We took a lot of testimony on H.73 the public records bill. The news media; public advocates; attorneys; the Conservation Law Foundation; and concerned citizens’ spoke of the need to receive non-exempt public records requests in a timely manner. If the requestor has to go through the Courts and they prevail, they would like to see that reasonable fees "shall" be awarded.
H.99 an act relating to vital records: Michael O'Grady from Leg. Council read through the first section of the 78 page bill. Many policy changes are being considered regarding: health; marriage & civil union; divorce & dissolution; birth & death certificates and other vital records in Vermont.
Col. James Baker Vermont Criminal Justice Training Council discussed the improvements to the Police Academy in Pittsford.
Health Care Committee: (Rep Jim Eckhardt)
When asked by House Speaker Shap Smith what Committee assignment I would like, I gave him three: Health Care, Education and Commerce. I felt those three committees would have a lot of work to do and I wanted to ensure that the business community and the people in my district were represented in the conversations. I ran my election on the basis that I wanted to work hard for the people of my district. Speaker Shap Smith appointed me to the Health Care Committee and I could not be happier. The last four weeks have been intense with learning the State House and learning all about the health care dilemmas in Vermont. I have spent these weeks listening to testimony, looking at graphs, discussing numbers and percentages, and listening to every department of State Government that has a hand in Health Care. I have come to the realization that our health care, more particular the way we pay for our health care is really messed up. I am not however, willing to jump on the bandwagon of “it’s entirely the insurance companies fault”. It is not.
There are those that would have you believe that the big bad insurance companies created this mess. That is a fraction of the truth. The truth is that your government has had a very big part in making the situation worse instead of better. I think it is fair to say that we all want health care for everyone. We already have health care for everyone. Health care is not the problem; it’s how to pay for health care for everyone that is the problem. We have chased private health insurance companies out of Vermont. As we did that the ripple effect was for premiums to start climbing. As the premiums climbed, due to lack of competition, fewer employers could afford to provide insurance or had to reduce their level of benefits. This left Medicaid and other state programs to pick up the tab. Medicaid pays a considerable amount less to doctors and hospitals than the services provided actually cost. This meant that the hospitals and doctors had to pass that increase onto patients that have private insurance. As this cost shift occurred, it put more pressure on insurance companies to increase their rates to stay in business driving even more employers to drop insurance or levels of benefits, and the cycle continues.
Vermont has a population of approx. 640,000 people. Approximately 47,000 people in Vermont do not have health insurance. Approx. 20,000 Vermonters are eligible for Medicaid but for one reason or another just don’t sign up. So our total real uninsured population is 27,000 people. Mister Hsiao recommendations state that roughly the same number will remain uninsured after the passage of his recommendation. He also states that his recommendation has a 15% -20% margin of error. A 15%-20% margin of error on a 5.5 billion dollar Health Care Proposal would wipe out our entire State budget. We have to get it right. We cannot afford to get it wrong.
The Catamount Program was started by the Legislature to address this problem. The Catamount Program was to provide low cost Insurance and have a better benefit program than Medicaid. The Legislature thought this would be the start of something great in Vermont, a first attempt at getting to single payer. The business community rallied against it stating that it was not adequately funded and would fail. It passed and employers now had to start paying into the system. The business community was proven right and as you know current Gov. Shumlin has called Catamount a failure. In fact he stated that if he were in elected office at the time of Catamount he would not have voted for it. He stated that the bill lacked cost containment measures and that destined it to failure. It did not meet its enrollment goals and as of this year put approximately $6,200,000 in debt on the State’s General Fund.
Catamount will join VHAP and employers will continue to pay into a plan that is not nearly as good a Catamount. Here’s another kick in the pants to hospitals and doctors. Catamount paid hospitals a much better rate than Medicaid. So this move will greatly impact our Hospitals and doctors. They will either have to cut employees and services or increase their rates again to the private insurance plans. This again will drive more employers to drop plans or reduce benefits again compounding the problem. As if that is not bad enough Vermont now faces a shortage of doctors and it’s getting worse just when our growing age demographics needs them the most. Some doctors are getting older and retiring and some are just leaving the state to seek better practices in state’s not so heavily dominated by low Medicaid reimbursements.
It’s not all bad news some good things are in the works for Health Care in Vermont. The Blueprint for Health is serving Vermonters well and has started to prove that it can reduce visits to doctors and hospitals. It’s a relatively new program that shows great promise. For some reason we do not seem to be waiting for its completion before trying to move onto something else. Slow and steady wins the day.
In meetings with both Gov. Shumlin and Speaker Smith I voiced my opinion that we should blow up the system now in place and start from scratch. Putting all options on the table and putting something together that will work for all Vermonters and our Businesses. It’s apparent to me that another band-aid will not fix the problem for once and for all and will just further erode our faith in government to find a fix. The Governor has not (as of this writing) submitted his bill. I truly hope that he gives our Committee something to build on and that he does it in a slow methodical manner that will not make it appear as though we are trying to ram something through without thorough thought, research and testimony from all sides. My mind remains open and I truly look forward to working in my Committee to make sure we get it right.
Human Services Committee: (Rep Anne Donahue)
The Human Services Committee spent most of the week getting all the details of the impact on Vermonters through the scope of budget cuts. (I'm not meaning to sound flip. This is not happy stuff, and much of it carries the potential for driving much higher future costs by not preventing future higher levels of need.) We have broken into subcommittees to dig deeper into various sections of the agency of human services.
Next week we will begin some substantive work on three different topic areas that each address several bills: 1) child care needs and services (including H. 97, which proposes a union of child care staff and providers for negotiating with the state on rates); 2) cancer-related prevention (use of tanning booths by children; allowing ski areas on public land to opt to be smoke-free; and possibly, smoking in cars with children present); 3) palliative care (followup on recommendations made by the committee created by the legislature, and possibly including physician medical education requirements.)
Judiciary Committee: (Rep Tom Koch)
After four weeks of work, Judiciary voted out the human trafficking bill, 9-1-1. The bill solves a problem Vermont doesn’t have yet but doesn’t want either. It is much improved over the bill originally presented to the committee by advocates, with the forfeiture provisions removed, the statute of limitations for civil actions reduced from no limit to six years, and mandatory posting of an employee’s right to be free of human trafficking made voluntary. Andy Donaghy was the only vote against, due to concern over possible unfunded mandates.
We also voted out (with far less consideration) the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act, which 48 states have already enacted. There is no problem with this bill. After Vermont adopts it, the last state remaining will be Massachusetts.
We also began work on the Uniform Adult Guardianship Jurisdiction Act, which is also pretty innocuous, but which may require a bit more work than the Child Custody Jurisdiction Act.
Finally, we began work on what I hope will be our major project of the session—DUI. We heard from Deputy Health Commissioner Barbara Cimaglio, head of ADAP, and from the director of the CRASH program. Next week, we plan to hear from advocates of “Nick’s Bill,” sponsored by Brian Savage and the rest of the Franklin County delegation in the House and by Sen. Brock in the Senate. What we eventually vote out to the floor remains to be seen.
Natural Resources and Energy Committee: (Rep Mike Hebert)
Our committee has been working on H.56 "the energy bill". As originally submitted the bill had a good number of components which would negatively impact ratepayers. Bill, Kurt and I have expressed our concerns and the bill is coming back on Tuesday with changed and deleted language. Tony Klein wants the bill out of committee by Friday.
We have two bills on the elimination or reduction in the use of plastic bags.
H.19 This bill proposes to prohibit retail establishments from providing plastic carry-out bags. The bill would also require retailers to provide compostable plastic bags, recyclable paper bags, or reusable bags to carry items from the store.
H.145 Proposes to establish a fee of $.10 for each disposable carry out bag used for carrying goods from a retail establishment. We have been hearing testimony for the past two days on this issue.
H.155 PACE (property-assessed clean energy districts) Proposes to modify the statutes that enable municipalities to form clean energy assessment districts. The bill revises the name of the districts and addresses issues related to liens, foreclosure, reserve funds, recording of documents related to PACE and loan prepayment.
We will be taking up several different bills dealing with solid waste, a least two of which deal with the "bottle bill"
Ways and Means Committee: (Rep Carolyn Branagan)
Ways and Means Committee is always busy. This week the Fee Bill was approved on the floor and sent over to the Senate. The bill generates just over $460,000 most of which will go to the administration of the Workers Comp program and to the Agency of Agriculture.
The Entertainment tax was levied last year, 6% of all ticket sales for shows and programs at most of our opera houses, the Flynn Theatre, Weston Playhouse etc. W&M Committee is interested in removing the tax completely, but if successful will leave a $700,000 revenue hole. We're working on a solution.
Fred Kinney from the Vermont Economic Progress Council reported to the committee on efforts to attract business to the state by using Vermont's tax incentives, exemptions and other methods authorized by the VEPC statute. Much still needs to be done to improve this prom
Vermont Single Provider Health Care Bill
Part of the agenda to counter the repeal of ObamaCare
If they cannot force a top down bill from Washington, they will then force a bottom up scenario
from the state(s) level.
Catamount Health Care is miserably failing, and this bill will be even worse.
Go to the Take Action page fopr the Strategy to stop this abomination of a bill!
