“The New York Times recently ranked Vermont #1 in the nation for government assistance across six categories of social services,  while Forbes magazine ranks us as the highest tax state in the nation” Gov. Jim Douglas proclaimed in his tough letter to the Legislative leaders last week.

Actually, no.

Or at least no to the first assertion. Yes, narrowly speaking, to the second. Forbes Magazine did make that ranking. It was, however, garbage, and not the least bit supported by the article, which was shoddy enough that an honest editor would fire the reporter who put the piece together (unless, of course, the editor him/her-self was responsible).

Douglas himself seemed to recognize that he’d gone too far. Later in his letter he wrote that the Times assessment put Vermont near the top of all six categories, and wrote that  ”Vermont has one of the highest — if not the highest — tax burden of any state in the country.”

Aha! Actual fact, albeit tarnished by the gratuitous hyperbole within the hyphens. By almost any assessment, Vermont is one of the more highly taxed states. But Forbes Magazine to the contrary notwithstanding, not the highest.

(Briefly, what Forbes did was add up all state taxes and fees, then divide by population, forgetting that (a) Vermont spends more on the state level, less on the local, than many other states; (b) a disproportionate share of Vermont taxes are paid by tourists who don’t live in the state).

The mystery here is why Douglas decided to overstate his case when his case, honestly stated, is legit. With all that tax revenue, Vermont is in fact one of the more generous states when it comes to helping the sick, the disabled, and the poor. That New York Times assessment he referred to said as much. It just didn’t say what first he said it said.

According to the New York Times May 9 assessment of several federal social programs, Vermont is first in its “share of poor children and parents that receive cash welfare,” with 49 percent of the target population getting benefits.

If you don’t know what that means, don’t feel ignorant. Neither did Steve Dale, and he’s the Commissioner of  the Department for Children and Families. But we’ll come back to that anon. First let’s dispense with where Vermont stood in those other rankings.

Not Number One. Other states were more generous when it came to unemployment compensation, food stamps, housing assistance, and health insurance. In unemployment compensation and housing assistance, Vermont wasn’t even in the top ten.

But in health insurance and food stamps, it was. Like the other states in New England and the Northeast, Vermont provides its poorest citizens with more benefits than most of the Southern and Western states.

In fact, Douglas may have understated his case. Vermont might pay the highest welfare benefits in the country. At least according to the assessment by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal research and advocacy group in Washington. Its figures show that last year a Chittenden County single-parent family of three received a monthly grant of $709 (the benefits are slightly lower in the rest of the state). Only a similar family in New York City gets more, $738.

So when the Governor assailed the Legislature for “raising already high taxes to support aid programs that are already the very best in the country,” he wasn’t blowing smoke, even if he was overstating his case.

At this point, a few qualifications are in order. All those welfare benefit figures above are inexact. There are so many variations due to geography, family size, and family make-up, that different organizations estimate average or median benefits differently. Commissioner  Dale, for instance, said the typical Vermont beneficiary household gets about $680 a month from the state’s “Reach Up” funds.

“Reach Up” is what Vermont calls its version of  Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF, pronounced “Tanif”), the federal program that replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) the old and much reviled welfare program.

Then there’s the confusion over that category where Vermont did place Number One, the percentage of poor parents and children getting cash benefits. Dale said it isn’t 49 percent. It seems higher.

Roughly ten percent of the 144,000 Vermonters under 18 are poor, Dale said, meaning they live in households that earn no more than the federal poverty line (roughly $22,000 for a family of four). The total number of people receiving Reach Up funds is 13,700, he said. At least 10,000 of these would be children.

As to that New York Times table, Dale said, “I see a lot of numbers every month and I’ve never seen a number like that.”

Nor was the Commissioner aware that the state’s benefit levels might be the highest in the nation, and he certainly didn’t think they were too high.

“Nobody lives on $680 a month,” he said. Reach Up Recipients also qualify for Medicaid and Food Stamps, but even then, he said, “that’s not a place anyone wants to be. If it’s generous (compared to other states) it’s still very little, and it has not been increased in years. Years.”

Actually, in real terms, it’s gone down. In inflation-adjusted dollars, that $709 payment in Vermont (according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities) is 17.6 percent lower than the $633 a Vermont household received in 1996 under the old AFDC program. There were many more recipients then, too. Even with Food Stamps added, a Vermont family on Reach Up has an income 25 percent lower than the federal poverty level.

And Douglas wants to pay them less?

Well, sort of.

What the Governor has proposed would save money, but not by spending less money in Fiscal Year 2010 (starting July 1). Instead, as Dale described it, the Douglas Administration would put into place a few policy changes hoping both to save money and to help Reach Up recipients .

Without getting into all the technicalities, here’s how it would work: The typical Reach Up household is headed by a young single mother with one or more small children. To remain eligible for benefits, the young women are expected to get a job, go to school, enter a training program, or engage in some other activity that might help them become self-sufficient.

Federal law allows states to reduce the monthly payments to women who refuse to cooperate, even to drop her entire family from the program after five years. For the most part, Vermont has ignored these penalties. Douglas wants the Legislature to give Dale’s department the power to invoke them.

The goal, Dale said, is not punishment but “reciprocity. Many folks have significant barriers and need a lot of help. The deal is you need to be moving toward some kind of improvement.”

In addition, the Administration wants to reduce payments to some Reach Up households in which one resident is also getting federal disability SSI benefits. Dale acknowledged he was not happy about this proposal, but said it was justified under the circumstances, both to save money and because receiving “SSI plus TANF can result in less incentive to participate in work programs.”

The Legislature rejected these proposals, some members calling them “draconian.” But the differences here are at the margins. Douglas is not proposing to decimate Reach Up, just to restrain its growth. Dale said the Administration’s plans would save $3 million of the state’s $15 million contribution to Reach Up. But this does not signify a 20 percent reduction; the program is largely funded by some $43 million in federal money.

This argument is at least 40 years old and will probably be around for another 40 years. Liberals point to the actual reduction in benefits over the years and to the difficulties many Reach Up recipients have in meeting their work or school requirements because of ill health, babies who need tending, psychological and emotional problems. Conservatives argue that simply giving people money without also providing incentives for them to become self-supporting is a disservice to the young mothers and their children.

In one sense, Douglas is proposing a redistribution of income upwards. He wants to save this money in Reach Up so the state doesn’t have to increase taxes on the wealthy. The Democrats want to redistribute the other way. Again, it’s an old argument, and one with some merit on both sides.

Why all the emotion, then? Well, that’s what happens in politics. It often gets personal. Perhaps unhappy about being the target of so much criticism from the Democrats, the Governor lashed out. He wasn’t just personal; he was tribal.

“You seem intent on a budget that satisfies more fiscally liberal members of your caucus, even if that comes at the expense of fiscal prudence,” he said to the lawmakers, effectively accusing the leaders of being captive to their party’s most liberal wing and their occasional allies, the Progressives.

That could have been anger, or it could have been political calculation, based on the assumption that most voters distrust “tax and spend liberals.” For most of the last 30 years, that has been a reasonable assumption. It may not be playing as well any more.

Either way, Douglas’s staff released his new budget counter-proposals yesterday afternoon. The Legislative leaders to whom he addressed his confrontational letter were not invited, but they will no doubt be reading it carefully today. The intention here is to do the same, and to provide a report tomorrow.