“Our nation has failed to establish a democracy that safeguards our fundamental, inalienable rights to achieve full human dignity and to advocate effectively for that dignity.” This is the stated principle of Rights & Democracy, Dan Fingas’s organization.
Fingas advocates, along with Rights & Democracy, for passage of the Affordable Heat Act (S.5). And he and Rights & Democracy believe the United States is a failed democracy.
I don’t need to hear more. It’s getting harder and harder to distinguish truth but, as the old saying goes, when someone tells you who they are, believe them.
It’s a red flag.
If that’s not enough, VPIRG estimates that by 2030 Vermont will save more than $2 billion, which is $7,500 per household. How is that number even possible with a bill that has not yet been passed in 2023? Have we ever seen promises like this before? Who does these numbers and who believes them?
I also recognize the language; I recognize it from language around dairy farms and education. There’s so much “offer and ensures.” The Affordable Heat Act “offers” … The Affordable Heat Act will “ensure.” Where have we heard that language before? Big Dairy, did we “offer” and “ensure a healthier dairy market for decades through big government intervention?” How’s it going? Is it similar to the language of the school merger bills that “offered” and “ensured” more opportunities for our students; how’s that going?
So the Vermont state government is going to make things more affordable for everyone? How’s that going? Do we have data over the past few decades that can show us how affordability is going for “working Vermont families”? Where is “state” government on the list of most growthful organizations over the last three or four decades?
In Fingas’s commentary he says, “It’s time to end our reliance on expensive and polluting heating sources, while guaranteeing that everyone benefits.” I don’t believe it for one single second. There’s plenty of work to do on plenty of things, but not driven by people who think we are failures.
We are not a failure. We are an amazing experiment that needs to keep going, that needs to get closer, that needs folks to be empowered to advocate for themselves rather than having this bill and that bill foisted upon them by a select few (and how do they benefit?). Turn it down, the Affordable Heat Act; turn it down. Vote for people who speak a language you believe in, who live next to you and who recognize that answers don’t exist in hundreds of pages of bills, fairy tale numbers and “offers” and “ensures.”
Damon Brink
Morrisville
