News – Politics – Opinion – Podcasts
Rob Roper 
While the question remains to be seen if a majority of elected legislators got the message on November 5th that Vermonters want nothing to do with home heating taxes or any other fees and charges that make life in our state more unaffordable than it already is, one entity assuredly did not get the message: the … Read more
Vermont’s unaffordability crisis is most visibly driven by high taxes that come directly out of our pockets: sky-high property taxes, above-average sales taxes, fees on our electric bills, the new payroll tax, etc. A “clean heat” surcharge on fuel bills would be easy to spot. But the mandates our legislators saddle local businesses with – … Read more
Act 18, the Clean Heat Standard law, required the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to design the detailed rules for how the program’s carbon credit market would work in practice. That plan is due, and the PUC’s draft report indicates it doesn’t. Work that it. One main component of the PUC’s task is to determine who … Read more
In an interview on WVMT’s Morning Drive, the newly elected Democrat Majority Leader in the Vermont House, Lori Houghton (D-Essex), blamed their historic election losses on (drumroll) poor communications. Asked by host Kurt Wright what lessons she took from November 5th, Houghton replied, “Vermonters didn’t understand that what we passed will help them. And we … Read more
Sane people are puzzled over the question of how our Vermont public school system can lose roughly twenty-five percent of its student population since Act 60 “reform” in 1997, yet now cost three times as much – and return worse results for students. But conversations in the Commission on the Future of Education in Vermont … Read more
As I have noted in past observations of the Commission on the Future of Public Education in Vermont, this collection of special interest group lobbyists has no real desire to solve the property tax/education finance crisis facing Vermonters today. Their objective, quite to the contrary, is to keep the money flowing unhindered and unquestioned into … Read more
Vermont Republicans picked up six seats in the Vermont Senate on November 5th, changing the partisan makeup of the chamber from 23-7 to 17-13, the highest percentage the VTGOP has had in over a quarter century. The Republicans succeeded in winning three open seat races and knocking off three Democrat incumbents, two of whom were … Read more
I’m picking on Kevin here because he’s written two mostly ridiculous articles following the November 5 election lamenting how Donald Trump won a stunning victory nationally, and Vermont Republicans shattered the Democrats’ supermajorities in both chambers of the legislature, but he’s not alone. I would have let it go and allowed him and John Walters, … Read more
The big question many pundits ask in the wake of the significant Republican pick-ups in the state house and senate is what they will do with their newfound numbers. Six pick-ups in the Vermont State Senate and what looks like around twenty in the house (there will be at least one contested outcome in Bennington-1 … Read more
VERMONT This was almost as good as it could possibly have gone for Vermont Republicans in 2024. Almost. In the State Senate Republicans won all of the “big five” targeted races (Beck, Brennan, Douglass, Mattos, and Hart) Mattos and Brennan even more decisively than I thought they would, plus one of the wildcards in Steve … Read more
There’s no secret ballot outside the voting booth. A political ad for Kamala Harris featuring a voiceover by actress Julia Roberts has sparked a lot of press coverage, but not for the obvious reason it should. In it a woman and her husband enter a polling place. The husband is clearly supposed to be a … Read more
The accusation of “fascist!” is being tossed around a lot in the closing weeks of this campaign season, which gets me to wondering if these accusers actually know what fascism is. It’s a hard thing to pin down because fascist governments only existed for a very brief flash in the historical pan and only in … Read more
To whom it may concern: Advocates for the Clean Heat Standard insist that the program will only add a few cents to the price of fossil home heating fuels (oil, kerosene, propane, fossil natural gas), that the law, Act 18, is “only a study,” and that, if implemented, it will help low-income Vermonters by lowering … Read more
It was a surprise this week when Independent Representative Laura Sibilia (I-Dover) announced with two weeks left to go before the November 5th election that she is challenging the incumbent Speaker of the House, Jill Krowinski (D-Burlington), for the gavel. So many questions! Why now? And why would Sibilia think for even a nanosecond that … Read more
FPF Really Means “For Progressive Favoritism” Last week, I read an article in VT Digger about Front Porch Forum, the Vermont community-based “classifieds” social media platform where one can get help finding a lost pet, advertise a lawn sale, sell that thing that’s been sitting in your basement for ten years and ‘tis the season, … Read more
For good reason, there has been a lot of focus on the supermajority’s intention to implement a carbon tax on home heating fuels (oil, propane, kerosene, natural gas) in order to meet the greenhouse gas reduction mandates of their Global Warming Solutions Act. The big vote on the Unaffordable Heat Act is coming up right … Read more
Before we get into the meat of today’s topic, here’s a quick review of how property tax reform has gone down in Vermont since Act 60 became law in 1997: Property taxes go through the roof…. A critical mass of voters howl…. The Democrat-controlled legislature promises in public they’ll do something about it, but in … Read more
The Vermont Senate contains thirty seats. Democrats/Progressives currently hold twenty-three of them and the office of Lieutenant Governor, who presides over the state senate and can cast tie-breaking votes. So, for the Republicans to take control of the senate for the first time since the 1990s, they would have to hold the seven seats they … Read more
My wife and I got our ballots in the mail for the 2024 November elections this past week. Our son’s ballot also arrived. The problem with that is my son moved to Washington State over a year ago, re-registered to vote out there, and I personally told our local election officials about his move the … Read more
In the movie Tootsie, Bill Murray’s character is a playwright who has a running conversation with Dustin Hoffman about a scene he’s writing, “the necktie scene,” that’s just not working. He finally surrenders to Hoffman’s diagnosis of the problem, “I’m rewriting the necktie scene without the necktie.” I was reminded of this joke when I saw … Read more