Editor’s note: Jon Margolis is a news columnist for VTDigger.org.
Early Tuesday afternoon, folks privy to the high-level tax talks under way reported that the green-eyeshade statistical mavens had figured out that the various sides were “about two cents apart.”
That’s not two cents of total spending, of course, It’s two cents of juggling this tax rate up and that one down in pursuit of two often-contradictory goals: raising enough money and not getting anyone too angry.
If the three sides (House, Senate, governor) are that close, it might mean House Speaker Shap Smith was right when he said the Legislature might adjourn as early as Friday.
But it also might mean that the argument really isn’t about the money at all. When negotiators are that close, they know they’re going to come to an agreement. Considering that all the negotiators are Democrats with the same basic policy outlooks — this session is remarkable for its “absence of tension,” one Statehouse veteran noted — it ought to be easy to reach that agreement in another day or so.
Unless, suggested yet another long-time observer of the Vermont Legislature, each of the principals is testing the other two, trying to extend his own preeminence right up to the line where it will offend one of the others.
And then maybe just a little bit farther.
Like almost all the assessments in this story, this one comes from a lobbyist. As sources, lobbyists are valuable even though they (a) don’t like to be quoted by name; (b) tend to be even more cynical than most observers.
But even if cynical, this judgment can hardly be dismissed. People who seek power are not averse to testing and extending their power. There’s no reason to think that Gov. Peter Shumlin, Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell, and Speaker Smith are exceptions.
In fact, Campbell and Shumlin, both in their first year in their new positions, went toe-to-toe over the cigarette tax. Campbell supported Senate Democrats who wanted to raise the tax by a dollar a pack. Shumlin opposes any increase, Campbell took it to the Senate floor and lost.
But only by 16-14, and Shumlin failed to get either house to support his plan for a tax on dental services.
Shumlin had introduced that proposal back in January, but apparently without laying any groundwork of support. “He just put it out there,” one observer noted. It sunk. One of the new governor’s few mistakes, but a mistake nonetheless.
The Senate still wants to increase cigarette taxes, but now by only 53 cents. The House voted for a 27-cent hike. Shumlin, portraying himself as a foe of almost all new taxes, would prefer leaving the cigarette tax where it is.
The outcome, then, is likely to be a cigarette tax increase which is less than 53 but more than 27 cents a pack. If it’s toward the higher end of that spread, the other tax hikes on the table — on health and dental insurance, or on the hospital “provider” tax — can be smaller. If the cigarette tax increase ends up being closer to 27 cents, those other increases will have to be a little bigger.
But all of it seems to be “two cents.” A smidgen here, a smidgen there, hardly enough difference to enrage any constituency. Yes, the hospitals are trying to keep down that “provider tax” even if they’d probably get all of it back via federal Medicaid payments. But they’ve already gotten it down from earlier suggestions.
There are real policy and political differences. Shumlin opposes increasing the cigarette tax on the (dubious) grounds that it would mean less business at convenience stores along the New York and New Hampshire state lines. Campbell was supporting senators convinced of the public health benefits (fewer smokers) of higher taxes.
But at this point, the argument is over pennies, which means it’s probably at least somewhat over power. It’s Mr. 53 cents against Mr. 27 cents against Mr. Zero. No one wants to lose. Each wants to see how far he can push.
As power struggles go, this one has so far been civilized, with far less acrimony than the recent fights between Democratic legislative leaders and Republican Gov. Jim Douglas. And despite the flap over the cigarette tax, the Democrats, especially in the House, have been remarkably disciplined, especially for Democrats.
It isn’t that they don’t have their disagreements, which have boiled over once or twice in the Senate. But whereas House Democrats “used to have it out on the floor,” in the words of one former Democratic lawmaker, “now they settle it in the committee room, if not in Shap’s office.”
It is something close to a consensus Statehouse view that Smith is as strong a Speaker as the House has seen in years, if not decades. He has “total control” over his caucus, the former Democratic lawmaker said. Even if that’s a slight exaggeration — literal “total control” is all but impossible in politics — it’s pretty close to reality. Now in his third term as Speaker, the Morrisville Democrat seems at least to have effective control over his caucus and of the House.
“Shap Smith is one heck of a speaker,” said one of his predecessors, Democrat Michael Obuchowski, now Commissioner of the Department of Buildings and General Service. “He’s excellent at reading people, at putting committees together. And he does it with grace.”
Obuchowski, whose Speakership ended in 1995, said he was a more laissez-faire leader, delegating authority to his committee chairs and telling them, “don’t substitute my judgment for yours.”
However he has done it, Smith has kept the House Democrats united. When a few of the most liberal lawmakers tried an amendment to raise taxes on upper-income earners, the effort was led by independent Paul Poirier, not a Democrat.
In the Senate, Campbell has had less control. There, Democrats tried to raise income taxes on the wealthy and more squabbling has broken out. Just yesterday, first-term Democrat Peter Galbraith tied up the Senate for several minutes and irritated many of his colleagues (including Campbell, who tried and failed to stop him with a “point of order”) by asking hostile questions about the health care bill.
Campbell is “disorganized,” one old Capitol hand said, and while popular, is “more interested in being liked than in being strong.” Another former lawmaker said that unlike his two predecessors, Shumlin and now-U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, Campbell is “reacting instead of focusing from the very beginning on how the session will end.”
The session seems about to end, but perhaps not before a little more pushing and shoving by its Big Three. The NBA playoffs are not the only place where there’s some jockeying under the boards.
