News – Politics – Opinion – Podcasts
Rob Roper 
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
You know the story. For over three years, Joe Biden’s critics repeatedly pointed out what should have been obvious to anyone paying attention that the guy wasn’t mentally with it. However, despite evidence steadily piling up supporting that conclusion, the President’s supporters insisted he was fine. Even great! A sycophantic leftist press corps eagerly went … Read more
After the 2020 Covid election, the Vermont legislature passed a law that mandates live general election ballots be mailed to everyone on the voter checklist regardless of whether or not the voter requests an absentee ballot. This raises, to put it mildly, concerns. Citizens need to be vigilant because, Lord knows, election officials are not. … Read more
The Commission on the Future of Public Education in VT’s subcommittee on Finance Reform met on September 4th (going back a bit, but the Commission has not been too punctual about posting its meeting recordings). It was their first meeting so, in fairness, expectations for any real substance were low. Still, some initial observations are worth … Read more
A key architect and proponent of the Unaffordable Heat Act, Rep. Laura Sibilia, recently penned a defense of the program. Since she likely speaks for all or most of the 107 members of the Vermont House and 20 members of the Vermont Senate who voted to override Governor Scott’s veto of this absurdly expensive law … Read more
Governor Scott took the gloves off at his Thursday press conference, calling out the Democrat Supermajority not just over the sticker-shock cost estimates for their cherished Clean Heat Standard (Act 18), but also their lack of transparency and honesty over the past year and a half of the program’s development. Scott said, “The cost estimates … Read more
The big news last week regarding the Clean Heat Standard potential study results was the reveal that the program is likely to add somewhere between $1.78 and $4.03 per gallon to the cost of heating oil and kerosene and as much as $2.12 to a gallon of propane. But also of note is the somewhat … Read more
When Julie Moore, Secretary of Natural Resources, said the Clean Heat Standards “carbon credit” tax on home heating fuels could drive up costs by 70 cents per gallon, the advocates of the program shouted her down and said, “Wait for the official analysis done by the real experts, you know-nothing, political hack!” (I’m consolidating and … Read more
The University of New Hampshire released a poll (The Green Mountain State Poll) on how Vermonters feel about the economy, taxes, and the high cost of living. While an overwhelming majority of Republicans think it stinks and is getting worse, and a majority of Independents tend to agree, 25% of Democrats said, “Nah, things are … Read more
Monday was the first day of school in Vermont, and this weekend, we celebrate Labor Day – two milestones at which point voters, so says conventional wisdom, start paying attention to politics. Let’s certainly hope so because live ballots will be mailed out to all voters on the checklist in less than a month! While … Read more
The Vermont primaries are over, and the official general election campaign season of 2024 has begun! With property taxes increasing by unprecedented amounts, energy costs rising with a new, potentially massive tax on home heating fuels up for a vote in January 2025, another double-digit premium increase for health insurance just announced, a new payroll … Read more
For going on half a decade, beginning with the lead-up to the passage of the Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA) in 2020, the Democrat/Progressive majority’s Voldemort number – that which shall not be named – is what these greenhouse gas reduction policies will cost Vermonters. They have already spent millions of our taxpayer dollars on … Read more
Phil Scott is by some accounts the most popular governor in the United States with an approval rating of around eighty percent. Ergo, lots of political pundits and big dollar donors who want to change the direction of state policy advise aspiring politicians to “be like Phil” to get elected. Yes and no. But mostly … Read more
There were a couple of nuggets in a couple of VT Digger stories that, taken together, are worth noting because they highlight a real problem with how things currently run under the Golden Dome – that is, with a maturity level found in your average middle school cafeteria. The first piece comes from a story about the … Read more
The recent—and unfortunately more regular—flooding Vermont has experienced since last summer has damaged a lot of infrastructure, but the impact on our roads due to washouts is a big one—and an expensive one for the state and local municipalities. This raises a critical question of where the money is going to come from to fix … Read more
If you are a rank-and-file Democrat in the Vermont House of Representatives – a soldier in the Supermajority – you are told by Party leadership how to vote. The majority leader will, in fact, hold up a paper sign, Yes or No, informing you how to cast your ballot on key issues. And you better … Read more