OK,  This is it. The 345^th Vermont News Guy post.

And the last.

It’s been just a few weeks short of two years. It’s been fun. It’s time to stop while it’s still fun. A good rule is to quit doing what you like while you still like it.

My thanks to all readers. My special thanks to regular readers. My specialer (yes, I know that’s not a word) thanks to subscribers and comment writers, and my specialest (ditto) thanks to the two or three of you who appointed yourselves occasional editors, correcting typographical and other errors.

Everybody needs an editor.

Speaking of which, one last short correction. The last post said details on the connection between wind power entrepreneurs and environmental organizations could be found in last Wednesday’s entry. It was actually in the post of Monday, November 15.

A harsher editor would have insisted that this site not shut down until its proprietor dealt with some of the things he said he’d deal with – the persistence of poverty, for instance, or the truth no one will discuss about the importance of campaign money. (It fools the American people, who are more foolable than one is supposed to admit).

Sorry, time just ran out. But you know what? The News Guy is no more. I (dropping the droll, remote, third person act here) survive. In one platform or another, I may still be heard from in Vermont journalism. Stay tuned.

A note to my Facebook “friends,” the quotation marks needed here for those of you who are not my actual friends, in the pre-Facebook definition, for the simple reason that we have never met:

I’m going to unfriend you. Don’t take it personally.

Come to think of it, I may drop Facebook entirely. I hate Facebook. On it, my “friends,” some of whom I’ve never met, keep telling me they’ve just had a cup of tea. Or wasn’t the sunset beautiful?

As Rhett Butler once said, “frankly my dear…”

I hate Twitter, too. I have nothing worthwhile to say that can be said in 140 clicks.

Neither do you.

So enough. Assez. Basta. Gornish.

As it happens, though, events have conspired to render it useful, if not irresistible, to provide one more analysis of a current Vermont squabble – the recent suggestion by Attorney General Bill Sorrell to levy a tax on sugared soft drinks, a suggestion widely reviled as an assertion of “The Nanny State.”

It certainly is.

But what isn’t?

Almost nothing, despite the general inclination to ignore that fact.

Or, more accurately, to deny that fact. Americans like to call governmental intrusion they don’t like “The Nanny State.” Governmental intrusion they do like (highways, state universities, airports) they call…something else.

In this case, the connection is direct. Too many people, especially too many kids and most especially too many poor kids drink too much sugared soda for several reasons. One is their own foolishness; nobody holds their mouths open and pours Coca-Cola down their gullets.

But another reason is The Nanny State. Markets work. Products that cost less will be consumed more, especially by low-income people. Sugared sodas are cheap. In fact, they are cheaper (in “real,” meaning inflation-adjusted, terms) than they were in the early 1970s.

That’s when President Richard M. Nixon and his Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Butz, turned farm policy on its head, transforming it from a system that subsidized farmers to one that subsidized production of crops, mostly corn.

Plant it “fence row to fence row,” Butz told the farmers. Effectively (the details are a little more complicated) the Government (The Nanny State) said to farmers: “what you can’t sell, we’ll buy”.

The result? Lots of corn.

The result of that (remember, markets work)? Cheap corn. Meaning, also, cheap high fructose corn syrup, the sweetener now used in most sodas, which explains why they cost so little.

Whether public policy, or The Nanny State as it is sometimes known, ought to be used here to offset the negative consequences of earlier public policy, or The Nanny State as it is sometimes known, is one of those many questions on which reasonable people can disagree.

But don’t take seriously the guys who kvetch than Sorrell’s proposal is an example of The Nanny State. Not, at least, if they drive their cars on the public roads, eat food inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or fly in planes which do not bump into one another in the air. It’s all Nanny State all the time.

Stay loose. Don’t take any wooden nickels. Write if you get work. Never try to fill an inside straight. Throw strikes.

First, to give credit where it’s due, the photo of work at the Sheffield wind power project site in last Wednesday’s post was taken by Steve Butcher from a plane flown by Peter Boynton. Both live in the Mad River Valley and oppose plans for a wind power project along Northfield Ridge. The photo was not intended to, could not have, and did not reveal any improper activity going on at the site.

Next, the sentence in Friday’s post that read, “electricity consumption nationwide is equivalent to about 450 GW annually,” should have replaced “annually” with “on average,” or “equivalent to the output of 450 GW running continuously.”

For the record, the guy in the photo on the right side of Friday’s post was John Donne

Finally, some clarifications on the earlier posts, starting wtih clearing up some confusion toward the bottom of Friday’s post, Latish in the evening, after dinner out, the News Guy got some new information thanks to the cooperative folks at ISO New England.

Perhaps because it was late, perhaps because the dinner included a drink (OK, two drinks, if you insist) the information was at first misinterpreted as a dissent of sorts from the findings of a U.S. Government agency that Vermont’s capacity to create electricity from wind was quite small.

Those who read that post after about 9 AM when the misinterpretation was corrected can skip this paragraph. For earlier readers, there is no discrepancy. Both ISO New England (the area’s Regional Transmission Organization, based in Holyoke, Massachusetts) and the U.S. Energy Department’s National Renewal Energy Laboratory (NREL) conclude that Vermont’s wind power potential is less than a gigawatt.

This can get confusing, and blame for some of the confusion rests right here, because electricity capacity is sometimes expressed in megawatts or gigawatts and sometimes in megawatt hours or gigawatt hours. (See above clarification about the difference between “annually” and “on average.”).

The comment on last Friday’s post (scroll down) by Hilton Dier is factually accurate. Friday’s post concluded, based on U.S.Energy Department assessments, that Vermont’s wind power potential was tiny in relation to the nation’s energy consumption, too tiny to make a dent in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

That’s true.

Dier points out that if Vermont fully exploited its wind potential (a most unlikely prospect), it could effectively provide all its power from wind.

That’s probably true, too.

How can they both be true? Because Vermont, according to the Energy Department, uses but two tenths of one percent of all the electricity consumed in the country.

That’s not enough to save much, if any, fossil fuel burning, especially without some disincentive for burning those fossil fuels (see below).

Now, this alone does not prove that wind power should not be developed. There are all kinds of reasons for supporting more wind power in Vermont. Some people approve any addition to the power supply by any means. They may be right.

(Or not. A case can be made that New England, where the population is stable and per-person electricity consumption is declining,  needs no more power generating plants at all, at least for a while. But that’s a separate discussion.)

But the point of these last few posts, which should have been obvious to the functionally literate, is that if your case for supporting wind power in Vermont was that it might help reduce fossil fuel use and thereby ease global warming, you ain’t got much of a case.

The wind power that could potentially produced on land (the offshore potential is greater) by the entire east coast (which effectively includes Vermont, its lack of actual coastline notwithstanding) is not likely prevent the burning of a single ton of coal, barrel of oil, or cubic foot of natural gas.

At least not if NREL’s assessment is correct.

Especially considering that without that carbon tax or cap and trade regimen, adding new generating power to the system will probably mean only that Americans will use more power, not that they will substitute the clean for the dirty. The coal will still be in the ground waiting to be mined, sold, and burned. Absent some disincentive to mine, sell, and burn it, that’s what is likely to happen.

The key question here is not whether putting wind towers on Vermont ridge lines would do any good at all. Obviously, it would produce some electricity without polluting the air.

The key question is whether creating this tiny (in the national context) amount of power is worth the damage to the ridge lines.

Especially since, as Lyndon State science professor Ben Luce said, the near future could see a much more meaningful expansion of renewable energy from wind towers off-shore and on the Great Plains and from solar energy.

If that happens, Vermont will have degraded some of its pristine mountain streams, intruded on valuable wildlife habitat, and scarred its high elevation ridges for…well, effectively for nothing.

Granted, some people – seemingly intelligent, knowledgeable, well-meaning people at that – remain bullish about New England wind, raising the possibility that there could be a flaw in NREL’s analysis. This is not likely – the federal scientists have access to the best data all over the country – but let’s play with the idea briefly.

Seth Kaplan, a vice president for policy and climate advocacy at the Conservation Law Foundation, is a real optimist about New England wind power’s potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. His line of reasoning, which appears informed and responsible, is too complicated and not sufficiently central to today’s discussion to require a detailed account here. But he’s confident that eventually wind can produce enough power to create a tipping point, reducing coal production by a greater percentage of power use than the wind produces.

“If 2.5 percent (of all power produced) came from (wind), emissions would drop by 2.5 percent,” he said. But if wind could produce 14 percent of the power, “you’d get a 17 percent CO2 reduction. At 24 percent, a 30 percent reduction.”

Needless to say, those estimates are debatable. But what is important for now is Kaplan’s acknowledgement that they only rise to the level of debatable if Vermont and the rest of the northeast can produce a great deal of wind power, apparently more than the National Renewable Energy Laboratory finds feasible. Could NREL be wrong?

Yes. Before assessing the wind power potential of each state, NREL excludes all the land where,it assumes industrial wind towers could not be built—city centers, lakes, parks. In Vermont the study excludes more than three quarters of the state’s 2,569.6 square kilometers, including, it seems, the Green Mountain National Forest.

But wind towers have not been banned on the GMNF, whose officials are considering whether to allow them in the Searsburg area.  Ponder this possibility, then: the same peaks and ridge lines that George Aiken saved from a federal highway proposal in the 1930s could be covered by 450-foot-high wind towers in the coming decade.

Not, probably, what most Vermonters want. Not, probably, a plus for the state’s tourism economy. But if wind towers are acceptable to the Forest Service, and if people are serious about producing enough wind power to make a difference in global warming, not out of the question.

Ben Luce, who has studied the wind maps, doubts that very much of the GMNF is prime wind power terrain.  In much of the area, he said, building the necessary roads would be prohibitively expensive. Besides, he said, even covering much of the National Forest with wind towers would still produce “a tiny fraction” of the region’s or the nation’s electricity, not enough to reduce greenhouse gases.

Especially considering that Vermont now gets much of its power from Hydro-Quebec and (for a while) Vermont Yankee, neither of which emit GHGs. (Or not much. A more scientifically literate reporter than this one informs that HQ’s flooding and reservoirs emit some carbon dioxide.

The mainstream environmental groups who support more wind power now would probably draw the line at covering the National Forest with wind towers. But here’s the contradiction that confronts them: unless Vermont wind power is developed everywhere it can be produced, it’s not likely to have any impact on greenhouse gas production.

With some justification, the enviros have complained that the earlier posts on this subject did not mention their commitment to “careful siting, scale, and design of wind facilities,” as they make clear in the joint statement they released last week. Jamie Fiedel of the Vermont Natural Resources Council pointed out that his organization had “spent years” on “limiting the impact on bear habitat” from the Searsburg wind project.

No doubt they did and no doubt they are sincere in their desire to limit the harmful impacts of wind projects. But the more they limit, the less productive the wind developments, so their two goals – create more power; protect the ridge lines – seem to be in conflict.

Besides, no matter how much damage is limited, it is indisputable that from an environmental perspective, the best thing to do with these ridges is…nothing. Any development will result in some degree of environmental and ecological degradation. Here we have environmentalists favoring environmental degradation largely because they think it will assuage the greater environmental crisis of global warming.

They seem to be wrong.

And in a bit of political irony, the environmentalists, politically left of center, argue for a policy which grants extraordinary discretion over land use policy to developers. Without comprehensive energy or land use planning, it is developers, whose mission is to make money, not produce power or protect nature, who will decide where the wind towers go.

With, to be sure, approval from the Public Service Board and the Agency of Natural Resources. So far, this has not been a problem.

To be fair, climate change is not the green groups only goal here. In an email, Paul Burns of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG) said he and his colleagues were also motivated by “the retirement of Vermont Yankee,” and the “belief…that we Vermonters bear some responsibility for generating the power we use every day.”

It’s understandable that environmentalists, who have been fighting to shut down Vermont Yankee, feel responsible for making sure something is available to replace the power the nuclear plant now provides. But it seems there is plenty of power in the area. CLF’s pro-wind Seth Kaplan noted that “New England is capacity rich,” right now.

The part about Vermont’s responsibility to produce its own power is understandable, but also subjective and a bit abstract. It also seems to be a thin reed on which to base the environmentalist pro-wind policies.

So here, admittedly as conjecture more than evidence-backed analysis, are two alternative explanations.

First, the environmentalists and some of  the wind developers are associates, even friends. Some of those developers (see last Monday’s post) even sit on the green groups boards and contribute generously.

No, the greenies are not being bought off. But they and the wind developers are in the same tribe. They frequent the same Montpelier restaurants and coffee shops. They share the same liberal politics. To the environmental leaders, the wind developers are “one of us.” They must mean well (and no doubt do; but as George Bernard Shaw noted, “all men mean well”).

The second explanation has to do with that liberalism they share. These environmentalists are liberals, and Vermont liberals at that. Liberals, perhaps especially in Vermont, believe in being personally responsible. They recycle. They try to limit their carbon imprint.

Good things to do. But in the case of recycling, it really only does any good if enough people do it. In Vermont, they do, thanks to the efforts of environmentalists.

But the environmentalists would do it anyway, whether or not it did much good. It would make them feel better.

Maybe that’s  why they want to cover the ridges with wind towers.

….Serves to advance an honest mind,” is how John Donne finished that line back in 1633.

Donne was writing what he called a song, and it was fun. This exercise in how an honest mind should judge the efficacy of wind- generated electricity would be less enjoyable even if the guy putting it together had a tenth of Donne’s talent, which, for the record, he does not. What follows is a slog through fact and data (while trying to avoid conjecture and bias), a whole lot less entertaining than wit and rhyme.

There are several arguments on behalf of developing wind power in Vermont. It would create some jobs. In the spirit of Vermont self-reliance, the energy would be home-grown, even though no one knows where the juice powering his or her appliances really originates.

But the climate change case is the sine qua non of the pro-wind forces, the reason wind power development seems to have (those the polls should be treated with some skepticism) the support of most Vermonters. So there is one central question: will erecting hundreds of wind towers on Vermont’s high ridges mean Vermonters and other Americans will burn less coal, oil, and natural gas, and therefore stop making the world hotter, or at least stop making it hotter as quickly?

Because this is no more a suspense novel than a poem, the answer will come right now: NO.

Or at least the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence says that it will not.

Or at the very best (or worst, depending on one’s sentiments) it will do so infinitesimally.

Obviously, creating any power without producing climate-warming greenhouse gases (GHG) contains the potential for reducing the creation of power from sources that do produce those gases.

For instance, according to First Wind, the company now clearing land for a wind power project in Sheffield, that project will provide 115,000 megawatt hours of power per year. Considering that a typical ton of coal produces 2,000 MWh of power (or so says the National Mining Association) might not those figures mean that exploiting Sheffield’s wind could avoid burning 57,500 tons of carbon-filled coal?

If it did, big deal. More than a billion tons of coal was burned in the U.S. in 2009 (the last year for which figures are available, and lower than the previous year thanks to the recession). This is rounding error territory.

Besides, the Sheffield project would not have any such impact. The 115,000 MWh figure comes from the developer, and is meaningless out of context, as are claims, so often parroted by local news organizations, that a proposed project will provide power to X thousand Vermont homes.

Better to stick to the official, carefully-researched, and presumably un-biased projections of the U.S. Government (which supports more wind power, so any bias would be pro-wind).

According to the National Renewal Energy Laboratory (NREL, part of the U.S. Department of Energy) if all Vermont ridge lines with “suitable wind resource for wind development” (average annual wind speeds of 6.5 meters per second or greater) were in fact developed, they would produce  2,948.7 megawatts, or, to keep it simple, the equivalent of 2.9 gigawatts (GW) of wind capacity (a gigawatt is a billion watts). If all the suitable sites throughout the Northeast were exploited, the total would be 52 GW. (This is for inland areas only; offshore wind power potential is greater).

That sounds like a lot of power, but these are estimates of “gross capacity…not adjusted for losses.” That’s official jargon meaning the estimate assumes the wind would be blowing at about 6.5 m/s all the time. It doesn’t. Sometimes it doesn’t blow at all.

The hard-line anti-wind activists are wrong when they say this means wind power would be worthless and unreliable. No method of generating electricity works at full capacity all day, every day, all year long. Coal, natural gas, and nuclear plants have to shut down for maintenance, repair, and inspection (few of them as often as Vermont Yankee).

It does mean that the actual – as opposed to theoretical – production capacity of wind projects has to be adjusted downward,  70 percent downward according to NREL.

So the Northeast really contributes some 15.6 GW and Vermont less than nine tenths of one GW. And remember: that’s assuming maximum production on all sites, which is unlikely ever to happen.

Electricity consumption nationwide is equivalent to about 450 GW annually.

So Northeast wind would add up to roughly 3.7 percent of the nation’s energy use. Could producing that wind power reduce fossil fuel emissions by 3.7 percent?

No. First of all, not all power is produced by burning fossil fuels. Nuclear, biomass, and other non-polluting (or at least non-greenhouse gas-emitting) sources provide roughly a third of all electrical power. In the Northeast, where Vermont wind power would be used, that power would be more likely to replace (if it replaced anything) electricity made from natural gas – a carbon emission, but with roughly half the carbon of coal, further diminishing whatever savings in GHG might ensue. In addition, most greenhouse gases are not produced by electricity generation. Estimates range from 34 percent (the U.S. Department of Agriculture) to 41 percent (the Energy Department). Either way, the potential GHG savings from infusing a few GWs of eastern wind power into the system appear to be tiny.

Or maybe non-existent. Here we are in the realm of conjecture because no data exist. But it is undoubtedly possible – and perhaps likely – that the result of adding a few more GWs into the system would be that…a few more GWs would be used. Instead of replacing power now generated by fossil fuels, they would supplement them. People – or at least Americans – seem to have an effectively infinite capacity for using electricity, especially these days when so many appliances keep eating the stuff up even when they are turned off. Yes, energy efficiency efforts have been somewhat successful. That doesn’t mean people won’t use more power if the system creates more power.

This might not be the case if the whole country produced a great deal of wind power, say a couple of hundred GWs instead of Vermont’s paltry less-than-one. At some point, the overload could lead to real replacement of fossil fuels by renewables.

Now we come to an important part of the political debate in Vermont. Because (though some of the pro-wind zealots seem to deny this) almost nobody is opposed to developing more wind power where: (a) there is lots of it; and (b) its ecological impact would be acceptable. The “almost” is needed in that previous sentence because there are a few folks –die-hard supporters of nuclear power and/or global warming deniers – who dismiss wind power outright.

But that does not describe most opponents of putting wind towers on Vermont’s ridges. It certainly does not describe Ben Luce, the Lyndon State College science professor who called attention to the NREL analysis when he spoke at the press conference Wednesday held by Vermont wind power opponents.

Describing himself as “a long-time advocate of utility-scale wind development,” Luce said wind power can “make a meaningful contribution to US clean energy generation,” but that Vermont ridges “are not actually major league renewable energy resources,” and that the wind projects will cause “enormous and adverse impacts to Vermont’s fragile wilderness.”

(As noted in an earlier post on this subject, these areas, remote and wild though they may be, are not really “wilderness.”)

Wind power production, Luce said, should take place where there is a lot of wind, and where the ecological impact would be less severe and perhaps more acceptable.

It’s not much of a mystery to see where that would be. Take a look at that map above. In the Great Plains, from Minnesota to Texas, the wind speeds are often more than eight or even nine meters per second. Most of the land is flat. Flat does not mean unimportant. It often does mean that development is less threatening to the land’s ecological integrity.

(Here Luce and his allies can be accused of NIMBYism, supporting change elsewhere but “not in my back yard.” But that’s a separate discussion. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with NIMBYism; it’s the American Way).

But wait a minute. Is there no evidence in official or quasi-official sources pointing the other way, suggesting that Vermont wind power could have a real impact on greenhouse gas emissions?

In official sources, no.

The Energy Department’s Energy Information Agency does predict that “generation from wind power increases from 1.3 percent…to 4.1 percent in 2035.” More than a tripling, but still a tiny percentage of the total. And that’s nationwide. Almost all of that increase is likely to come from…believe it or not, where almost all the “suitable wind resources for wind development” are located – out on the great Plains. Vermont simply does not have enough wind resources to make a difference.

ISO New England, the area’s Regional Transmission Organization, has projected that in New England alone, 12,000 megawatts of wind power could be generated by 2030, 7,500 MW inland, another 4,500 off-shore. That’s comparable to the NREL assessment, and while ISO New England said that development would represent “a major shift” in the region’s resources, it still isn’t much power, hardly enough to reduce GHG emissions.

But Seth Kaplan, the Boston-based wind power expert for the Conservation Law Foundation, said the ISO New England projections reveal the possibility of even more wind power in the Northeast, perhaps enough to allow substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Come back Monday for an examination of whether he and ISO have a good case, and also of whether, if they do, most Vermonters would be happy about it.

OK, it wasn’t really the fates. One problem with one-man-band web sites like this is that we all have personal obligations outweighing our professional duties from time to time.

Yesterday was one of those times.

To be candid (candor always having been one of the goals here), the fact that yesterday was a day (and perhaps one of the last of the year) in which sitting in front of the computer seemed almost a sacrilege played a role.

Because the topic of the planned post is delicate and complicated, more than usual care is required. So one more postponement. It will be here Monday, honest to Betsy (or to whomever one wishes to be honest).

For now, just a couple of updates on previously mentioned matters.

Earlier this week, Windsor Superior Court Judge Katherine Hayes ruled on the case mentioned twice before here (most recently this one) on whether Hartford police had to release records concerning the incident last May in which they pepper-sprayed and handcuffed a man in his own house.

It was what might be called a split decision. The judge ordered the town to turn over the records about what happened after police decided not to charge the man, Wayne Burwell, but not the records about what happened earlier (the pepper-spraying, the hand-cuffing).

There is insufficient legal expertise here to justify commenting on whether the judge ruled according to law. But no expertise is needed to wonder whether Vermont law, or its application or both are consistent with transparent government.

Another recent post (Vermont’s Fine Whine, October 15) noted that the state’s economy was in remarkably good shape, especially considering its rural make-up, and the fact that in today’s economy. “the advantages go to concentration and consolidation.”

Two new and possibly disturbing pieces of evidence to support that conclusion – the possible impending demise of the small-town post office and the small-town drug store.

According to a story  in this week’s Chronicle in Orleans County (not available on its web site), a bill in Congress would allow the Postal Service to shut down small post offices that don’t pay their way.

No closures appear imminent, but according to the article, 30 small-town post offices in Vermont have not replaced postmasters or postmistresses who have retired, died, or quit. The post offices are not vacant, but are being run by an “officer in charge” without the postmaster title.

That’s not proof the Postal Service plans to shut down those facilities. But it is what it would do if shutting them down was the plan.

Meanwhile, the state’s independent pharmacists are circulating petitions urging support of two bills in Congress that would counter the practice by some insurance companies, big pharmacy chains, and pharmacy benefit managers to convince customers to buy their drugs only from the big chains or from on-line services.

The local druggists admit that there is a powerful incentive for consumers to forsake them and buy from the big guys – it’s cheaper. Sometimes a lot cheaper. Sometimes so much cheaper than the local druggists wonder whether some of the prices are so low that the chains are losing money on the drugs just to attract the customers and put the independent pharmacies out of business.

That’s entirely unproven, but it wouldn’t be unprecedented in the history of American business.

The price – and sometimes home delivery – make it quite sensible for people to buy their drugs from the chains and the on-line services. But sometimes a slew of reasonable individual decisions can have a social cost. A small town drug store is often also a coffee bar or café, a social center, a reason for people to come into town where they might visit other stores. Some of these stores could probably hang on without the pharmacy; others won’t, and where a town has neither a drug store nor a post office, how long will it remain a town at all, other than legally?

In a fast-moving world, trying to stay alive in the slow lane isn’t easy.

This will be a somewhat abbreviated post because the News Guy moderated a debate among Northeast Kingdom legislative candidates last evening and there is only so much one fellow can do in one day.

Oh, all right. Full disclosure. In addition to this public duty, the News Guy herewith admits another factor. As revealed in an earlier post (the one about Centennial Field and the Lake Monsters Take Us Out To the Ball Game? July 3, 2009)  among the News Guy’s private passions is that exotic past-time known as baseball, to which he devoted the latter part of the evening.

So for today, just a correction or two, a little mopping up, and then a tale, a true story that may or not be cautionary.

Wednesday’s post reported news of an “inter-active map showing poverty rates by state and county in 2009 when the poverty reached its highest levels in 51 No big surprises.”

Obviously that should have been the poverty rate which reached its highest levels in 51 years, period, end of sentence.

A few paragraphs later, the post listed the poverty rates for Vermont’s counties, but left out two of them. Thanks to the reader who pointed out the omission, and for those who read the post early, scroll down. All 14 counties are in there now.

And to the reader who asked what the under-five-year-old poverty rate is by county, stay tuned. The search is on.

Another reader had a good point on that post, and this time it was not just any reader but Doug Hoffer, the Democratic candidate for Auditor. Read Hoffer’s full comment (just go down to the bottom of Wednesday’s post and click on “3 comments,”) but his main point was that it isn’t good enough for Vermont’s poverty rate to be lower than in most other states; ten percent in poverty still too high and we’re all too willing to accept that state of affairs.

An interesting comment which deserves a full treatment soon.

Later in that same post was the report of a poll showing that “45 supported the idea, 36 percent opposed it, and 19 percent were undecided.”

No doubt you all figured this out for yourselves, but just for the record, that’s 45 percent.

The October 11 post, Ethical Quandary, reported that Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie was once a member and chairman of the school board in Essex. It was Essex Junction. Apologies to both municipalities and to Dubie.

OK, now to the tale, in which the names shall be changed to protect the innocent. So let’s call them Mr. and Mrs. Jones. They live in Charlotte, in the same house they had built more than 40 years ago. It isn’t a big house. Fifteen hundred square feet, Mr. Jones said.

The Joneses are not young. He’s 81. She’s 75. They’re not rich either. Last year, they said – and emailed tax records to back it up – their taxable income was $44,000. Because they own their home free and clear, they no longer have to make mortgage payments. They just have to pay their utility bills, buy food and fuel, whatever clothing they might need, and some incidentals.

Oh, and of course property taxes on their house. This year, their property tax bill is $11,252.

No, that’s not a typographical error. The Jones pay more than $11,000 – one quarter of their taxable income – for property tax.

Wait a minute. Doesn’t Vermont’s property tax system include an “income sensitivity” provision that protects middle-income homeowners from sky-high property taxes?

Yes, but earlier this year the Legislature passed a bill (H 783) effectively abolishing income sensitivity  when “the equalized value of a housesite (is) in excess of $500,000.”

That covers the Jones’s 1,500-square-foot house that they had built in 1967 for $22,000. It is now assessed at $1.4 million

No, neither of those was a typo, either.

The Joneses have made some improvements to their house over the years. But that’s not why its assessment shot up. It was, said Mrs. Jones, the much larger houses built all around them over the last several years that raised the assessed value of all the homes in the neighborhood.

The Legislature acted after some news stories in the Burlington Free Press and the Valley News (for some reason unavailable on its web site) that some residents of opulent homes were paying modest property tax bills based on their incomes.

The Legislature acted out of a combination of opportunism and controlled panic. The lawmakers were scrounging for all the revenue they could find. And they worried about being attacked for coddling the “wealthy,” even if these supposedly wealthy people earned average incomes.

It was not an unreasonable decision. Like the others so targeted, the Joneses will not suffer economically. They can sell their home, probably not for $1.4 million in the Recession, but for several hundred thousand dollars, which will allow them to live out their lives in comfort.

But they don’t want to move.

“This is our home,” Mrs. Jones said. “It’s where we raised our three boys. At my husbands age, moving will be hard on him.”

Surely this is not what the Legislature intended. But nobody has repealed the law of unintended consequences. And legislating on the basis of a few “horror stories” is a good way to activate that law.

Innumeracy: A front page story in Monday’s Free Press noted that the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation (VSAC) “is pushing to hold on to Vermonter’s loan accounts, arguing that Vermont default rate (4.7 percent) is well below half the national rate (7 percent)…”

Forget the lack of either the word ‘the’ before, or an ‘apostrophe s’ after, ‘Vermont,’ and just concentrate on 4.7 being “well below half” of seven.

Let’s see. “Below half” would be less than twice as much. So multiply the lower number by two. Seven times two is 14. Put down the four and carry the one. Four times two is 8. Add the one and you get nine. Twice 4.7 would seem to be 9.4, which at least to the untutored eye is more than seven, making 4.7 definitely above half of seven.

“Well” above?

That’s a judgment call.

Illiteracy (economic version): In a column in Sunday’s Free Press, Betsy  Bishop, president of the Vermont Chamber of Commerce, declared, “government does not create jobs.”

A widely held and bipartisan sentiment. Sen. Susan Bartlett posted the same words on her web site during her primary campaign for governor. But it’s economic illiteracy.

Cops, firefighters and teachers are employed, almost all of them by one government or another. While employed, they provide a service, which creates wealth, which produces more jobs.

There is a name for the system described above. It’s called a market economy, sometimes known as capitalism. Among Adam Smith’s great insights in Wealth of Nations (1776) was that it made no difference how wealth was created or who created it. By any means, from any source, it enriched society and created jobs.

Our society, to be sure, has decided that most economic activity – and therefore most wealth-creation and job-creation – should take place in the private sector. For all sorts of reason, that’s a very wise decision. But it does not mean that government does not create both wealth and jobs. In fact, five days a week for most of the year, in almost every town in America, schools (the vast majority of them public, meaning government-run) create human capital, perhaps the single greatest source of wealth, and therefore of jobs.

Numbers, good and bad: Via Huffington Post and an organization called Mint.com, comes this inter-active map showing poverty rates by state and county in 2009, when the poverty reached its highest levels in 51 years. No big surprises. Vermont’s poverty rate (10.4 percent) is lower than the national average (14.3 percent), but not as low as the rates in several other states, including neighboring Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The states with the lowest rates were Wyoming, Hawaii, New Jersey, and Minnesota. Mississippi, Alabama, and the District of Columbia had the highest rates.

Vermonters between the ages of five and 17 had almost the same poverty rate (10.6 percent) as the entire population, but the rate for children under five was a surprisingly high 16.2 percent. Even that was lower than in most other states. In Mississippi, more than 30 percent of children under five were poor.

Unlike most states in the deep South, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and both Dakotas, no county in Vermont had a poverty rate of anywhere close to 30 percent. Still, there were obvious – and perhaps not surprising – differences among the state’s 14 counties. The lowest rate was Grand Isle County’s 8.4 percent; the highest Essex County’s 14.8 percent.

The rates in the rest of the state were as follows: Addison 10.4; Bennington 12.2;  Caledonia 11.8; Chittenden 9.6; Franklin 9,9; Lamoille 10.1; Orange 10.9; Orleans 14.3; Rutland 11.6; Washington 9.7; Windham 9.8; Windsor 9.3.

Numbers and Words: The following is clarification, not criticism. Vermont Public Radio has been trickling out reports from the statewide poll that it commissioned from Mason-Dixon Polling and Research. The results are interesting, and probably accurate, but the latest accounts could be misleading if not understood in context.

For instance, the poll showed that 44 percent of the respondents think the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant should be shut down when its license expires in 2012, while 39 percent want it to get the 20-year renewal it seeks and 17 percent are undecided.

Asked whether they support or oppose a plan to consolidate the state’s 278 school districts into 45 “to save administrative costs, which could result in the closing of some smaller schools,” 45 percent supported the idea, 36 percent opposed it, and 19 percent were undecided. On health care, a 56 percent majority supported either a universal government-run program like Medicare or a “public option” alternative like Catamount Health Care.

As mentioned in Monday’s post, Mason-Dixon is a respected firm, the sample of 625 was big enough, so there is no reason to doubt that these results are accurate.

But there is some reason to doubt that they accurately represent popular opinion on those issues by the people of Vermont.

That’s because, as also noted Monday (just scroll down) the average age of those 625 people is substantially higher than the average age of Vermont’s voting age population. A full 60 percent of the respondents are over 50. Almost 60 percent of voting-age Vermonters are under 50.

The pollsters didn’t goof (although “to save administrative costs,” though accurate, might invite a positive reply on the school question). They were first and foremost trying to figure out who’s likely to win next month’s elections, so they “screened” for likely voters. Older folks vote more. The sample, then, quite likely represents those Vermonters who are going to vote on November 2.

But no matter who wins the elections, the results on those three questions are likely to be used during next year’s legislative session as though they reflect where Vermonters stand on those issues. Perhaps they do not.

OK, there’s a certain amount of conjecture here, because the poll did not break out the voter preferences by age groupings. But there’s something close to a consensus among politicians that younger voters are:

–More likely to oppose Vermont Yankee;

–Less likely to be for school consolidation because they are more likely to have kids in school. Rare is the parent who wants his/her child to have a longer bus ride to school. If nothing else, it means getting up earlier in the morning.

–Perhaps (though this one is murkier) not as keen on government-run health care.

Still in the realm of conjecture, but restrained conjecture, here’s a suggestion that a poll of all registered voters – not just those likely to vote this year – would find a small majority against Yankee’s relicensing, with perhaps 30 percent in favor and almost 20 percent undecided.

Politically, that’s a big difference because the undecideds don’t matter; they’re not going to vote against a legislator either way over the issue. But a lawmaker who might hesitate before displeasing 39 percent of the electorate, while earning the thanks of only five percentage points more, is less likely to pause before pleasing a majority and annoying only a third of the people.

As is often true in life, in polling, when it comes to numbers, nothing is more important than the words.

So they are and so it is. But Vermont is not alone. In the other 49 states, millions are struggling to find jobs and the unemployment rate is higher than it’s been in 30 years.

In fact, the unemployment rate is lower in Vermont than it is nationally or in most other states. In August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only four states had lower unemployment rate’s than Vermont’s 6.0 percent, which was more than a third less than the national rate.

Brian Dubie agrees that job creation is vital, and he says jobs are scarce because “it’s harder to start a small business here, harder to earn a good living here, harder for a small business to hire and grow…than in almost any other state in America.”

Dubie has some evidence to support his assertion, a 2009 survey by Forbes Magazine finding that Vermont had one of the least “business-friendly environments” in the country. As evidence goes, though, this survey was decidedly unimpressive, and there are no actual data supporting the claim that small businesses are less likely to succeed in Vermont than elsewhere. Until the Recession began, business start-ups outnumbered business failures in the state, and the success rate was comparable to the rate in other states.

Different though their outlooks may be, Dubie and Shumlin are both acting in accordance with what seems to be Vermont’s real – if unofficial – motto: “Woe is Us.”

Speaking of no data, there are none to prove that Vermonters tend to complain any more than Tennesseans, Kansans, or Oregonians. In recent years, whining has emerged as the national pastime as various regions, generations, and subcultures claim to be more put-upon than everyone else.

To be fair, there is plenty to…well, whining never did any good, but there is plenty to complain about and rail against these days. In many ways, the country is in bad shape. The current Recession is the worst since the Great Depression (unemployment went slightly higher in 1982, but it was a far more manageable downturn). In real money terms, many people earn no more than they did a decade or so ago even as the cost of necessities such as health care and education keep rising. Life in America is not easy these days.

But all these are national (and some cases global) troubles. There is nothing particularly Vermont-ish about them. In fact, for the most part, Vermont is getting through these troubled times better than most states. Depending on who is doing the counting and when, the home foreclosure rate in Vermont is either the lowest or the second lowest in the country. As mentioned, the jobless rate, while higher than before the Recession, is relatively low, as is the poverty rate, and even the much-discussed pending state government budget deficit pales in comparison with many other states.

One reason to suspect that Vermont is whinier than most other states is that Vermonters were kvetching well before the Recession. To some extent, this is one consequence of being a generally liberal state. Complaining – sometimes with good cause, sometimes not – is built into a liberal’s DNA.

But if anything, it has been the state’s conservatives who have voiced the loudest gripes. Led by Gov. Jim Douglas, Republicans and their allies have kept up a steady chorus caterwauling that Vermont’s tax structure and environmental regulations are stifling economic growth.

It’s not impossible that there is some basis to this critique. But it faces one problem at the outset: there really isn’t much evidence that Vermont’s economic growth has been stifled at all.

For the last half century, this state has gotten steadily bigger and richer. In 1960, the Census counted 389,881 Vermonters. That rose to about 445,000 in 1970, some 511,000 ten years later, almost 563,000 in 1990, almost 609,000 ten years ago, and an estimated 638,000 this year. Experts project the population to reach 678,000 by 2025.

As it has grown larger, Vermont has grown richer. One of the poorest states in the middle of the last century, it now has the 21^st highest median household income. According to official federal figures from 2007 to 2008 (the latest figures available) Vermont’s Gross Domestic Product grew by 1.7, more than twice the nationwide rate of 0.7 percent.

Vermont does have economic problems, but the evidence suggests that these problems stem less from what Vermonters do (government policies) than with where they do it (on farms and in small towns) and who they are (white, Anglo, educated, relatively affluent).

Vermont is one of the most rural states in the country, with only one official metropolitan area (Burlington and environs). In today’s economy, the advantages go to concentration and consolidation. With rare exceptions, economic opportunity is found in the big cities and metro areas. That’s home to the big economic drivers – the big universities, the health care and research centers, high finance, the arts. That explains why Chittenden County is the most affluent part of the state. It has at least some of all of the above. Considering that the rest of the state has very little, its prosperity is impressive. Somebody is doing something right.

One thing Vermonters are not doing much is having children, so one real concern is that the average age of the state’s residents will progressively rise. But there’s not much that can be done about that. Educated, white, Anglos aren’t having children anywhere in America, all of which is getting older. Nationwide, the share of the population over age 65 is projected to rise from 12.9 percent this year to 17.8 percent in 2025.

Vermont does have challenges. Like the rest of the country – but more than most states in the Northeast – income inequality is growing. The immigrants tend to be affluent retirees or educated folks who come to work at Fletcher-Allen, IBM, or the University of Vermont. The emigrants tend to be the less educated who can not find the jobs in factories, farms, or forests that supported their parents and grandparents.

That’s a real problem. But – again – hardly unique to Vermont. It is a problem that stems from great progress. Oversimplifying just a bit, the prosperous half of the world has solved the production-of-goods problem. People can produce more machinery, food, and fiber with a fraction of the workers needed a few decades ago. Among the functions that need fewer workers are forestry and dairy farming. Milk, wood pulp, and saw logs will continue to be produced here, but by many fewer people. To live decent lives, the rest will either have to get the kind of education needed in the new economy, or go somewhere else (though pretty soon, going somewhere else won’t do much good, either).

For the most part, then, Vermont’s problems are the country’s (and even the world’s). Sure, there are a few things this state could do better, or different. It’s even possible – though hardly proven – that cutting taxes and easing the regulatory process might be among them. Meanwhile, it could be a good idea for both Democrats and Republicans to see if they can avoid grating Vermont the distinction of being the whiniest state in the union.

The top money man

More politics below, but first an update on a post of three months ago (Non-Union Blues, April 28) about the Douglas Administration’s refusal to accept a Project Labor Agreement (PLA) for construction of the new Lake Champlain bridge.

Under a PLA, construction unions agree not to strike and to accept cost saving concessions such as surrendering premium pay for late shift work. In return, the contractor agrees to accept workers chosen at union hiring halls in the region, guaranteeing local residents some of the good-paying jobs on the project.

Last spring, New York State and the Federal Government agreed to a PLA for the bridge. Under pressure from the state branch of the Associated General Contractors, Vermont did not, so there was no public PLA.

The top money Dem

But according to a news release sent out Friday by the Vermont Building and Construction Trades Council, Vermont and New York unions have reached agreement on a private PLA with the prime contractor, Flatiron Construction of Colorado.

“The PLA will accomplish what Gov. Douglas was sadly unwilling to do – guarantee local residents an opportunity to land a job on this $70 million project,” Vermont Building and Construction Trades Council President Jeff Potvin said in the press release.

It isn’t clear how many workers from the area will get jobs on the bridge project. Potvin acknowledged that Flatiron will “self-perform a large portion of the project,” meaning it will bring its own workers from elsewhere. But it does seem that the more Vermont workers will get bridge jobs with the PLA than would have without it, and that the cost savings will go to Flatiron, not Vermont’s taxpayers.

It will be interesting to see if whoever ends up with the Democratic nomination for governor tries to use this issue in the general election campaign against Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie.

Oh, yes: the governor’s race. Wherein we segue to the significance of the campaign finance reports submitted by the candidates last week.

This significance should not be overstated. The typical voter does not pay attention to which candidate raises more money, being far more interested in which candidate he or she finds appealing.

But neither should the significance be pooh-poohed. First of all, the money itself is important; more is better than less. Second, the reports themselves send signals, however short-lived, that can speed or slow a candidate’s progress. The more money a candidate has, the more seriously he or she is taken by what the eminent journalist Jack Germond called “the political community”—reporters, TV commentators, and, not least, potential contributors, who prefer to bestow their largesse on likely winners.

There is little doubt, then, that last Friday’s headlines provided a boost to Dubie ($943,000 raised, $475,623 cash on hand) and Secretary of State Deb Markowitz, the top collector among Democrats ($523,946 raised, $186,756 on hand).

Also coming out ahead in the perception game were Democrats Matt Dunne ($267,861 and $132,959) and Sen. Peter Shumlin ($418,490 and $207,134.).

The news was not as good for Sen, Doug Racine ($210,158 and $63,097) and it was downright awful for Sen. Susan Bartlett, who reported raising only $70,920 from just 232 contributors, leaving her with only $11,146 in the bank.

As last Wednesday’s post noted, a candidate need not have the most money. She does have to have enough money.

Eleven grand is not enough money.

Bartlett insisted she would not drop out, and there’s no reason why she should. She has nowhere else to go for the next month, and there’s always the possibility of a “miracle,” which in this case would require no supernatural intervention, just a fairly even five-way split in which nobody gets much more than 20 percent of the primary vote on August 24 and anyone could win a squeaker.

But it would take something close to supernatural intervention. That isn’t the way multi-candidate primaries usually shake out.

The situation must be frustrating for Bartlett, who is highly regarded in Montpelier. Even as they pronounce her candidacy hopeless, politicians and legislative onlookers keep noting  that she might be a strong candidate in the general election, and a good governor if elected.

But nobody every claimed that politics was fair, or even rational.

A look behind the raw numbers indicates even better news for Dunne, and perhaps even worse news for Racine, who has only raised $107,742 from 491 contributors in the last year. His total includes the amount he raised before last July’s reporting deadlines. Dunne, who did not announce his candidacy until late last year, raised all his money in the last twelve months from 722 contributors.

That’s not as many as Dubie (an impressive 2,724 contributors in the last 12 months), or  Markowitz (1,070), but substantially better than Shumlin (390) who only kept pace with Dunne by lending his own campaign $150,000.  At the very least, Dunne seems to know how to raise money.

As, obviously, do Dubie and Markowitz. They have also spent the most money. Shumlin actually has a bit more cash on hand now than Markowitz, even after paying for the campaign’s first round of television ads. And while Dubie has far more money in the bank than anyone else, he is also spending it faster than anyone else, much of it on professional fund-raising and other political consulting firms.

All the candidates raised most of their money from, and spent most of it in, Vermont. That may not last. It is not unreasonable to suspect that the big out-of-state fundraising starts now, not reportable until after the election. Some voters, it seems think there is something wrong with raising money beyond Vermont’s borders.

But candidates need money, and have to raise it where they can find it. Asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton famously said, “that’s where the money is.” Campaign money is in Boston, New York, Washington, California, and Texas. Dubie has already raised thousands from Texas, and spent thousands there, on Harris Media an Austin political consulting firm serving conservative Republican candidates.

No doubt researchers from all six campaigns are poring over the filings of the other five, hoping to find either a contribution or an expenditure that could prove politically awkward. Two potential entries: Dubie got a $2,000 contribution from the Ely Lilly Co., the Indianapolis pharmaceutical giant. Drug companies are not universally admired these days.

The lieutenant governor also received $1,000 from Dairy Farmers of America of Kansas City, MO, and another $1,000 from its affiliate, Syracuse-based Dairylea Cooperative, Inc. DFA is the milk marketing cooperative that has been the target of several anti-trust allegations, (and at least one continuing investigation) and some Vermont dairy farmers blame it for keeping their prices low.

All are invited.

The host will be Sterling President Will Wootten.

The moderator will be…well, ahem, uh, as long as you asked, the moderator will be the News Guy his very own self.

Please do not throw tomatoes as the moderator. He will be doing the best he can. But he could use some help. What would you ask the candidates for governor if you had the opportunity?

Some of the issues that should be brought up may seem obvious – taxes, schools, jobs, Vermont Yankee. Except that they all seem to agree on taxes, schools, and Vermont Yankee. And it isn’t clear that governor can do much about jobs.

Remember eight years ago when candidate Jim Douglas’s slogan was “Jim =Jobs.” Sounded good, but even before the Recession, private sector job growth under Douglas was pretty close to zero.

Not necessarily his fault. Campaign rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding, state government policy may be irrelevant to job growth.

Or maybe not. Anyway, if anyone has probing, specific, substantive questions he or she thinks someone should ask one of these folks, here’s your chance to suggest them to someone who is going to do the asking. And who will appreciate the submission whether or not he uses it.

(star break)

MEDIA NOTE—Not censure, this time, but praise. In the continuing discussion about the role of hydro power in the state, Vermont Public Radio did what news organizations are supposed to do – spent some money, sent reporters to cover the news.

VPR reporter John Dillon went 600 miles north of the border who where Hydro-Quebec, from which Vermont utilities just agreed to buy a whole mess of power, has built a huge dam which will divert 70 percent of the waters of the Rupert River to help generate that power.

As Dillon pointed out, the Rupert is just one of three rivers which will be part of a system of four dams, 74 dikes and a new tunnel carved through a mountain, all powering four new generating stations still farther north.

At the same time, VPR’s noon Vermont Edition went to Montreal where host Jane Lindholm presided over a spirited and informed debate between Claude Demers, Hydro-Quebec’s science communicator, and  Daniel Breton, founder of  a Quebec environmental organization.

One angle VPR didn’t deal with, and neither has anybody else. Hydro-Quebec gets criticized from folks on the left side of the political spectrum for those immense dams which have flooded thousands of acres of land, with damaging consequences for both the natural world and the Cree Indians who live in northern Quebec.

Another big corporation abusing the land and indigenous folks in the thirst for profit for the stockholders, no?

No. Hydro-Quebec doesn’t have stockholders. It’s owned by the Province and the people thereof. It is, in short, a socialist institution.

(star break)

More (mostly) good news: Some additional ammunition for the argument made in the post titled Not So Bad (June 4) that life in Vermont is…not so bad.

Maybe even pretty good.

The latest issue of  Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine named Burlington one of the “ten best cities for the next decade.” Praised  for its “creativity and entrepreneurship” Burlington was tagged the eighth best city for both living and working over the next several years. Austin, Texas, was first.

In addition, recently released  (or, perhaps more accurately, hitherto ignored) Census figures confirm that Vermont is one of the most affluent states, with a relatively low poverty rate, and one of the lowest rates of child poverty in the country. The statistics are from 2008, the most recent available.

Only eight other states have child (under age 18) poverty rates in the same low category as Vermont: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, Utah, and Wyoming.

For the total poverty rate, Vermont was in the second best category, ranked with 13 other states with rates between 10.2 and 13.1 percent (Vermont’s was 10.4). Seven states, including New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Maryland, had lower rates.

As is true almost everywhere, Vermont’s under-18 poverty rate (12.8 percent) is slightly higher than its overall rate.  But not everywhere. Chittenden County’s total poverty rate was 9.6 percent, but the child poverty rate was 9.2 percent.

But that was unusual. In the other 13 counties, the under-18 rate was either slightly or not so slightly higher. Even Addison County, which had the lowest total poverty rate (9.5 percent had a slightly higher rate (10.6 percent, for those under 18.

Both the highest rates and the biggest differences between total and child poverty were in the Northeast Kingdom. Caledonia County had an 11.8 percent total poverty rate, with 17.1 percent of its under-18s in poverty. In Orleans County, the overall rate was 14.3 percent, with a 19.3 percent poverty ate for those under 18.

And in Essex County, the poorest in the state, 14.8 percent of all persons lived below the poverty line, but the under-18 rate was 23.8 percent.

That puts Essex at a level comparable with some of the rural counties of the Southeast and Southwest, the poorest areas of the country.

None of this is a big surprise. But it deserves more attention than it has been getting from either officials or observers. That latter, that’s us. More attention will be paid, starting with maybe a few questions to these candidates at Thursday’s debate.

Early in this year’s Legislative session, some lawmakers, businesspeople, and state officials became alarmed by the remarks an economist made during a Senate committee hearing.

The economist, Tom Kavet, noted that while the Department of Tourism and Marketing’s budget  had gone down over the past few years, — to $3.6 million from $5.1 million in 2002 — more tourists were visiting the state.

Kavet never suggested doing away with the Tourism and Marketing, though he did doubt that its activities had “significant near-term impact,” setting off worries that the Department’s funding was in danger.

“It got some people a little excited,” said Rep. Heidi Scheuermann, a Republican from tourist-dependent Stowe,

So Scheuermann, the Vermont Chamber of Commerce, the ski industry and the Department itself went to work to make sure that its budget wasn’t cut.

They succeeded. For now at least (pending possible further cuts because of the “Challenges for Change” process) Tourism and Marketing gets the same $3.6 million for Fiscal Year 2011 as for 2010.

So the “Crisis” – well, the argument – is over, at least for now. But the question has not been answered.

Make that two questions: Does the advertising done by Tourism and Marketing really bring more tourists to Vermont? And even if it does, should the taxpayers be paying for it? After all, ski resorts, golf courses, restaurants, marinas and the like are private, for-profit businesses. Most private, for-profit businesses pay for their own advertising and promotion. Why shouldn’t tourist businesses?

Without a doubt the answer to that first question is not a definite no. Advertising works; otherwise businesses would not spend billions of dollars a year to convince people to buy their product or their brand.

And that’s what Tourism and Marketing does, said Bruce Hyde, who heads the Department.

“We’re really the brand managers,” he said. “We saturate the media as best as we can with the Vermont message. Nobody else is doing that.”

And there is at least some evidence that it works. Erica Housekeeper, the Department spokesperson said (by email) that Tourism and Marketing’s web site “received an average of 66,600 unique visitors per month…and we see a bump in web traffic when we launch an advertising campaign.”

Probably more visitors to the web site means more visitors to the state. But “probably” does not qualify as data. It’s not as though the “Vermont brand” is unknown around the country. Perhaps many people, bombarded by promotion from every state and many countries, have to be reminded from time to time of Vermont’s existence as well as its charms.

But “perhaps” does not qualify as data, either.

In fact, one seeking data confirming that Tourism and Marketing promotions bring more visitors to the state will seek endlessly, and still probably not find.

Even confirming the effectiveness of the tourist promotion would not conclusively prove that the $3.6 million was well spent. It would depend on which criteria were used to make the judgment: That the extra visitors (the ones who wouldn’t have come anyway, without the Department’s promotions) had spent so much on hotels, restaurants, and gasoline that the tax revenue added up to $3.6 million? Or that their visits created enough additional jobs that the take from those taxes was $3.6 million?

Not that Vermont is going to abolish its Tourism and Marketing Department, which would be an act of unilateral disarmament. All the other states have similar agencies, and almost all of them spend far more than does Vermont.

“We arguably have the smallest state budget for tourism,” Hyde said, even though Vermont is “one of the states most dependant on tourism.”

Even with a lower budget and a staff that has dropped to nine from 20, the Department seems to be doing a good job. Maybe tourism has gone up even as the Department spends less money because it’s grown more efficient and innovative. Tourism and Marketing doesn’t just promote Vermont, Hyde said. Its web site provides a full-service, one-stop vacation planner for would-be visitors.

“It’s a free service for the entire industry,” he said.

Bringing up that second question. Why doesn’t the industry provide that service for itself? A lot of other businesses would like the state to do their promoting for them, too. Just to take one example out of thin air: suppose the state financed the promotion for start-up news web sites, especially those run by a proprietor who is uncommonly inept at the task?

Who knows? The web site might prosper so much that the proprietor could hire a local unemployed person as a part-time researcher. Presto! Job creation. Economic development.

OK, that’s neither a complaint nor a suggestion. Just an example to demonstrate that the state selectively showers its subsidies on favored industries.

Scheuermann calls that kind of thinking “short-sighted,” because “government entities support anything else with regard to people having jobs, to make sure that people are able to pay their bills and able to go to college.”

Except for the “anything else” part, she’s right. To maintain a healthy economy, government does support many private enterprises with direct or indirect subsidies. The difference with the tourism industry is that the subsidy is direct – a state agency picking up the tab for one of its major expenditures – rather than the more common tax breaks (though the state also forks over cash to some other businesses).

We’re not talking about a lot of money here; were the Department shut down entirely, the money saved would chop less than half-a-cent off the statewide school property tax rate.

But hidden in this discussion is an interesting – and indisputable – conclusion. There’s a lot of talk in this state (and country) about whether the government does too much and spends too much. This discussion about subsidizing Vermont’s tourist industry proves who really believes the government is doing and spending too much:

Nobody. Not if it’s doing and spending on them and theirs.