Because there are certain standard requirements in news stories about a governor introducing the state budget, and because even online news outlets should observe standards, herewith the conventional highlights of Gov. Peter Shumlin’s first proposed budget:
–It’s for slightly more than $4.8 billion;
–It actually proposes spending a bit less in Fiscal Year 2012 (starting July 1) than in the current FY 2011;
–It does not raise “broad based” taxes, meaning the taxes most people pay, though it does call for new “assessments,” or taxes as they are sometimes known, on select segments of the populace. Nor does it propose dipping into the state’s “Rainy Day Fund.”
Enough with the standard requirements, which are less important than what this new budget says about this new governor 20 days into his term: He means business.
All that stuff he talked about during last year’s campaign – a single payer health financing system, broadband service everywhere, fewer non-violent offenders in prison, more early-childhood education. He meant it. All of it. It may have been campaign rhetoric. But it wasn’t just campaign rhetoric. It’s all right there in his budget proposal. He’s aiming to implement every bit of it, apparently as quickly as possible.
He intends, in short, some fundamental changes in the way Vermont governs itself, and he seems determined to plow ahead despite complaints that his goals are too ambitious, too expensive, and, at least as far as that single-payer system is concerned, prohibited (for now) by federal law.
In all his objectives, he seems to have the solid support of his agency and department heads and of the leaders of the Legislature, in which his party holds comfortable majorities in both houses.
This does not mean they all agree about every detail, or that the lawmakers will adopt the governor’s budget as written. Obviously they will not, as Shumlin himself noted, agreeing that his proposals “may lack perfection and invite disagreement.”
Despite the budget crunch ruling out new major spending programs, the content of his message was as “bold and ambitious” as he claimed, especially when viewed in context.
It does mean that they think they’re about to make history, or at least that they give every indication of thinking that way. There was a crackling mood around the Capitol Tuesday even though Shumlin’s oratorical performance was bland (there was trouble with the Teleprompter, and reading from typed text has never been his strong suit) and the audience rarely interrupted him with applause.
But despite the budget crunch ruling out new major spending programs, the content of his message was as “bold and ambitious” as he claimed, especially when viewed in context. This was the third major speech in less than four weeks, after Shumlin’s inauguration and last week’s health care message from Harvard Professor William Hsiao. Shumlin again endorsed Hsiao’s proposal in his budget message, endorsing the professor’s claim (Republicans are skeptical) that his planned single-payer system could save $500 million dollars in its first year.
Health care seems to be the fulcrum around which many of Shumlin’s plans revolve. It is central to how his budget closes the gap of $175 million between how much he proposes to spend and how much revenue the current tax system will raise. Most of the burden for closing that gap rests with the Agency of Human Resources, which would cut almost $44 million in spending, but also raise $36.7 million by new or increased assessments on hospitals, physicians, dentists, and health insurance companies.
None of these changes require shifting to a single-payer system, but they are all consistent with it, as is folding Catamount Health Plans into the Vermont Health Access Program. It is perhaps no accident that Catamount is a state-subsidized private health insurance system while VHAP is part of state government.
Shumlin proposed cuts in other programs so that the savings could be used to begin work on his plans for expanding broad band Internet service, on which he wants to spend $13 million in capital funds over two years. He also sought smaller amounts for creating services to help non-violent offenders avoid being sent back to jail, and to support early childhood education. In addition, he urged the Legislature to lift the cap limiting how many students a local school district could count in early education funding.
Both in some specific proposals and in the way the new officials approached their budget task, there were clear signs of how different this administration would be from the one it replaced. Among the specifics were Shumlin’s call for full funding of the Vermont Housing and Conservation Trust Fund and the absence, in the section about transportation, of any mention of Chittenden County’s Circumferential Highway, a favorite project of former Gov. Jim Douglas.
Like his predecessor, Shumlin proposed substantial cuts in services for the poor, the sick, the elderly and the mentally ill. Unlike the last administration, officials made a concerted effort to meet with targets of the reductions. Shumlin himself met with officials of hospitals whose assessments he wants to increase. Racine said he attended a meeting of the Vermont Council of Developmental and Mental Health Services, informing members of the likely cuts and asking for their suggestions.
Julie Tessler, the head of the organization, said she and her allies would continue to seek more funds, but she said it while sitting with Racine at a table in the Statehouse cafeteria. Her organization’s dealings with the previous administration, she said, “weren’t very positive.”
It isn’t that Shumlin and the Democrats are nobler or more honorable people than Douglas and the Republicans. The social service advocates are part of the Democratic support base. But it may also be that Democrats, caring more about government than Republicans, take more naturally to it. A basic rule of good governing is that, before an official cuts an interest group’s budget, the official ought to take the interest group’s leaders to lunch.