Editor’s note: Bruce Lisman, of Shelburne, is a Republican candidate for governor of Vermont. He is the founder of Campaign for Vermont and a former Wall Street executive.
[T]om Pelham has recently written a column entitled “No Waffling Allowed for the Next Governor.” In it he describes the financial mess that Gov. Peter Shumlin will leave to his successor and the difficult path to solving those problems. He asks that candidates for governor to present to the voters clear and precise solutions to the challenges that we now face. “No Waffling,” he says of the candidates.
We agree. Candidates should offer clear solutions. No waffling, no sloganeering. Here’s what I propose.
• Recharge our state’s capacity to invest in essential things by limiting the growth of state spending to 2 percent per year for the next three years — while seeking efficiencies of another 1.5 percent yearly in order to end the cycle raising taxes. Under Shumlin, taxes, fees and surcharges have increased $644 million over the past five years.
• Re-establish the essential notion that our government works for the people. Start by enacting ethics standards, an initial step toward good government and on to the harder tasks of actively managing and re-engaging the state’s employees, setting goals, steps to reach those goals, measuring progress, and of course costing out those steps and understanding what success is supposed to look like.
• Offer a three year set of no more than four primary strategic goals, and a longer list of secondary goals. And build a strategic budget that illustrates the cost of achieving those goals.
I believe the governor should work for the people, not the other way around.
• End Act 46. It increases taxes in hopes of reducing them, won’t reduce the cost of our public education system and it offers nothing about providing quality education for our children. Instead, I would pursue efforts to re-establish the link between your vote, the budget and your property taxes; collapse “back office” functions of schools into as few centers as possible; offer target guidelines on class size and leave it to local school boards to develop the strategy to reach those guidelines.
• Shut down Vermont Health Connect. It doesn’t work. It’s a distraction. It’s a waste of money. Additionally, we must slow down the march toward an “all-payer” model for health care. It’s another effort to create a monopoly, except even fewer people understand how it would work, what it would cost, and what it would aim to accomplish.
• Audit Medicaid. Base health care costs are rising at a modest pace, excluding prescription drugs. It’s the rising cost of health insurance that has made health care expensive. It’s caused by the Medicaid “gap.” We need to understand who is in Medicaid; are they eligible; are they healthier for being in the program; do they have greater access to quality health care; are they utilizing all the benefits offered; which benefits are being utilized; are administrative costs incurred appropriate?
• Reconsider our renewable energy plan. Vermont should have fair siting rules and Vermonters should understand the cost of renewables. This is why I have called for a two-year moratorium on the further development of industrial wind and solar until we can balance siting and costs. The sale of RECS (renewable energy credits) to other states means we are doing nothing to combat climate change, but instead unnecessarily raising the cost of energy. And, we need to re-establish the essential notion of a ratepayer advocate to offer balance to an energy policy.
• The focus on economic development is critical, for far too long fundamental relationship building activities with our state’s employers have been ignored. We must shift our philosophy to one that would “enable an economic renewal.” I have laid out many specific ideas on my website under “The Economy” tab of the Issues section.
If elected your governor, I’ll be ready at the start line to offer a clear path to change the direction of our state while beginning the less glamorous task of solving the problems that the Shumlin administration will have left behind. I believe the governor should work for the people, not the other way around. I believe in maximum transparency. I believe in the value of management and great managers. Vermonters deserve an economy that will provide prosperity and economic security. Together, we can lead Vermont in a new and better direction.
