First, an announcement, and a plea: Four of the five Democratic candidates for governor (Deb Markowitz being the absentee) will meet for a so-called debate, more accurately a campaign forum, at 7PM Thursday at Sterling College in Craftsbury Common.

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.

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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.

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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.

In absolute terms, Vermont is doing better than it was twelve days ago (See Census Sense, April 7) , but in relative terms, it’s lagging just about as far behind.

As of yesterday, the Census Bureau web site showed that Vermont had a 65 percent rate of returning 2010 Census forms. That was better than the 56 percent recorded April 6. But it still lagged behind the national rate, by the same four percentage points.

And this is supposed to be the most educated state in the union?

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The late Sen. William Scott

Thanks (or perhaps more accurately, no thanks) to missed phone calls and the varying schedules of both parties, the News Guy’s report on the wisdom, or lack thereof, of stocking Vermont rivers with “put-and-take” adult trout (Taking Stock, April 9) lacked the key information of how much the Fish and Wildlife Department spent on this activity.

Tom Wiggins (inexplicably called “Wiggin” in the original post; apologies to him) reports that the total cost of the program this year will be approximately $4.57 million, $2.85 million to staff and operate the hatcheries, and $1.72 million for to administer the actual stocking.

This money does not come from the taxpayers. Wiggins said about 75 percent of is from federal funds obtained from the excise tax on fishing gear, and the other 25 percent is from the money anglers pay for their fishing licenses ($20 for a Vermont resident).

Still, every penny the Department spends on stocking is a penny it can not spent on habitat protection, which all the biologists agree is the best method for providing healthy fish populations in the long run.

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Ken Page is a mentsch.

Page is the high school principal — indeed, the head of the Vermont Principals Association – teased (if not downright ridiculed) in last Monday’s post (“Three for Monday,” April 12 ) for ungrammatically saying “less students” instead of the correct “fewer students.”

A lesser man might have been resentful, or at least have ignored the attack. Not Page, who sent an email with the subject line “guilty as charged.” He was wrong, he knew it, and he said so.

And for whatever it’s worth, Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education of the entire United States of America, made the same mistake last week.

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Last Thursday was, of course, Tax Day, a day Americans have been conditioned to revile even though about 80 percent of all tax filers got or will get refunds, according to IRS figures. Furthermore, almost everyone is paying less in federal income taxes this year than last year.

That includes Vermonters. According to Sen. Bernie Sanders, 99 percent of Vermont working families and individuals “received a much-needed average federal tax cut of over $1,100 for 2009.” In addition, he said, “14,000 Vermont families were able to receive an expanded tax cut to send their kids to college last year (and) nearly 60,000 Vermont small businesses received tax cuts to purchase new equipment and other things.”

For those who find Sanders a less than reliable source, everything he said checks out, except calling the tax cut “much-needed” which is of course his assessment, but one that will not be disputed here.

Speaking of federal taxes, another reason Vermonters ought to temper their displeasure about them is that they got back more than they pay out to the feds.

According to the latest tabulation by the Tax Foundation, Vermont’s individuals, businesses, and governments get $1.08 for every dollar Vermonters pay to the feds (that’s total federal taxes, not just the income tax).

That puts Vermont right about in the middle – 26^th – of the rankings, which, truth to tell, might not mean much. The states that get back the most – Alabama led, getting back $2.03 for every dollar – tend to be the poorest, while those at the bottom – New Jersey got back only 61 cents – are generally the wealthiest.

Actually, that’s the way it’s supposed to work.

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Some years ago there was a U.S. Senator named William Scott, a Virginia Republican. In 1974 New Times magazine published an article noting that Scott had been named “the dumbest Congressman” by an organization affiliated with Ralph Nader.

Since New Times had little clout in Washington and less in Virginia, Scott’s best option was obviously to ignore the designation. He did not. Instead, he called a press conference to deny the description, thereby confirming it.

An incident brought to mind recently when the Rutland Herald ran an editorial titled “Prism of Paranoia” arguing that Republicans were motivated largely by “festering anger.”

Like all editorials, this one was rebuttable. Alas, in his letter rebutting it, Steve Larrabee, the Chairman of the Vermont Republican Party, displayed no small amount of…well, anger.

The assertion that “all we have to offer is anger is false and misleading,” not to mention “reprehensible and unjustifiable,” Larrabee wrote, adding, “I can only conclude that this is intentionally so.”

Larrabee’s letter did not rise (or perhaps sink) to what we might call Scottian levels. He did provide some factual evidence to support his argument that the GOP has more to offer than anger.

But here’s some free advice to political operatives responding to condemnation: when criticized for being angry, respond with wry amusement, biting sarcasm, sardonic satire or the like. Not with anger. He may not be a model Republicans want to follow, but Robert Kennedy’s advice remains sound: “Don’t get mad. Get even.”

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And finally (and again, for what it’s worth) from Vermontbiz.com , the online version of Vermont Business Magazine, comes word that the folks at U-Haul International found that many more people are moving into Vermont than out of it.

In fact,  said U-Haul President of Phoenix Operations John “J.T.” Taylor, “for states with 5,000 – 20,000 families moving, Vermont had the highest (in-over-out) percentage, with a growth rate of 16.67 percent in 2009, moving Maine to second place after two years of ranking first”

Obviously, the U-Haul folks count only those who move in and out with U-Haul vehicles, and the statement read more like an advertisement than a data-based research report.

Still, for what it’s worth…

Whoops!

Vermont is falling behind.

Just a few days ago, Vermonters were doing as well as Americans in general in filling out and returning their forms for the 2010 Census, indicating that they were as intelligent, knowledgeable and responsible as most of their fellow citizens.

Or, to take the ‘glass-is-half-empty perspective, as foolish, ill-informed and undependable.

Until yesterday, when according to the official Census Bureau web site (h), only 56 percent of the folks in the Green Mountain State had complied, significantly less than the 60 percent rate nationwide.

Significantly, but perhaps temporarily. The numbers are updated every day, so there’s time for Vermont to get back to par. For the moment, though, only Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Alaska are doing worse than Vermont. Alaska, with 48 percent, is the only state where the rate is under 50 percent.

The low rate is not a good sign for Vermont’s future or of Vermonters perspicacity. The ten-question form should take no more than ten minutes to complete, so it’s not exactly a major hardship. Not filling it out means a Census enumerator will have to visit the non-complier’s home, adding to the cost of the whole enterprise.

It’s true that one major consequence of the decennial census – Congressional reapportionment – is irrelevant to Vermont, which will get one representative in the House of Representatives no matter how many residents are uncounted. But the State Legislature gets reapportioned, too, and people who don’t get counted risk diminishing their town or county’s clout in Montpelier. In addition, more than $400 billion in federal aid – for education, transportation, housing, nutrition, and more – gets apportioned according to how many people the Census counts in each locality. The fewer folks counted in your neck of the woods, the fewer federal dollars it will get.

So Census non-compliance could raise local property taxes.

So far, many Vermonters have not complied because they have not yet received their Census forms. That’s because the Census Bureau does not send forms to people whose address is a post office box, which is lots of people in rural areas.

Bart Eton, a Bureau spokesman at the Boston regional office, said Census officials wanted “to make sure we have every questionnaire tied to the piece of ground the address is on.” P.O. box customers will get their forms hand-delivered to them sometime in May, Eton said.

But don’t think that this explains away Vermont’s poor compliance rate. That’s 56 percent of the questionnaires sent out, not of the total residents of the state (a number not precisely known; finding out is the point of the whole project).

As appears to be true in most states, participation in Vermont varies from place to place, with some possible correlation between compliance and  income/education levels. So Chittenden County, with the state’s highest median income and college graduate rates, comes in on top with 63 percent compliance. Essex County, at the other end of the income/education spectrum, is last at 41 percent.

Franklin and Addison are the other counties scoring better than 60 percent. Lamoille and Orleans are under 50 percent. For the rest, or for any town, village, or zip code in the state, check them out yourself on the Bureau’s web site (see above). It’s kind of fun.

But some of the contrasts seem strange. Up in the Northeast Kingdom, for instance, Sutton scores a respectable 55 percent, while in nearby Newark a paltry 35 percent filled out their forms. Farther south in Corinth, 61 percent of those who received the questionnaires filled them out, while just to the west, only 49 percent of the people in the town of Washington complied.

What would the town’s namesake have thought? After all, he was there, presiding at the Constitutional Convention that ordered an “actual Enumeration (capital ‘E’ in the original) every ten years “in such manner as (Congress) shall by law direct.” That’s the U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 3.

And what would Calvin Coolidge have thought had he known that in the town of his birth, Plymouth, a paltry 25 percent of those who got their Census forms have sent them back? He might even have spoken.

Granted, there is a slim possibility that some people might have deliberately decided not to fill out the form because…well, because a few radio or blog loudmouths have urged noncompliance because…well, perhaps because they have nothing better to do.

(OK, maybe there’s more to it than that. But you know what? Not every political pronouncement deserves to be taken seriously. On this web site, the standard is minimal rationality)

Slim possibility but no great likelihood. Bart Eton said Bureau officials had some concerns about an organized effort by some Hispanic leaders urging Latinos not to cooperate as a protest against Congress’s failure to change the immigration laws, and out of fears that officials would use Census information to track down illegal immigrants.

He was apparently referring to the Rev. Miguel A. Rivera, chairman of the Washington (D.C., not Orange County)-based National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, who is campaigning against the Census. But in recent months other Hispanic leaders have organized support for the Census, and compliance in Hispanic areas seems to be running about as expected.

Only one member of Congress, Republican Michelle Bachman of Minnesota, has said she would not fill out her Census form, for reasons not entirely clear. Ironically, her Congressional district has one of the highest compliance rates in the country. So does Minnesota statewide, along with Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, and Nebraska.

Perhaps Alaska’s low score owes something to the anti-government mood in the state, which has a small – but politically noticeable, perhaps even politically consequential – secessionist movement, of which the husband of former Governor Sarah Palin was once a member.

Yeah, Vermont has a secessionist movement, too. But it is barely noticeable and not at all consequential. At any rate, there is no evidence that Vermont’s low compliance rate reflects a deliberate political decision on the part of any countable segment of the population.

It could be just a one-day blip and the numbers will improve tomorrow.

Or maybe 44 percent of the people here aren’t all that bright.