Some Brief Musings
Yesterday was another day in which Vermont Newsguy was busy doing in-depth reporting on substantive matters that will be dealt with at length over the next few days. By the time he finished (well, actually, he hasn’t yet finished) it was too late to devote much time to today’s post.
Still, we want to give you your money’s worth.
Uhhh, no. Actually, we want to do quite a bit better than that, because giving most of you your money’s worth would mean giving you very poor quality indeed, most of you having paid nothing. [THAT WAS A SUBTLE HINT. NOTE THE ‘DONATE' OPTION TO THE RIGHT].
How about if we make this worth your time? (Time is money, some say. But they’re wrong; time is much more interesting).
Toward that end, here is one thought and one explanatory report.
The thought has to do with this flap over heavy trucks on the Interstate highways in Vermont, and the Legislature’s perhaps too-clever-by-half stratagem for circumventing it by dropping the fine for being over-weight to a mere dollar.
The problem is simple. The weight limit on the Interstates is 80,000 pounds. Technically, that’s the weight limit on state highways, too, but with a big loophole. According to John Zicconi of the Agency of Transportation (via email), trucks can weigh as much as 90,000 pounds if they get a permit, and “there is a mechanism to get annual permits.”
In effect, then, the weight limit on state roads in 90,000 pounds, unless the truck is “hauling unprocessed forest or quarry products as well as milk or water.” Then it can be as heavy as 99,000 pounds.
The result is that the heaviest trucks stay off the Interstates and wander through little towns, picturesque villages, and bucolic pasture-land, diminishing the serenity of all three. Clearly it would make sense to change a regulation to get those babies back on 89 or 91.
Now here’s the thought: why has no one – no one! – suggested, or even wondered alloud, whether, rather than raising the limits on the Interstate, it might be a good idea to lower the limits on the state highways?
Do not misunderstand. This is not a proposal. Generally speaking, this site eschews proposing; that’s for the politicians and the activists. Maybe it’s a very bad idea. Certainly the truckers, loggers, and farmers might find it so; the efficiency of their operations would be reduced, thereby increasing per-unit costs.
But probably not by much. After all, trucks do zoom up and down the Interstates all day and all night, presumably making a profit for somebody. But the point here is not to make the argument. It is to wonder why nobody else is making the argument, which obviously would solve the problem.
A cynic might wonder whether one reason no one voices this alternative reflects the political power in Montpelier of the trucking business, and especially of the logging and dairy industries. Cynicism, too, is banned from this precinct.
The explanatory report concerns the 2009 installment of the Bill Doyle Poll, taken on Town Meeting day by the Washington County Republican senator, who has been doing this for more than 40 years.
It’s an interesting poll, but some explanation is in order for readers who might recall the excoriation on this site (see This is Not a Poll, January 28) of other surveys which are not based on random samples of the electorate. Randomness is diminished when the respondents have to take any step more active than picking up the phone and answering a few questions. Respondents to Doyle’s poll have to pick up a copy at their town meeting, fill it out, and in some cases mail it in later.
But there are reasons to take this survey seriously, reasons that transcend the fact that Sen. Doyle is a delightful fellow. First of all, his sample is HUGE. More than 12,000 people. With all those people, the exact rules of randomness can be relaxed a bit.
Besides, look at the results. They’re consistent with other surveys and with common sense. Large majorities of Vermonters think drivers shouldn’t talk on their cell phones while at the wheel and the state needs better high-speed Internet service. A small majority favors raising the gasoline tax to pay for highway improvement. By small margins, people are satisfied with the public schools but dissatisfied with their health insurance.
All that sounds about right.
The “surprises” were Gov. Jim Douglas’s slightly negative approval rating (with 39 percent saying he’s doing a good job, 44 percent saying he isn’t, and the other 17 percent not sure) and the 55-to-38 percent approval of same-sex marriage.
Neither should have been a surprise. Douglas won a big victory less than five months ago. But since then, he’s made several controversial proposals about cutting government programs and slashing school spending. All that is likely to cut into his approval ratings.
As to the gay marriage result, not only is it consistent with the only other poll done in the state recently, it’s even consistent with the nationwide poll – the one by the Pew Research Center, trumpeted by the anti-gay marriage group “Take It to the People” – showing a national majority against same sex marriage.
But look at what the pollsters call the “internals” of that survey. They show that gay marriage is supported by huge margins by liberal Democrats and by voters unaffiliated with any church. Mainline Protestants are just about evenly split, and Catholics opposed by a modest 42-to-48 percent margin.
Stack that up against Vermont demographics and it’s not hard to believe that a small majority of Vermonters favor gay marriage, especially since Pew took its survey two years ago.
Like some other polls, Doyle’s survey might tilt a bit to the left of the Vermont political median, thanks to the “grouchy Tory effect” (conservatives are less likely to participate). But it deserves to be part of the discussion.
