Rob Roper

Rob Roper is a freelance writer covering the politics and policy of the Vermont State House. Rob has over twenty years of experience with Vermont politics, serving as president of the Ethan Allen Institute (2012-2022), as a past chairman of the Vermont Republican State Committee, True North Radio/Common Sense Radio on WDEV, as well as working on state statewide political campaigns and with grassroots policy organizations.

Supermajority Votes for Even Higher Health Insurance Costs

Ask people why Vermont is unaffordable, and health insurance is one of the main pillars of our unaffordability crisis, along with education property taxes, the cost of housing, and energy prices. These highly regulated by our legislature plans go up every year by amounts far in excess of inflation. For 2024 alone, the Green Mountain … Read more

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Night Cap: The New Klan with a Nazi Twist

Watching enormous crowds of Americans shouting blatantly racist chants in support of an agenda that is unapologetically genocidal, and backed by internationally recognized terrorist organizations – met with at best indifference and at worst the active support of our elite institutions of government, news media, education, and entertainment — I can’t help but think, this … Read more

Cartoon hit with taxes

Democrat Supermajority Has No Interest in Solving the Property Tax Mess They Made

Democrats in the State House were parading around this week with a banner insisting, “If you make a mess, you clean it up!” Yeah! Big talk! They think this should apply to oil companies regarding climate change (another story I’ll get to soon), but apply that message to themselves regarding the colossal property tax tsunami of a mess they’ve made for us. Well, not so much.

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The Clean Heat Standard is too complicated to implement

The Clean Heat Standard (CHS), the “Rube Goldberg” carbon tax on home heating fuels, became law almost a year ago over the veto of Governor Scott. The Democrat/Progressive supermajority that passed the CHS did so without providing – or even considering in any significant detail – how it would work or what it would cost. … Read more

Light bulb filament original Photo by Alessandro Bianchi on Unsplash

Left Wing Logic: Nothing in Vermont Is Affordable, Why Should Energy Be?

Most people would say, if you’re in a hole, stop digging. Not Peter Sterling, the executive director for Renewable Energy Vermont, who testified before the House Environment & Energy Committee last week, posing the loopy logic that legislators shouldn’t worry about passing policies that drive up the cost of electricity because the cost of everything else is unaffordable too. What’s worse than the argument itself is that the lawmakers are apparently buying into it!

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Another Dumb Constitutional Amendment….

The Democrat/Progressive Supermajority in Montpelier isn’t just oblivious to reality. They are actively hostile to it. One has to conclude that they are purposefully attempting to destroy our state economy because nobody could actually be this stupid by sheer accident.

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Anti-Fossil Fuel Lobbyist Caught in Hot Mic Moment…

Peter Sterling, Executive Director of Renewable Energy Vermont and one of the chief nit-wits in Montpelier lobbying for every policy imaginable to force you and me to cut our carbon footprints down to stone age levels (because of the “existential climate crisis”), was caught on a hot mic — during a Climate Council meeting no less!! — gleefully making plans for a spur-of-the-moment ski trip to Chamonix, France.

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House Passes Renewable Energy Standard Amidst Cloud of Baloney

This week, the House voted in favor of H.287, an act relating to the Renewable Energy Standard, by a vote of 99-39, with eleven members absent. Even with a half-dozen or so Democrats joining all of the Republicans in voting NO, it looks like the Democratic Party leadership has twisted enough arms, if everyone were present, … Read more

Rearranging One Deck Chair on the Sinking Clean Heat Standard

With just a few days to go before crossover (the day the Senate has to pass its bills over to the House for consideration and vice versa), the Senate Natural Resources & Energy Committee finally took up discussion of the glaring defects – or, well, maybe one of them — in Act 18, the Clean Heat Standard, which they passed last year over the Governor’s veto.

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Vermont Must Cap Individual Property Tax Increases

The massive property tax increase coming our way as the result of an education funding system gone out of wildly control poses the very real threat of forcing some – perhaps many – Vermonters out of their homes. It will certainly cause painful choices for household budgets, making it even harder make ends meet in the Green Mountain State.

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Will Legislators Fix Their Clean Heat Standard Catastrophe?

Last spring, it looked like the Clean Heat Standard (S.5/Act 18) was headed for a second successful veto by Governor Scott when Senator Jane Kitchel (D-Caledonia) rescued the “Rube Goldberg” carbon tax on home heating fuels from the abyss by inserting a so-called “check back” clause into the bill.

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