To govern is to choose.
But first, to govern is to get elected, and in pursuit of election and re-election, those who govern and choose sometimes have to bamboozle.
Or so they seem to think, as was illustrated Thursday afternoon as the Vermont State Senate simultaneously engaged in responsible governing and blatant political play-acting.
So adept were they at the play-acting (practice makes perfect), that for a while there, some of them fooled themselves into thinking their theatrical production resembled real life, and real tempers flared.
(Or seemed to. Who knows? Maybe it was all part of the performance.)
The senators were dealing with one of their vital subjects: taxes. Passing a tax bill is one of the very few absolutely necessary tasks the Legislature must accomplish every year. In theory, the lawmakers could pass a budget bill and a tax bill and then go home.
They don’t, of course. But they do take budget and tax bills seriously, and because most Vermont legislators are responsible public officials, they face this task thoughtfully, even somberly.
The tax bill before the Senate Thursday (H.884) wasn’t very complicated or even very controversial because it neither raised nor lowered many taxes. This year, when it comes to taxes, the status quo mostly prevails.
The exception is the statewide school property tax, which H.884 increases from 94 cents per $100 of assessed value to $1 for owner-occupied residences, and from $1.44 to $1.51 for other property. That’s not as much as the Tax Department estimated earlier this year, before 35 school budgets were defeated around the state. But it’s still a property tax increase.
So Sen. Joe Benning, a Republican from Lyndonville in Caledonia County, rose and offered an amendment to “hold the property tax” to its current level.
Benning is a responsible senator who does not offer frivolous amendments. He’s also a smart senator, who must have known that there wasn’t the slightest chance his amendment would prevail.
In fact, within an hour, he made it clear that he’d known all along that it would not prevail.
It isn’t just that Benning is one of only seven Republicans in the Senate and that few Democrats were likely to vote with him. It’s that his amendment would cost the Education Fund $64 million, as Sen. Tim Ashe, the Burlington Progressive/Democrat who heads the Finance Committee, pointed out.
“What would (Benning) do if it passes?” Ashe asked.
Benning did not dispute Ashe’s arithmetic. He did answer his question. If the amendment passed, he said, he (and presumably the rest of the Legislature) would “go back to the drawing board on that discussion.”
Not hardly. With the Legislature scheduled to adjourn next week, it is not going to “invent a whole new school financing system in a couple of days,” as Ashe put it.
Nor is it going to cut $64 million from state spending on roads, health care, income support, parks, playgrounds, and the like. The amendment was never intended to pass. It was intended, said Benning’s fellow Republican Kevin Mullin of Rutland, as “a statement,” a way to “let off some steam.”
But also to tell the voters that the senators making that statement are committed to holding down property taxes. That’s what most Vermont politicians – starting with Gov. Peter Shumlin – are doing these days. They know people are unhappy about how fast some property taxes are going up.
So the officeholders are doing … well, they are doing just about anything, as long as it looks like they are doing something to signal their concern, even though what they are doing will not reduce property taxes. Not offering unrealistic amendments that can’t pass. Not passing a bill to reduce the number of local school boards, which might be good policy but won’t do much to reduce school spending.
But never underestimate the inventiveness of politicians trying to give the impression that they are doing something when they are not. Perhaps to Benning’s surprise, he got the support of one Democrat – Sen. Peter Galbraith of Townshend.
Galbraith said he could keep the property tax rate down without robbing the Education Fund of that $64 million. He said he would offer an amendment that would raise income taxes (though he did not use those words) on some upper-income taxpayers by taking away a few of their tax deductions.
On its face, Galbraith’s plan appears worthy of consideration. He pointed out that Vermont is one of the few states that allow taxpayers to deduct their mortgage interest and charitable contributions from their taxable state income, as they do with their taxable federal income.
As Galbraith pointed out, the purpose of these deductions is to create incentives for home-owning and for charitable contribution. But that incentive comes from the federal deductions, Galbraith said, which save upper-income taxpayers thousands, not from the few hundred they save from the Vermont deduction.
So why not take away those deductions and use the money to hold down property taxes?
Perhaps a good question much earlier in the legislative sessions. But such major policy changes are not made on the Senate floor, especially when it is a change that Galbraith had earlier tried and failed to get through the Finance Committee.
Perhaps because most committee members understood that Shumlin, a consistent opponent of raising taxes on the wealthy, would never accept such a proposal.
No less than the Benning amendment, then, Galbraith’s proposal was theatrical presentation, not governing.
But it seemed that some of the senators were taking the debate – and themselves – seriously. Even before Galbraith could finish explaining his proposal, Sen. David Zuckerman, the Progressive/Democrat from Hinesburg, rose on a point of order, questioning whether Galbraith’s proposal was “germane” to the Benning amendment.
Apparently sensing that some senators were getting cranky, President Pro Tem John Campbell, a Democrat from White River Junction, called for a short recess. The senators stood around for a few minutes, Galbraith chatting amiably with Lt. Gov. Phil Scott, who had been presiding.
After a ruling that his proposal was sufficiently germane, Galbraith finished explaining it.
Whereupon Benning reclaimed the floor and said, “I do not want to see folks get angry.” But he did not ask for a vote on his amendment.
“I withdraw the motion,” he said.
Perhaps his plan all along rather than put it to a vote that would lose?
The Senate then gave second-reading passage to H.884. Final Senate approval on Friday seemed certain, after which the bill heads to a House-Senate conference to resolve some minor differences.
The senators had governed. They had chosen. They had postured. They had performed.
A successful afternoon.
