News – Politics – Opinion – Podcasts
Rob Roper 
Skiing is a big part of the Vermont brand, along with maple syrup and fall foliage. Our little state produces an inordinate number of Olympic-caliber athletes, which is both a major source of local pride and a major source of international free media attention promoting tourism – kind of important for our economy. And a … Read more
Let’s start with the equally sad, infuriating, and hilarious news story about Green Mountain Transit’s electric buses, too big to even be useful as doorstops. Electrifying our public transportation system has long been a priority for Vermont’s Net Zero agenda, and it was with great fanfare that GMT touted the purchase of five electric buses … Read more
During testimony in the Senate Education Committee regarding Vermont’s taxpayer-funded universal preschool program (Act 76), Senator David Weeks (R-Rutland) challenged advocates with some stunning numbers. Vermonters gasp when learning our K-12 system spends around $30,000 per student on average (second-highest per-pupil spending in the country). But what about Pre-K? That gasp may escalate to a … Read more
The Vermont Transportation Fund – the pool of money used to maintain our roads and bridges – is facing a shortfall somewhere in the thirty millions of dollars (I’ve heard numbers between $31 and $37 million). If we don’t find a way to fill that hole, the state will miss out on federal matching funds … Read more
That WCAX Misses or Chooses to Ignore Last week, WCAX’s Calvin Cutler interviewed me for a story he was doing about state senate Democrats putting in a bill to enshrine the federal Voting Rights Act into state law as a hedge against the Trump Administration’s desire to restrict mail-in voting and to ensure only citizens … Read more
The Vermont Futures Project’s Economic Action Plan has a page or so touching on childcare. It notes that “over the past decade, Vermont has seen a decline in childcare capacity, particularly with the closure of home-based providers.” Hmmm…. What happened a decade ago that would have precipitated the rapid closing of hundreds of home-based childcare … Read more
And Vermont Is Leading the Pack – But a new study shows it doesn’t have to be this way! A coalition of New England think tanks released a new study this week pithily (and accurately) titled, Alternatives to New England’s Energy Suicide, questioning the viability and cost of the renewable energy mandates adopted by most … Read more
The Vermont Futures Project, a project of the Vermont Chamber of Commerce, made a big splash last week by declaring our state ranks last for economic momentum. Smack! In a January 7th op-ed, they write: The Vermont Futures Project’s Competitiveness Dashboard shows Vermont trailing most states in economic outlook, cost competitiveness, and regulatory efficiency. Vermont … Read more
As the legislature returned to Montpelier for the 2026 session, Representative Gina Galfetti (R-Barre) announced her proposal for a bill that would freeze property tax rates for the next three years. We like this! It is a necessary response to the 14 percent statewide increase in 2024 – an insane 40 percent increase over the … Read more
The Democratic Socialists around the country are feeling their oats! Mamdani’s mayoral win in New York and Katie Wilson’s in Seattle are sparking speculation that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez could emerge as the Democrats’ presidential nominee in 2028. That’s a serious political high! But we in Vermont know – or should know – a few things others … Read more
Last Monday’s Climate Council meeting featured a tense conversation about putting a price tag on what they call the number one “priority” recommendation in their updated Climate Action Plan. The project: a mandatory reporting system for carbon emissions from fuel suppliers and other significant emitters. The price tag, as requested by the Agency of Natural … Read more
Here’s a hard truth those on the Left will never acknowledge: Anyone who pays taxes in Vermont is already paying MORE than “their fair share.” We already pay the highest property taxes in the country. Is that fair? We have the third-highest state and local tax burden at 11.53 percent. Is that fair? Only eleven … Read more
Anyone who’s been paying attention to the advocates for electrifying our economy – everything from cars and trucks to home heating – you have heard over and over again that fossil fuel prices are “volatile,” and yada yada yada (for the Seinfeld fans) therefore bad. As an example (the only example they offer as it … Read more
Last week, members of the Vermont House and Senate gathered for an all-day, pre-session briefing on the issues they will have to confront when they return for real in January. The agenda included presentations on another looming double-digit property tax increase, our collapsing healthcare system, infrastructure woes, and our generally moribund economy. Serious stuff. But … Read more
During the healthcare segment of the pre-session legislative briefing on the state of Vermont’s economy, Senator Alison Clarkson (D-Windsor) piped up, “At the risk of asking the dumbest question of the day, and having been around when our healthcare costs were $2 billion a year and not $10 [billion], why in the hell do we … Read more
As we edge toward the second year of the legislative biennium in Vermont, politicians on the Left have glommed onto the word “affordability” – a long-time campaign theme on the Right – in an unbelievable attempt to make it their own. I say unbelievable, but if the New York mayoral race was any indication, at … Read more
This is not breaking news but deserves repeating. Mill Moore, writing for Campaign for Vermont exposed this startling new reality earlier this month in a terrific article highlighting Vermont’s decade-long public school performance nosedive, which has coincided with an upward trend in math and literacy scores in Mississippi. Yeah, that Mississippi. The (formerly) “Thank God … Read more
The committee tasked under Act 73 with coming up with a menu of consolidated school district maps for the legislature to consider in 2026… just didn’t do it. It was their whole job under the law, and after six months of hearings and consultants and cashing those taxpayer-funded per-diem checks and blowing through their $170,000 … Read more
New York Governor Kathy Hochul is in a fight with the courts over that state’s greenhouse gas reduction mandates. Like Vermont’s Global Warming Solutions Act, New York passed a law dictating that the state must reduce emissions by, in their case, 40 percent by 2030. And, like Vermont, a major policy for doing so is … Read more
Hat tip to Compass Vermont for their recent article highlighting the state’s public input survey on the choices our legislature will have to make when they return to Montpelier in January, End of the Easy Money: Vermont Braces for Its Hardest Budget in 10 Years. The main point: Vermont is running out of money and … Read more