Editor’s note: Jon Margolis is VTDigger’s columnist.
Gov. Peter Shumlin told Vermont Thursday that as he bows out he will keep on keeping on.
In his sixth and last State of the State speech, the governor – as governors are wont to do – praised his own record and said he would build on it largely by trying to do more of what he had been doing: tougher rules on opiate prescriptions; more treatment and less punishment for addicts; more renewable energy and “clean jobs” (though without “mega solar projects”); more help for innovative agriculture; more expansion of health care coverage.
It isn’t that Shumlin proposed nothing new, or even that he said nothing bold and dramatic. For instance, he urged the Legislature to follow California’s lead by pulling its investments (mostly in retirement funds) out of all coal company stock and study doing the same with oil companies.
Then he did California one better and said Vermont should immediately shuck all holdings in Exxon Mobil, whose “own scientists have long known about the dangers of global warming, and chose to conceal that from the public.”
Bold. Dramatic. And symbolic. Symbolic is not necessarily meaningless or unimportant. But considering Vermont’s size, the suits at Exxon Mobile’s Arlington, Texas, headquarters are unlikely to be quivering in their lizard-skin cowboy boots. Nor would disinvestment in any or all of these companies have any direct or material impact on the lives of Vermonters.
Or on the state budget.
Neither – at least for now — would Shumlin’s bold proposal which was not symbolic: his support for legalizing recreational marijuana use this year.
“I will work with you,” he told the legislators, “to craft the right bill that thoughtfully and carefully eliminates the era of prohibition that is currently failing us so miserably.”
But this was not really a new departure for Shumlin, who for years has indicated he favored legalizing marijuana. Nor did he endorse any of the legalization bills already in the legislative hopper. In fact, he made it clear that he would not support a bill that did not prevent “under-age kids” from getting the drug, ban pot-filled foods, and make sure law enforcement could deal with marijuana-altered drivers.
Perhaps the governor’s most innovative specific proposal was a plan to ensure that “every child born in Vermont will receive a $250 contribution to get a (college) savings plan started, and for low-income Vermonters we will double that to $500.”
He did not say how much that would cost. Since relatively few children are getting born in Vermont these days, it would probably not be enough to create a terrible burden on the budget.
He also proposed a $2 million “Step Up” program “funding a semester of free courses and support services to help first generation and low income students get back to school.”
“First generation” there apparently referred to young workers whose parents had not gone to college, and who were now working low-wage jobs. The goal of the program would be to allow these young workers to qualify for better jobs.
Shumlin did suggest reversing one of his recent accomplishments. While insisting that Act 46, the school finance modification bill passed last year, was generally working better than expected, he proposed suspending or repealing what he called one “teeny” element of it, the spending cap which is vexing some districts as they prepare their budgets for town meeting day in March.
For the most part, though, he proclaimed that because of his policies “Vermont is a better place to live, work and raise a family than it was when we began.”
“We put Vermont back to work,” he said, claiming that 17,600 more Vermonters were employed now than when he took office.
Needless to say, not everyone agrees that Shumlin’s policies have benefitted most Vermonters. Republicans and even some Democrats point to rising property taxes, spending that continues to outpace revenues, and widespread dissatisfaction with state government as shown in Shumlin’s less-than-impressive approval rating in the polls.
Still, most of the data would appear to support the governor’s claim that much has improved during his tenure. There are more jobs in the state than there were when he took office (though a smaller labor force), the unemployment rate has dropped, and Vermonters are richer than they have ever been. As he said, the state has “grown per capita incomes at or above the national rate every year I have been governor and that has never happened in Vermont’s history.”
Shumlin made no mention of the fact that this was his last State of the State message. But there were hints of valedictory. Usually all business when he spoke to the Legislature, he began by introducing his new wife, Katie Hunt, as “my love, your first lady.”
And toward the end of the speech, he said, “I love being Governor, and I am so grateful for the privilege of serving you. “
He also made a point – and won his most enthusiastic applause — when he insisted that Vermont would not “join the majority of governors in the nation in closing its borders to the Syrian refugees fleeing violence and death.”
Without mentioning Donald Trump or his much-ballyhooed speech scheduled in Burlington Thursday night, Shumlin made clear his opposition to Trump’s anti-Muslim sentiments, and he linked the Republican front-runner to earlier demagoguery.
“When McCarthyism reared its ugly head in America,” he said, Vermont Senator George Aiken “cautioned against his own Republican party that sought ‘victory through the selfish political exploitation of fear, bigotry, ignorance and intolerance.’ More than half a century later, the same un-American spirit dominates our political dialogue.
“We are blessed to live in a state where so many reject fear and hatred and I pledge to continue to work together with President Obama, our refugee resettlement community, clergy, volunteers, and our mayors to make our state a beacon of hope and hospitality to Muslims, to our Syrian brothers and sisters, and to all who seek to build a better life right here in Vermont.”
At one point, the governor did seem to get carried away with his pride in Vermont’s progress, leading to one of the more outrageous grammatical errors of recent gubernatorial oratory.
Pointing to the rise of boutique brewing in the state, he said, “Long known to out of staters for our great deer hunting, flatlanders are now coming to Vermont to beer hunt.”
What that dangling modifier actually said was flatlanders had been known to out of staters for great deer hunting. What he meant was that Vermont had long been known for its great deer hunting.
But nobody’s perfect.
