The outcome was never in doubt and the vote was unanimous. Still, after it was cast, the committee members gave themselves a quiet round of applause. They thought they’d done something important.

Maybe they had, even though it isn’t clear whether the bill they reported out last week will become law, and even if it does, its direct, material, impact will be quite limited.

It’s the indirect, not-so-material impact that might be historic.

The bill was S-222, “An act relating to recognition of Abenaki bands and groups as tribes.” Considering that a four-year-old statute (S.117, signed into law May 3, 2006) already recognized the Abenaki  and other Native Americans living in the state as a “minority population” it’s reasonable to ask why the new bill is necessary at all, much less why it arouses enthusiasm.

But in the view of the Abenaki and their supporters, notably Sens. Vincent Illuzzi, a Derby Republican, and Hinda Miller, a Burlington Democrat, there were two flaws in the earlier law. One is very practical: the language didn’t meet the federal requirements to qualify the works of Abenaki artists and craftspeople as “Native American.” The designation can bring higher prices.

Besides, being recognized as a minority group isn’t the same as being recognized as a tribe. This year’s bill grants formal recognition as tribes to the state’s four Abenaki bands – the St. Francis Sokoki Band in the Swanton area ;the Koasek Traditional Band around Newbury; the Nulhegan Band of the Northeast Kingdom; the ELNU Abenaki Tribe in southern Vermont.

If the law passes, each of these bands will be empowered to “refer to itself as a recognized tribe,” according to the bill.

Actual recognition as a tribe is one of the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs requirements for the “Native American” arts and crafts designations. But to the Abenaki, the new bill may be less  important for what it would officially do for them than for what it would effectively say to them: You are here. And you are here not just as individual members of “a minority population,” but as distinct communities.

The long-term social and political consequences of that statement are uncertain, and their benefits open to debate. There are, after all, several other “minority populations” in Vermont, none of which get a similar official designation.

On the other hand, the Abenaki were here first, perhaps since as early as 1100. Unlike the other minorities (or the majority, for that matter) some of whom came here because they were systematically mistreated elsewhere, the Abenaki were systematically mistreated right here in Vermont, so mistreated that at one point they were all but obliterated.

Or, in the view of some scholars, actually were obliterated,  at least ceasing to exist as tribe within Vermont’s borders. Such was the conclusion of a report issued by the Vermont Attorney General’s office in 2002, when one of the Abenaki bands petitioned for tribal recognition from the federal government.

In a summary of the report it filed with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Attorney General’s office noted that “around the time of the American Revolution, ((Abenaki) retreated to (their) home base in Quebec.  Then, over the next two hundred years, there were very few observations of Indians in Vermont, and these were mostly sightings of visiting Indians.” In the 19^th Century, the report said, the ancestors of the  petitioners “were  indistinguishable from the general population in Vermont,” and that while some “appear in the census records…they are not listed as Indian.”

Assistant Attorney General Michael McShane said these comments were made solely in the context of the specific guidelines for federal recognition, and did not mean that state officials were denying the existence of the Abenaki now or in the past.

“The question is what do you use for the definition of a tribe,” McShane said. “The Federal Government says it has to have been an autonomous and existing entity from colonial times to the present in an organizational sense. That they failed to prove. But nobody’s saying there aren’t people who live in Vermont who have claimed, probably legitimately, Native American ancestry.”

The distinction seems to make sense in law, especially to officials who worry that federal designation could lead to gambling casinos and land claims as has been true in other states. But some Abenaki were simply insulted.

“They said the Abenakis were genetic, political, and cultural fakes,” said Fred Wiseman, a Johnson State College professor and Abenaki activist. Though not the message state officials intended, it seems to have been the one many Abenaki heard, and their resentment was intensified by turmoil in the state’s Commission on Native American Affairs, which went through three directors in four years.

Whether there has been a continuing Abenaki community in Vermont could be one of those questions that can never be conclusively answered. That 2002 Attorney General’s report was based on standard historical research, which failed to find documentation that such a community existed. So perhaps it didn’t. Or maybe, even before the discredited “eugenics” movement of the 1920s victimized so many Indians, the Abenaki were hiding signs of their identity, to the point ofnot telling Census Bureau agents that they were Indians.

It’s happened before. In 15th Century Spain, Jews converted to avoid getting burned at the stake, lived outwardly Christian lives, but secretly observed  Jewish rituals at home.

Whatever happened in the past,  no one doubts that there are now several thousand Vermonters who have some Abenaki ancestry and who consider themselves Abenaki. That could explain why there was no opposition when the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing, and General Affairs approved the bill last week.

But there are still complications, based on the continuing worry that something in the bill might provide a pathway for federal recognition of a Vermont tribe. McShane said he asked the committee to remove two sentences that he feared might “open up the whole question of federal recognition.”

The committee did not comply.

“It’s his (McShane’s) job to worry,” said Hinda Miller, the bill’s chief sponsor. “We appreciate him being the watchdog. We did our own research. We don’t think this will be a real problem.”

Miller and Mark Mitchell of Barnet, an Abenaki and a former head of the Native American Commission, both said it would be all but impossible for any Abenaki band to meet the criteria for federal recognition., and that, at any rate the state could block Indian gambling casinos or land claims.

McShane was not so sure.

“You get into this whole very complicated issue,” he said. “States may be able to regulate some of it. This defies easy answers.”

Miller said the bill would probably be on the Senate calendar today (Friday). There is a companion measure in the House (H. 124, sponsored by Rep. Michel Consejo of Sheldon Springs.

Whatever happens, the Abenaki will once again be defined by others.  “Indians don’t have the right to self-identify,” Fred Wiseman noted. “We have to be recognized by white people.”

The State Senate’s Transportation Committee held a public hearing this week about “cell phone use while driving,” during which the committee members tried as hard as possible to avoid the subject.

Well, the first two speakers, Sharon Racusin of Norwich and Carol Rose, the executive director of the Vermont Safety Education Center, actually addressed the (supposed) topic of the day. Not only that, they (and, as it turned only they) buttressed their arguments in favor of banning cell-hone use by drivers with actual data.

The senators, by and large, were not interested in data. They seemed more receptive to the final speaker, a businessman who, out of kindness,  will not be identified here, who started off by saying, “I don’t believe the statistics.”

It would be unfair to conclude that the senators didn’t believe the statistics, only that they weren’t about to be dominated by them.

The statistics leave little doubt that a driver using a cell phone is far more likely to cause an accident, possibly injuring or killing himself and others, than a driver not using a cell phone. Allowing those statistics to dominate, then, might persuade a senator to support at least a partial ban on cell phone use, as is the law in 29 other states.

But the senators don’t want to pass such a law. Otherwise they would not have spent so much of their time asking questions about the dangers of text-messaging while behind the wheel. That’s what they want to ban by law.

In fact, the Senate has already done its part, passing S 280 last week by a 25-0 margin. Now, say the senators, it’s up to the House.

Not so fast, says the House, where most members want to go farther, also banning hand-held cell phone use and changing the seat belt law to “primary enforcement,” so that police officers could enforce it even if they had not stopped a driver for another offense.

“Highway safety really needs a comprehensive approach,” said Rep. Maxine Grad, a Fairfax Democrat who is the sponsor of the more far-reaching House bill. “We’re talking about public health and safety.”

So while the hearing itself produced almost no useful information, its very lack of substance illustrated what it was trying to hide:

–A House-Senate game of chicken;

–The bi-partisan, bi-ideological inclination of Vermonters (and not just elected officials) to prefer personal observation, anecdotes, and even gossip, where it is convenient,  to empirically testable data, as if, “I don’t believe the statistics” were the state’s motto;

–The apparently widespread if unspoken Vermont assumption that the right to be left alone in your car is comparable to the right to be left alone at home.

“It goes back to the fight (in the 1980s) over the child restraint law,” said Carol Rose of the Safety Education Center. “A kneejerk reaction of ‘don’t tell me what to do in my car.’ Or ‘I don’t want big brother telling me what to do with my kids.’”

Among those who seems to share that outlook is Gov. Jim Douglas, who in the past, according to Tom Williams of the American Automobile Association, has mentioned “personal freedom” concerns in relation to regulating what drivers may do in their cars. Just last week, Douglas worried that banning cell phones could put the state on a “slippery slope,” presumably toward outlawing coffee drinking, eating, and other common driver activities.

From a strictly legal perspective, the personal freedom concern does not exist. There is no right to drive a car on public roads. Were there a right to drive, no one would need a license. The state does not issue permits granting freedom of speech or protection against unreasonable search and seizure. Those are rights.

Permission to drive is a privilege granted by the state, which created the highway system, maintains it, repairs it, and patrols it. So the state has the authority – and arguably the responsibility — to impose any reasonable rules and regulations for using that system.

But legal/constitutional reality does not always trump culture, and apparently some Vermonters connect their automobile with their personal freedom.

Not a completely irrational connection. Especially in rural areas – which is where the car/freedom link seems strongest (seat-belt use is far lower, for instance) – a car expands one’s mobility and options, which are not unrelated to freedom. Besides, people impose their personalities onto their cars (or select the car that fits their personality). So the ‘don’t tell me what to do in my car’ attitude is understandable,  if unsupportable in law or logic.

At any rate, it seems to be carrying the day in the Senate. So does not paying attention to data, asking for little of it, and instead bringing up personal impressions.

“I find that the most (diverting activities) when I’m driving are changing the CD and dealing with hot coffee or tea,” said Senate President (and Democratic gubernatorial hopeful) Peter Shumlin of Putney.

When the senators did resort to actual evidence, they did so selectively. Sen. Phil Scott, the Montpelier Republican (seeking his party’s nomination for lieutenant governor) pointed to a study by Virginia Tech indicating that eating, changing CDs, or putting on make-up are more distracting than using a hand-held cell phone.

It was, implicitly, Douglas’s slippery slope argument, and Scott was reciting the statistics accurately. What he ignored was evidence that it is the use of electronic devices, including cell phones, which have “increased exponentially in recent years” in the words of Despina Stavrinos, a researcher at the UAB University Transportation Center, describing research prepared for the U.S. Transportation Department.

Using a cell phone, according to government data, impairs a driver as much as being drunk under Vermont law.

To be sure, the folks on the other side of this debate aren’t always guided by data, either. Rep. Grad’s bill (H 493) would ban only hand-held phones. But the government data indicate that the hands-free cell phones are no safer than the hand-held. That’s why, according to Tom Williams the Northern New England Regional Manager for the American Automobile Association, his organization does not favor the cell phone ban.

But as Grad said, a ban on hands-free calling would be harder to enforce. A cop who sees a driver with a phone to her ear has evidence. If he just sees her moving her lips, she can always claim (having of course turned off the phone as soon as she saw the bubble-gum machine behind her) that she was singing along with the radio or her I-pod.

Even if there is no right to drive there might be legitimate civil liberties concerns about changing from secondary to primary seat belt enforcement. That gives the individual cop a lot of leeway to, for instance, stop a car to check for seat-belt use just because he didn’t like the political point of view expressed by the car’s bumper stickers.

Ironically, one possible alternative came from the businessman who didn’t believe in statistics. Instead of banning cell phone use, he suggested, why not increase the penalties for drivers who cause accidents because they were on the phone? That might serve as an effective deterrent.

As it happens, though, no such bill has been introduced.

Oh, and speaking of data, here’s some about Vermont from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. If the state went to primary coverage of its seat belt law, compliance would rise – and the number of accidents would decline — enough to save insurance companies $1,316, 000, and the state treasury $498,152.

That may not be a conclusive argument on behalf of primary enforcement. But it is powerful evidence that when drivers assert their individuality by not wearing seat belts, or by talking on the phone, they cost the rest of us money. Driving is a collective, not an individual, activity.

NOTE: You could have read the following, almost word-for-word verbatim but updated just slightly, as early as Tuesday afternoon at the web site of VT Digger, with which the News Guy will be cooperating from time to time in pursuit of our mutual goal of providing Vermonters with more quality, in-depth journalism.

Any day now, the 30-member state Senate, perhaps unanimously as the House did Friday, will vote to cut the salaries of state legislators by 5 percent, thereby saving the state treasury, and hence the taxpayers, something like $105,000.

The “something like” is necessary because most legislators don’t get annual salaries. They get paid only for the weeks they are in session, so the longer the session lasts, the more they earn.

In this case, that means the longer the session lasts the more the pay cut would “save” even as the lawmakers earned more in the aggregate.

The weekly rate is now $637; 5 percent of which is $31.83, so the pay cut will bring down the total salary to $605 a week, or about $10,890 per lawmaker over the course of an 18-week session.

Multiply that $31.83 by 178 legislators, and the savings works out to $5,666 a week. Now assume the usual 18-week session. And the total saved comes to $101,983.

But that’s not all, as a famous cat once said. The two legislative leaders, the speaker of the House and the president pro-tem of the Senate, rake in bigger bucks — $704.70-a-week each, plus an annual salary of $10,895 each. Their combined weekly salary comes to $1,409. Together, their weekly pay is $25,369 for an 18-week session. Add in their combined annual salaries of $21,790, and together their total pay comes to $47,159.

Five percent of that is $2,358. Add that to the $101,983, and you get $104, 341 (rounding off to the nearest penny), which is close enough to “something like $105,000” for government work.

Not a bad piece of change, a hundred and five large. Most Vermonters could live on it comfortably for a year or even two.

On the other hand, at about one-tenth of 1 percent of the Fiscal Year 2011 projected $151 million budget deficit, its actual fiscal impact could be described as something between tiny and inconsequential, which lends some support to Rep. David Zuckerman’s contention that the value of the pay cut was political and symbolic, not budgetary.

“We’re doing this to put out there that we’re taking the pain,” he said. “It works well from a political perspective.”

Zuckerman, a Burlington Progressive, was the only legislator to express outright opposition to the pay cut, though it wasn’t very strong; he voted for the 70-page Budget Adjustment bill (H.534) in which the salary reduction was one small sentence.

Another lawmaker, Democrat Kenneth W. Atkins of Winooski, said he would not oppose the pay cut because state workers had just accepted lower pay. But he agreed with Zuckerman that lawmakers “earn less than the average working wage in Vermont,” and are by no means overpaid. He referred to a 2004 study on legislative pay by the Snelling Center which concluded that lawmakers should get higher salaries.

Pointing out that legislators get no health insurance or retirement plan, Atkins also refuted what he called the common misconception that they get subsidies for using their home phones, or free auto registration and license plates.

“Not true,” he said. “No one is here for the money.”

Whenever a Legislative session drags on for a week or two, letters to the editor and news reporters suggest that lawmakers want the extra weeks for extra pay.

Besides, senators and representatives get more than their salaries. They also get expense allowances for travel, meals, and lodging. Aren’t these payments also part of their total compensation?

No. Economists consider salary, deferred benefits, stock options, and an employer’s share of fringe benefits (health care, retirement plans) to be compensation. Reimbursement for expenses, whether in an itemized system or as per diem allowances, are not part of compensation.

Legislators get per diem allowances, and they do not set their own rates. The federal government does. Nathan Lavery of the Legislature’s Joint Fiscal Office said the state uses the U.S. General Service Administration’s travel expense rates. Those rates are computed for each locality, Lavery said, so that, for instance, Vermont legislators don’t get Manhattan hotel rate reimbursements for staying in Montpelier hotels.

For this year, the meals and lodgings reimbursement rates were increased from $54 and $93 a day to $61 and $101, respectively. The mileage rate, on the other hand, reflecting lower gasoline prices, fell from 55 to 50 cents per mile. A lawmaker could easily rack up more than his or her salary, in lodgings ($9,000 or more), and food ($4,590). Legislators pass almost all that money to hotels and restaurants. A few lawmakers may end up with a small surplus from their expense allowances, and a few probably spend more than the per diem allotment.

Even for the most frugal, the reimbursement rates don’t appear to provide an opportunity for lawmakers to rake in big bucks. Legislators get a special $85-a-night rate at the Capitol Plaza Hotel near the Statehouse. Add in the 9 percent rooms and meals tax and their total is $92.65, giving them an $8.35-a-night “profit.”

That’s probably soaked up by the unpaid phone calls, car trips, restaurant meals and occasional hotel bills the lawmakers spend – and for which they are not compensated – while the Legislature is not in session. Not to mention the time that could be spent doing something more immediately useful to them, like making money. They get a $118 per diem for official legislative meetings (which is subject to the 5 percent cut), but only if they actually attend them (and the Legislative Council checks).

While no one can prove or disprove that members of the Legislature are “in it for the money,” it does seem that anyone who is in it for the money lacks either the incentive or the intelligence or both to deserve getting elected. Putting the same thought and effort into another enterprise would likely prove far more remunerative. No doubt over the years a few lawmakers have plotted their travels and meals to cadge a few extra dollars from the system. For the most part, they could have earned more putting that time and effort into honest work.

There are also, of course, what might be called the secondary economic benefits of serving in the Legislature, almost all of whose members earn most of their money in other pursuits. A lawyer, accountant, or other professional can make contacts and get publicity that can help bring in clients and customers. The business executive who lobbies a legislator today might offer him or her a high-salary position tomorrow.

To use the office for personal gain, then, the smart lawmaker will stick to doing the job right, and not spend time trying to eke a few extra bucks out of the rooms and meals allowance.

Does Vermont coddle the Middle Class?

Gov. Jim Douglas thinks so, and he may have a point.

No, the governor didn’t use those words. But take a look at his budget message of last Tuesday and some of his other recent proposals.

“Maintaining coverage for the greatest number of people will mean scaling back benefits for some,” he said in his speech to the Legislature.

At that point, he was talking about health benefits. But the same theme echoed throughout the speech: In order to protect the services and subsidies that go to the poor, Vermont would have to cut back on those services and subsidies for the not-so-poor.

And while some of those not-so-poor are very low income, many are not. In both tax and social policy, Vermont provides benefits to thousands of people whose earnings are close to – or higher than –the middle of the income spectrum.

For instance, a family of four can get health care assistance in Vermont if its total income is under $68,400. That’s way above the poverty line for a family of four ($21,834 in 2008). It’s even higher than the median household income in the state (about $66,000) before the Recession started.

Then again, it’s less than the median income in Vermont for a family of four. That’s was $71,382 a couple of years ago, one of the highest in the country. Still, by any reasonable definition, a family of four living on $68,000 a year is neither poor nor low income. It’s right there in the middle.

Meaning, at least according to conventional assumptions, it ought to be able to support itself. After all, this is America, the richest country in the world and the one that created mass affluence. Shouldn’t moderately affluent people pay their own bills?

Nor is health care the only example. A large family – two parents and six children – can get state help winterizing its home if its income is higher than $74,000. In all, Douglass said, “nearly one-third of our population receives services from the State… Since the beginning of the decade, overall spending for human services has more than doubled – a growth rate of three-and-a-half times inflation.”

Conventional assumptions, to be sure, ought to be challenged from time to time. As it happens, most Americans no longer live better than their counterparts in many other countries, partly because those counterparts don’t have to pay separately for health care at all. And in this country, health care has gotten so expensive that it could pose a heavy burden even on the moderately affluent.

Still, the case made by Douglas and other economic conservatives is not frivolous. If nothing else, they are asking a legitimate question: In a culture that values (or at least claims to) self-reliance, where should the line be drawn between personal and social responsibility?

Despite the claims of some of his liberal critics, Douglas remains a moderate, not one of those ultra-conservative Republicans who believe – as Newt Gingrich proclaimed in 1995 as he prepared to become Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives – that government ought to do little more than defend the country and print money. Douglas proposed expanding several state programs in his speech, and did not call for abolishing any.

But he does want to save money, mostly by cutting services to middle-income and even some affluent people and by raising their taxes.

Again, he didn’t put it precisely that way. No sane politician is going to say, “I want to raise the taxes of middle-income and upper-middle-income homeowners.”

But that would be the result of Douglas’s plan to alter the “income sensitivity” provisions of the statewide school property tax. Instead of all households with income under $90,000 protected from paying more than 1.8 percent of their incomes on that tax, those earning between $60,000 and $75,000 could pay as much as 2.25 percent; for households between $75,00 and $90,000, the limit would rise to 3.5 percent.

Of course that might not be a tax increase if local school districts froze their budgets, as Douglas proposed. But they don’t seem likely to follow his advice. Either way, families who earn $90,000 a year, even big families, are in the top 20 percent of all earners. By any definition they are affluent. Why do their property taxes need to be subsidized?

Democrats claim that income sensitivity is not a subsidy, but a method of linking taxes to each taxpayer’s “ability to pay.” It may be that, but it is also a subsidy; whatever the homeowner saves on property taxes because of income sensitivity is made up for by funds from other taxes, mostly the income tax.

And that tax, in turn, is disproportionately paid by upper-income earners. When economic conservatives, including Douglas, complain that Vermont is a high-tax state, what they really object to is that it’s a high-tax state for high earners. Lower and middle-income Vermonters – even those up near the $90,000 range – pay little if any more in state and local taxes than do their counterparts in many other states, especially in the Northeast. But because the state tax structure is relatively progressive, the wealthy pay a bit more. Among other things, they are subsidizing, through income sensitivity, the affluent as well as the poor.

Unless income sensitivity is altered, then, there might be renewed pressure to raise taxes on the very wealthy to help make up for what the merely affluent don’t pay in property taxes. Douglas adamantly opposes any such tax increase. In fact, he wants last year’s small hike in taxes on the wealthy rolled back.

This debate, then, is, among others things, a class conflict. Not the traditional version in which the workers with their pitchforks storm the banks. Not even the more recent brand in which the bankers with their lobbyists and their pseudo-think tanks storm the government and the media.

This class conflict is more nuanced, more interesting, and perhaps necessary. It’s all about precisely who qualifies as “middle class,” who in that middle class deserves tax breaks and government services, and who will pay for them. A healthy debate as long as it does not degenerate into a situation in which everybody is trying to protect his/her own government benefits and tax breaks at the expense of everyone else.

It would be irresponsible to leave this discussion without noting that some of Douglas’s proposed budget cuts would hurt the very poor. For instance, he noted that Vermont’s Medicaid system allows an “unlimited number of emergency room visits” by recipients. “Capping ER visits that do not result in hospitalization at 12 per year will bring Vermont more in line with peer states – saving money to preserve this benefit for everyone in the system,” he said.

No doubt it would. Not only that, but it’s a good bet that some of those emergency room visits, being unlimited and free, aren’t really necessary. But those unlimited visits also probably help explain why Vermont is regularly designated the healthiest state in the union. The most obvious consequence of reducing health care services for the poor is that the poor will become less healthy.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 1973

Patricia Blair is pro-choice.

She didn’t put it exactly that way. Until recently, when she thought about abortion at all, it was not as a political issue, but as it related to her, and she couldn’t imagine ever wanting one.

“I wanted babies,” she said.

Now, though, she’s aware that “some women might need an abortion,” and thinks they should have the right to make the decision, “as a matter of womens rights,” which sums up the pro-choice position rather succinctly.

It’s somewhat ironic, then, that the 38-year-old Pownal mother of three, may have propelled Vermont into a debate about abortion, even as she and the two legislators who responded to her plea insist that what they’re doing has nothing to do with abortion.

More ironic because the lawmakers – Bennington Democratic Sen. Richard Sears, and Newport Republican Sen. Vincent Illuzzi – also favor abortion rights, a stance that has not stopped them from sponsoring bills that trouble the state’s pro-choice campaigners while offering the minority but dedicated anti-abortion faction in the state a rare opportunity to score points.

Segueing, as they say in the TV world, to yet another irony: the political consequences of this impending dispute might be just what the anti-abortion forces do not want.

Assuming, that is, that there are any political or legislative consequences at all. There’s a good chance that neither bill will get out of committee, that the issue will be overwhelmed by the state’s budget battles and other more urgent matters such as the relicensing of Vermont Yankee.

For one thing, the proposed legislation is not likely to have much if any impact on the real world. Both bills are statements of philosophy as much as likely remedies to actual problems. That makes them no less interesting, and perhaps more contentious. Abstract arguments can be fierce, even when, as in this case, all sides agree that last August 10, something terrible happened to Pat Blair.

That was the day of her auto accident on Route 7, an accident caused, according to authorities, by the driver of another car, a young woman from Pownal who was allegedly driving while impaired by taking prescription drugs. Blair was injured. Her husband was more seriously hurt, remains confined, and is unable to work.

But that was not the worst consequence. Blair was pregnant with twins. They were killed in the accident. To Blair, she did not lose two fetuses, but two babies. She wants them remembered that way, and she wants other pregnant women protected from similar losses in the future.

Context matters here. Not long ago, the Blairs lost a daughter who was born with umbilical cord prolapse, a rare but often fatal childbirth emergency.

“But that was from natural causes,” she said. “This time, someone else’s choice caused their death. I don’t see why Vermont can’t hold her accountable.”

It’s close to impossible not to understand Blair’s anguish, and to want to help her overcome it. On the other hand, a state does not typically pass legislation to assuage the feelings of one of its citizens, which is pretty much all these two bills would accomplish.

The Sears bill (S-273) ”proposes to enhance the penalty for assault of a pregnant woman” if she is attacked or the victim of grossly “negligent operation of a motor vehicle, or operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol or drugs.”

As deterrence goes, this isn’t much. How many impaired people are going to decide that they’d better not get behind the wheel of a car because they might cause an accident involving a pregnant woman? Besides, it doesn’t satisfy Blair; it doesn’t mention the fetus, only the pregnant woman.

Blair prefers Illuzzi’s bill (S-175) which specifically “proposes to establish that a fetus be treated as a victim under state homicide law.” This could have some practical effect. If, for instance, a pregnant woman survived a physical attack but her fetus did not, the assailant in this case could be imprisoned for life, as if he had killed a born person.

To say the least, this is a rare circumstance. Usually, such a vicious attack on a pregnant woman ends up with her death, also, and her killer is sentenced to life in prison, or even execution. That’s what happened, for instance, to Scott Peterson, the Californian convicted of the 2002 murder of his wife and unborn child. He’s appealing his death sentence, which almost surely would have been imposed had his wife not been pregnant.

California is one of 37 states whose laws do recognize a fetus as a separate entity, effectively as a person. Like Vermont, California is a state with a strong pro-choice majority, lending some support to Blair’s claim that “fetal homicide laws can coexist with abortion rights.”

But Jill Krowinski, the communications director of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, said there were potential dangers to women in legally recognizing the personhood of the fetus.

“It’s the wrong approach,” she said. “It would separate the pregnant woman from her fetus in eyes of law. That could be the first step in threatening a woman’s right to control her own pregnancy.”

The first part of that statement is exactly what Blair wants to accomplish. Both are what the anti-abortion movement wants to accomplish, which helps explain why the Vermont Right to Life organization is supporting her, even tough she does not advocate their cause and says she “hasn’t had a whole lot of connection with them.”

Here’s where the political irony comes in. If the Legislature debates either of these bills, it will raise the saliency of the abortion issue, a development which might hurt Brian Dubie, the likely Republican candidate for governor, and an opponent of legal abortions.

Were politics entirely rational, this would make no difference. A woman’s right to choose an abortion is protected by the U.S. Constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court in the famous Roe v Wade decision of 1973. That decision is safe with the current Supreme Court, or any Court changes while Barack Obama is president, which will be at least to the end of the first term of whoever is elected governor this year.

But politics is not entirely rational, and just to complicate matters further, Alan Gilbert of the Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Committee points out that Vermont’s old abortion ban remains on the books. It’s 13 V.S.A. § 101, and should Roe ever be reversed, it would have to be repealed or abortions would be illegal here.

A repeal that would be more difficult with an abortion foe in the Second Floor Corner Office in Montpelier.

An unlikely scenario, perhaps, but that doesn’t rob it of all political oomph.

Gilbert brought up another point. In 1991, he wrote in a letter to Sears, the Legislature amended the law (23 VSA 1091) to deal more harshly with grossly negligent drivers who cause death or injury to a fetus. The law he said, had the effect of “broadening the (negligent motor vehicle operation) offense to cover pregnancies terminated by injury, because the mother is almost always the victim of serious bodily injury in such a crash.”

Gilbert said he through the driver who allegedly caused Blair’s accident could receive up to 45 years in prison, a sentence he called “quite punitive.”

So Vermont law already (if perhaps implicitly) recognizes the fetus. Not as a person, exactly, but as something to be protected.

This afternoon, a joint Executive-Legislative “Emergency Board” will be asked to consider whether to authorize spending another $15 million from the state’s General Fund.

That’s the largest of the several state funds that together face a $150 million deficit for the coming fiscal year (FY 2011, starting July 1), or $112 million if the state can really save $38 million via the government streamlining plan introduced with great fanfare last week.

Yes, that’s the same deficit that Gov. Jim Douglas says must be eliminated by spending less. The Democratic leaders of the legislature agree with the Republican governor here, but he’s the more resolute budget-cutter. When the Democrats said last week they hoped to “do more with less,” Douglas at one point interjected that he wanted the state government to do “less with less.”

So who wants to spend an additional 15 million smackeroos?

Yup, Mr. Budget-Cutter the Governor himself.

Meaning that the deficit would rise to $165 million (or $127 million if the state can….see above)?

Not a bit, says the Douglas Administration.

“It should reduce the deficit if the jobs are created, and that means an increase in income and payroll taxes, sales and use taxes, transportation taxes and fees, (all of which) results in more net revenue,” said David Mace, the Director of Communications of the Vermont Agency of Commerce & Community Development.

A plausible if debatable assertion, which will be considered in some detail below. Meanwhile, what is definite and not debatable is that if the Emergency Board (the Governor himself plus four legislators) does what Douglas asks, the State Treasury will pay up to $15 million to a bunch of companies which promise to expand their work force, or to move into the state from elsewhere, thereby employing more Vermonters, thereby culminating in the happy state of affairs described in the previous paragraph.

There’s nothing new about this. In one way or another, the state’s been doing it for years. It is now doing it through something known as VEGI, which even though it is pronounced (and sometimes spelled) “Veggie,” is not a pseudo-burger, but the acronym for the Vermont Economic Growth Incentive Program, which is in turn part of VEPC, the Vermont Economic Progress Council, which in turn is part of the Agency of Commerce and Community Development.

The Emergency Board meeting has been called because VEGI approved applications totaling $4.5 million late last year, but the “economic activity,” as Mace put it, by the subsidized companies didn’t begin until this year. So that $4.5 million counts against VEGI’s 2010 annual cap of $10 million.

But now VEGI has applications from four companies totaling $16 million. If they are all approved, the total will exceed the cap. So Douglas wants the Emergency Board to lift the cap from $10 million to $25 million. (And, later, he wants the Legislature to abolish the cap entirely)

And who are these four companies?

That’s a secret. The information is not being divulged, said Mace, citing an exemption to the State’s Open Records Law (From the statute establishing VEGI itself, he said. Title 2, Subtitle 2, Part 3, Chapter 151, Subchapter 11E, § 5930a (h)).

Even the legislators on the Emergency Board don’t know. One of them, Rep. Martha Heath, the Westford Democrat who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, said she understood that two of them were Vermont companies, two firms thinking of moving some or all of their operations into the state.

Heath said she thought the Board would put off its decision, recessing until a later date (but before January 28, when the VEGI board has to decide on the applications), “so we have time to get some information,” including “what (raising the cap) would do to revenues. We need to take a good look at it, and not take a chance about increasing the deficit.”

At this point, she said, she and the other lawmakers on the Emergency Board (the chairs of the four money committees, all Democrats) are not challenging the whole concept of pursuing “economic development” by offering subsidies to companies that agree to move in or expand. But she acknowledged that some in the Legislature have those questions.

As do many outside the Legislature, and outside Vermont. Paul O’Neill, President George W. Bush’s first Treasury Secretary, said that when he was head of ALCOA he never made a plant siting decision based on a state or local tax subsidy. He took the money, he said, because if someone is going to give you money, you take it. But he decided where to do business based on the quality of the work force, proximity to material and markets, and other traditional business considerations.

Not that VEGI and similar programs simply throw money willy-nilly at businesses which say they’re thinking of moving into the state or hiring more workers. On the contrary, VEGI has an elaborate set procedure that requires applicants to submit a great deal of statistical evidence to support their contention that they will add jobs. If they don’t, they don’t keep getting the money (these are usually multi-year obligations) or may even have to give some back.

According to a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, “to approve a firm’s application, the state must determine that the firm’s project (a) would not have occurred without the incentive (the “but-for”test) [that means ‘but for’ the subsidy, the business would not expand or move]; (b) will provide a net fiscal benefit to the state…and (c) will meet “quality-control” guidelines, such as minimum compensation requirements for new jobs.”

The experts make that determination, Mace said, based on “an economic model.”

Very professional. But this model, Mace said, is the “proprietary,” property of a consulting firm called the Remi Company, apparently meaning that it isn’t reviewable by citizens, lawmakers, or state economists.

Besides, economic models are…well, models, useful, but not always precise. In this case, some of their findings have to be based on information that is not just subjective, but hypothetical. That whole “but-for” business, for instance, rests in part on the assertion of a business official that his or her company will act differently with the subsidy than without it.

Even pro-business state Auditor Tom Salmon, in a report about VEGI, noted that that “a critical decision to award incentives is difficult to audit,” and that “the awards are not based on a company’s financial need and…companies are not required to furnish financial statements, business plans or tax returns with applications.”

That report by the Boston Fed found that in VEGI’s first year, “the state authorized $9.7 million…and projected that the recipient companies would create 1,310 new jobs from 2007 to 2012. This implies an average gross cost of around $7,400 per job.”

If those jobs paid about $50,000, the worker wouldn’t pay more than about $1,500 in state income taxes (assuming he/she was married with children, a homeowner itemizing deductions). That worker would have to buy a lot, stay in a lot of hotels, eat lots of restaurant meals and drive many miles to pay another $6,000 or so in state taxes.

Martha Heath said state officials were not claiming the subsidies would pay for themselves in one year, but in nine.

Maybe they will. But how would anyone ever know?

In his last State of the State address, Gov,. Jim Douglas demonstrated once again that he is tenacious, determined, single-minded, and bold.

And maybe a little clueless?

It was a fairly long (5,917-word, 50-minute) speech to the Legislature, clear if not eloquent in composition, crisply delivered, politely received.

And familiar.

In fact, if some in the audience thought they had heard similar sentiments similarly expressed not all that long ago, they were right. Similar statements had been similarly expressed a year and a day ago in the same place by the same speaker, in his fourth inaugural address.

Leading some to wonder why, early in the speech, Douglas warned his listeners not to “choose to recycle old ideas and hope for a different outcome.”

In this case, the governor recycled some of his old ideas, including several that he’d proposed last year. He didn’t get them then. If he’s hoping for a different outcome this time, he would seem to be ignoring his own advice.

After all, little has changed. It’s the same Legislature that ignored most of his proposals last year and over-rode his veto twice. If anything, the lawmakers are more confident than they were a year ago, especially because one thing that has changed is that Douglas decided not to run for re-election.

In other words, he’s a lame duck. He keeps insisting that he isn’t, though he is, or at least that it has not weakened him politically, which would be a first in the history of the country, if not the world.

So why did he make the same controversial (and probably doomed) proposals again?

Because he really believes in them. Because he’s tenacious and bold. Because he thinks this time he might prevail.

Or because he’s clueless.

As he did last year, Douglas urged the Legislature to set a cap on local school spending. It didn’t. As he did last year (though in slightly less blunt language) he called the school finance system “broken,” implying that the lawmakers should replace it. As was true last year, he didn’t specify what the replacement would look like, leaving that to the lawmakers. Perhaps because most legislators don’t agree that the system (Acts 60 and 68) is “broken,” they came up with no replacement last year. They won’t this year, either.

But Douglas did not stop at recycling his old ideas that were not adopted. No, bulling right ahead with little hope of success, he came up with some new ideas that are almost certainly not to be adopted, as follows:

–Repeal – or at least pledge to repeal in the near future — the capital gains and estate tax increases adopted last year;

–Require teachers to pay 20 percent of their health insurance premiums;

–Trim the “income sensitivity” provision of the statewide education property tax so that middle-income homeowners pay more and the wealthy pay less. (of course, he didn’t word it quite that bluntly, but that’s the gist of his proposal);

–And while this was more a suggestion than a specific proposition, Douglas made clear he thought it would be a good idea if all the teachers emulated state workers and took an immediate three percent pay cut.

(Not an outlandish idea, but unrealistic. The state employees agreed to the cut in their new, statewide, contract. Teachers contracts are district-by-district, and they do not all expire at once).

It was hardly necessary to wait until the speech was over to figure out that Douglas was not convincing the legislators. Six times the audience in the House Chamber interrupted the speech with applause. But except for the early support for his tribute to Vermonters fighting (or soon to be) overseas, almost all the clapping came from the balcony, full of old friends and administration officials.

Down on the floor, where the lawmakers sat, few applauded except for the stalwart but decidedly outnumbered Republican contingent—50 of 150 House members, seven of 30 senators, and not all of them firm Douglas allies.

Perhaps because they know they have the votes and Douglas doesn’t, the Democratic Legislative leaders were relatively restrained in their post-speech comments. Snate President (and Democratic governor hopeful) Peter Shumlin and House Speaker Shap Smith both said they were willing to discuss the governor’s ideas. Sen. Susan Bartlett of Morrisville, another candidate for governor, called the speech a “pragmatic first step” in this year’s legislative process. Sen. Doug Racine of Richmond, yet another gubernatorial hopeful, said he agreed with Douglas that the state is in a “tough” fiscal bind.

Then, bit by bit, they began to say what they really thought. Douglas’s proposed tax cuts would “reduce Vermont revenue by roughly $28 million,” Shumlin said. Bartlett said that Douglas “wants to have his cake and eat it, too,” because he didn’t call for repealing the income tax cuts adopted last year, only the capital gains and estate tax increases.

Racine said the speech sounded like “a list of the things he promised to do seven years ago and failed to do,” such as extending broadband Internet service statewide and cleaning up Lake Champlain. And Sen. Mark MacDonald, a Williamstown Democrat, said Douglas’s proposed changes in the income sensitivity mechanism would “raise the property taxes of working Vermonters and cut them for out-of-staters,” some of whom own large tracts of land. Income sensitivity used to hold down the tax bills of 80 percent of Vermonters, MacDonald said. It is now down to 70 percent, and Douglas wants to reduce it further.

Despite these dismissals, a few of Douglas’s proposals might actually get adopted, though probably with some alterations. Regardless of party, almost everybody in state government agrees that public education in Vermont is expensive, in large part because there are, as Shap Smith put it, “legitimate questions about the pupil-teacher ratios.”

They are very low, 11-to-1 statewide, Douglas said, and he proposed “a mechanism to fill only one vacancy for every two retirements.”

A politically sophisticated plan, because it doesn’t require firing anyone, and because raising the ratio to 13 to 1, as he suggested, hardly degrades the quality of education. Perhaps not a realistic plan, though. It’s based on statewide numbers, but teachers neither teach their classes nor retire statewide. They do it school by school, where the numbers may not always add up (or subtract down) precisely the right way to allow reducing faculty without letting some classes get too big.

Still, here’s one area – quite possibly one of the few– where the legislators might build on (or off) one of Douglas’s proposals.

Gov. Douglas. Speaker Smith half hidden behind his right shoulder

And the lawmakers returnedeth to Montpelier, where layeth down the lion with the lamb. Nor did the Democrats unsheathe their rhetoric against the Republican governor, who in turn utterethed not the words, “irresponsible spending.” But stoodeth they side by side, as brethren that dwelt together in unity.

All right, all right! Enough of that! Let’s heed the advice of veteran Democratic Rep. Michael Obuchowski: “Don’t be too cynical.” What began in Montpelier yesterday was both sincere and bipartisan. Democrats and Republicans from both houses, legislative leaders and Gov. Jim Douglas’s top aides (not to mention Douglas himself), who….

Oh, you mean the same guys who just several months ago stopped barely short of questioning each other’s parental legitimacy? The same guys who still hold diametrically opposing views on how the state should be governed? We’re supposed to believe this era of good feeling will last?

…are really trying something new, an innovative approach . This time, state officials are not acting on their own. The Legislature is spending $200,000 for the services of Public Strategies Group, a Minnesota-based consulting firm which is….

Waitaminit, Waitaminit! We’re supposed to take seriously a firm that could write the sentence, “To achieve this client centric approach, the State will seek to redesign the delivery system through the more effective and efficient alignment of financial and staff resources across public sector programming, such as economic benefits, social services, health and human service programs”? It’ll cost us more to translate that into English than we’ll save by following their recommendations.

…providing advice on how to “do more with less,” as several legislators said, for instance…

More with less? Don’t be ridiculous. When the inputs are smaller, so are the outputs. Any time a politician brags about a “win-win” solution, somebody loses.

…having a “unified and systematized…human service intake” system, so that Vermonters who needed social services could enter the system through “one doorway,” rather than having to visit several different agency offices. Similarly, according to the Public Strategies Group report, “streamlining” the process of granting permits to developers could “increase compliance with state regulations while spending 3% less in (Fiscal Years 2011 and 2012).”

Not those old saws again. This “one-stop shopping” plan for both social services and development permitting has been around forever. Furthermore, almost nobody is against it. Douglas and the Legislature could have put all that into effect years ago without the advice of some clowns from Minneapolis.

The consultants came up with some other ideas. For instance, they suggested the state could save money if it would “empower families to support aging Vermonters and individuals with disabilities. Vermont is spending almost $69 million from its General Fund for these services, and “aging demographics and reduced public resources may be requiring Vermont to reconsider its expectations about whom it can afford to serve.”

In English, that means don’t do as much for some doddering old geezers and disabled folks of all ages. That’s doing less with less. They admit it.

If there is a central guiding principle behind the Public Strategies Group’s recommendations it is that the state should not pay for services as much as it should pay for the results of those services. In effect, the PSG’s report says, Vermont and other states use something comparable to the health care system’s widely criticized “fee for service” method, “paying providers ‘hit by hit’ rather than…paying for outcomes.”

Instead of paying for the work being done, the consultants said, the state should pay for the results obtained/

As an example, PSG’s Babak Armajani told members of the Joint Legislative Government Accountability Committee, instead of paying for “a night of bed-space” for a caretaker to tend a sick child all night, the state could “actually purchase the (desired) outcome,” of a healthy child.

Excuse me! In this case the desired outcome is what the state is paying for. The service itself – a sick child not alone in the night but watched over by a health care professional – is the desired outcome. That’s often true with sick children or physically and/or mentally disabled people of any age. They have to be taken care of. The taking care of them is the outcome. It’s expensive.

(Armajani later acknowledged that he might have chosen the wrong example. Instead, he said, think of a social service agency hired by the state to deal with troubled children. Instead of paying it according to how many nights a child stays in its facility, pay it for quickly placing an abandoned child in a good home).

The Joint Committee adopted the 42-page report from the consultants and the committee’s own five-person “steering team” of three legislators and two Douglas Administration officials. The report envisions possibly saving $38 million in Fiscal Year 2011, which begins July 1, without major cuts in state services.

Yeah. That’s a lousy 38 million bucks of a projected $150 million budget shortfall. Let’s see. If this pocket calculator is correct, that still leaves $112 million of money to be raised or programs to be reduced or eliminated.

Meaning that the big-wigs are still facing the choice of raising somebody’s taxes or cutting services to people who really need them. Not that it would actually come down to ‘crippled children left out in the cold.’ But it might be close.

And how about considering the possibility that this report and this display of harmony is a way of: (a)diverting attention from the real choices (and possibly the real disputes) confronting them; and (b) laying the groundwork for making the case that they tried as hard as they could to avoid having to consider raising taxes or slashing services. The possibility, in other words, that all this was less bipartisan harmony than bipartisan political theater.

Afterwards, Douglas and House Speaker Shap Smith and Senate President (and candidate for governor) Peter Shumlin, the Democratic leaders who orchestrated last year’s first-ever legislative over-ride of a governor’s budget bill veto, stood together and pledged to work together to solve the state’s budget problem without last year’s rancor.

When Shumlin said, “Do not doubt our resolve. We will get this done,” he said it forcefully enough to raise doubts in even the harshest cynic.

Okay, Okay. Maybe they mean it. And this consultant stuff doesn’t hurt. It’s like having a good editor go over your copy. There’s nothing wrong with hiring someone to take a fresh look at the old ways you’ve been going about your business. If not taken to extremes, efficiency can be useful.

It’s just that whenever you hear politicians talk this way, you should remember the immortal words of Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne.

Who?

The guys who wrote the music and lyrics to, “It seems I’ve heard that song before”

Another year looms, and with it another session of the State Legislature. Because it’s another year of recession, it’s another year of not enough revenue to pay for all the scheduled spending, so it will be another year of debate over how much to cut, and where, and maybe the state should look for a little more revenue.

That’s “higher taxes” in English.

A year, in other words, rather like last year.

But remember what the guy said about how you can’t step into the same river twice (same river bed, maybe, but different water; the guy was Heraclitus [535-475 BCE]), and in all likelihood this year’s budget will not quite be déjà vu all over again. Expect a new factor.

It’s a likely flap over the Rainy Day Fund, the state’s savings account. Though there were rumblings from some liberals last year about possibly dipping into the savings, the proposals never rose above a whisper.

This year, the talk is likely to be louder. To begin with, the legislative leaders have – for now – ruled out new or higher taxes, eliminating – for now – the most obvious alternative to deep spending cuts.

That makes the Rainy Day Fund a more attractive alternative for those on the political left, who can be expected to push it harder.

Most likely to no avail, and not just because the spending cut advocates of Gov. Jim Douglas’s Administration are dead-set against using the Rainy Day money. So are the relevant committee chairs of the Legislature, even though they are Democrats and (by and large) liberals.

“I don’t think that’s prudent,” said Rep. Martha Heath of Westford, the chair of the House Appropriations Committee.

Neither does Rep. Michael Obuchowski of Bellows Falls, chairman of both the House ways and Means Committee and the Joint Fiscal Committee. Obuchowski said “Rainy Day” money was designed to be used for “unforeseen circumstances” that occur during a fiscal year after the budget has been adopted, not to make up for revenue shortfalls in preparing the annual budget

(Heath’s Senate counterpart, Sen. Ann Cummings, Democrat of Montpelier, took the same position, according to a story in the Barre-Montpellier Times-Argus last September)

“Rainy Day Fund” is something of a misnomer, actually, because there are three of them – one for the General Fund, another for the Education Fund, and still another for the Transportation Fund. They are, in a sense, the state’s forced savings accounts. By law, according to Maria Belliveau of the Legislature’s Joint Fiscal Office, five percent of the previous fiscal year’s appropriation for the General and Transportation Funds, and a slightly more complex formula for the Education Fund, is put aside in the Rainy Day Funds.

Sort of like a non-voluntary Christmas Club.

Together, the funds hold more than $100 million, a little more than the projected shortfall for Fiscal Year 2011, which starts July 1.

So, say some interested parties, why not use the money, or at least some of it? Isn’t that better than laying off another few score state workers, or cutting health care services for poor children, or not repairing potholes in the roads? Not to mention better than raising taxes. Other states have dipped into their versions of a Rainy Day Fund. Why shouldn’t Vermont?

That’s the message likely to be heard starting next month from some advocates of generous social service programs. For instance, the organization known as One Vermont, a coalition of health, education, and neighborhood groups and supporters, calls (on its web site) for a “balanced approach to addressing Vermont’s budget shortfall,” which would include “the use of new revenues, rainy day funds, federal funds, and possible debt.”

Using similar language, the liberal think tank Public Assets Institute calls for “the balanced approach—which includes restoring lost revenue and using rainy day funds in addition to cuts,” because it “recognizes that all Vermonters both use public services and pay taxes.”

One, though so far only one, of the five Democratic candidates for governor, State Sen. Doug Racine of Richmond, has also endorse the “balanced approach” concept, using both temporary tax increases and the Rainy Day money to avoid deep spending cuts.

That’s the argument, and on its face, it appears to have some merit. If this money is for a “Rainy Day,” today would seem to qualify. Fiscally speaking, the state, like the rest of the country, is suffering the heaviest downpour since the Great Deluge of the 1930s.

Furthermore, other states have dipped deeply into their comparable savings accounts (only Arkansas, Kansas, and Montana don’t have some version of a Rainy Day Fund). According to a report last summer by Stateline.org, at least “11 states committed upwards of $1.5 billion from their rainy day funds for the 2010 budget cycle,” and more were seriously considering it.

Many of those states are more conservative than Vermont, and some of them, such as Minnesota and North Carolina, virtually depleted their reserve funds to avoid deeper spending cuts or tax increases.

But Vermont seems unlikely to follow suit because of an apparent political irony: Vermont Democrats may be relatively liberal, but they are also Vermonters, as reluctant as their Republican predecessors to dip into capital or deplete their saving accounts.

Continuing with the irony, these liberals are like the conservatives of the past, but not like those of the present, at least on the national level, where most conservatives have embraced former Vice President Dick Cheney’s contention that “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.”

During the decade now in its final two days, conservatives in Washington voted in deep tax cuts without corresponding spending cuts, and created, with the Medicare prescription drug bill, a totally unfunded new entitlement program.

Both Heath and Obuchowski said they would be willing to consider dipping into Rainy Day money if, after the Fiscal Year 2011 budget is adopted, the economy improved and revenues seemed likely to rise. In that case, they said, knowing the funds could be repaid quickly, Rainy Day funds could be used as what would effectively be an up-front loan to shore up important programs.

That happens anyway. The Rainy Day Funds don’t just sit there. Various state funds borrow from them to finance programs, then repay them as tax revenue comes in. Otherwise, state funds might have to borrow in the commercial market, and pay interest.

Obuchowski and Heath both expressed guarded optimism that the state might succeed in its effort to “do more with less,” as Obuchowski put it. The Legislature has granted a $200,000 contract to a Minnesota-based consulting firm for advice on how to scale down state government without reducing the quality of state services.

Obuchowski said that though Legislative leaders were very reluctant to increase taxes, they might be open to selective fee increases to increase revenue. Even then, though, he acknowledged, there would probably have to be “some reduction in services.”

And remember, on the assumption that almost nobody would read in anyway, there will be no post Friday. A happy, healthy, and prosperous 2010 to one and all.

Pay attention because today’s post is going to provide exclusive answers to one of the great unresolved questions bedeviling the people of this fair state: Why Is Vermont’s State Government Facing a Budget Shortfall?

Ready for the answer? Brace yourself for shock. Make sure you’re seated and have not just partaken of a large meal (though recent imbibement of a cocktail or two might not hurt).

OK, here it is: Because Vermont is Part of the United States of America.

Almost all of which is in deep recession, even if it has been declared officially over. The unemployed and under-employed don’t pay much in the way of taxes. The newly foreclosed don’t buy much. The businesses who used to sell to them aren’t expanding.

Not here in Vermont. But hardly anywhere else, either. Most state economies are in worse shape, and most of their governments are facing worse budget shortfalls.

This does not mean Vermont has no budget problem. It does seem to mean that though state policy-makers may have made some mistakes in the past that rendered the state more vulnerable to the ravages of recession, they didn’t make any more – and possible not as many – as their counterparts elsewhere.

In a report titled, Beyond California: States in Fiscal Peril, The Pew Center on the States counts nine other states facing deep budget crises in addition that big one on the left coast.

Vermont is not among them. In fact, Vermont was rated among the fiscally less troubled states.

Even more pessimistically, a report from the Kaiser Family Foundation finds that only two states – Montana and North Dakota – are not “facing budget shortfalls.”

From the statistics alone, it was impossible to determine the source of the good fortune of these two states, though it’s reasonable to suspect that it has some connection with the coal, oil, and natural gas underneath them. Under the circumstances, all the rest of us help pay their taxes every time we start our cars or turn on a light. If only maple syrup were a necessity instead of a mere delight, Vermont’s budget might be easily balanced.

(Objection One: Isn’t there a lot of oil under California? Yes, but California is so huge, its economy so diverse, that the petroleum revenue adds up to a paltry percentage).

(Objection Two: Isn’t it sad to deride a delight, which in a sane world would be treasured more than a “mere” necessity? Yes).

Both the Pew and the Kaiser studies show why Vermont is not as hard-pressed as some other states. The root cause of the problem in all states is the Recession, which stemmed from what the Pew study called “the bursting of the housing bubble.” That’s why, the study noted, three of the nine states in almost as much trouble as California are its neighbors – Arizona, Nevada, and Oregon – into which some of the California housing boom (and unsustainable lending practices) spilled.

For several reasons, the bubble in Vermont never expanded as recklessly as it did in some states, so the “burst” was less damaging. Vermont’s foreclosure rate is the lowest in the country.

Why? Well, tighter regulations may be one factor; mortgage prepayment penalties are illegal here, for instance. But the figures indicate that the state’s economy generally sat on a relatively strong foundation. The report by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that since the Recession began, Vermont’s unemployment rate has gone up less than the nation’s as a whole (1.6 percentage points compared to 3.6).

It even seems possible, reluctant though we may all be to find anything good to say about political office-holders, that Vermont’s leaders were more responsible – or at least less irresponsible – than their counterparts elsewhere.

“Virtually every state had to make tough decisions this year about where to cut and how to raise additional revenues,” the Pew report said. “But in some states, lawmakers punted the responsibility,” refusing to cut spending or raise taxes. Vermont did both. It may not have been pretty to watch or pleasing to any political faction, but as a result the state has a smaller budget shortfall than most others.

The Pew report gives Vermont a “score” of 13 (lower is better), tied with Virginia, and better than all but nine other states. The Kaiser Family Foundation report also finds that only ten states have less serious budget problems than Vermont.

(Most, though, not all, ten are the same in the two studies, which were taken at different times and used somewhat different criteria. Their basic conclusions, though, seem consistent).

Still, Vermont has a rather substantial looming budget deficit which is likely to dominate the Legislative session beginning next month. The exact size of the extent to which likely revenues for Fiscal Year 2011 (starting next July 1) will fall short of projected expenses is unclear, but should add up to roughly $100 million.

That’s a lot of money, and the early indications are that the Legislature is going to “find” it by cutting spending. Both legislative leaders, Senate President Peter Shumlin of Putney and House Speaker Shap Smith of Morristown, have come out against any new or higher taxes. Considering that they’re both Democrats, the party less resistant to raising taxes, it’s unlikely that taxes will go up.

Unlikely but not certain. There is at least one dissenter, State Sen. Doug Racine of Richmond (check the December 7 post here), who favors a temporary tax increase to avoid deep cuts in social programs. And wait until the advocates of those social programs get television news footage showing the impoverished, disabled children whose lives would be further impoverished by some of the cuts that would no doubt be proposed.

People don’t want to pay taxes. Neither do they want to abandon needy children. That Vermont may have to abandon fewer of them than most other states is not likely to make the decision much easier.

(Note: This is obviously the first of several examinations of the state’s budget situation; Wednesday’s post will be on a different topic, but we’ll return to this one next Monday

What happened to Friday? As indicated earlier, on the assumption that almost no one will be reading this kind of stuff on Christmas and New Years Days, there will be no new postings the next two Fridays.)