Legislative Preview
December 16, 2007
I received a phone call this week that puts the gift of giving of oneself in a new perspective.
It was a ”lobbying” call from a state employee who lives in Colchester. She has gotten her local representative, Jim Condos, to draft a bill and she is working on getting co-sponsors. It was an easy sell.
After learning that a co-worker was on dialysis and on a transplant waiting list this past year, she decided to donate one of her kidneys to him. In direct cash benefit, there will be a savings of $95,000 net to the state in a single year in the cost of dialysis even accounting for both donor and recipient surgeries.
There is just one glitch. She will have used up every sick, personal and vacation day and still run short.
She has researched and learned the federal government and 27 states offer 30 days of paid leave for its employees who become organ donors. She wants to see that happen in Vermont, not to benefit herself, but so that others don’t have to be concerned that they will end up in her position, thereby removing one potential obstacle for those who might consider being a donor.
It’s a story pretty hard to outdo in this season of gift-giving.
Its officially a small issue compared to what is on the legislature’s plate for 2008, but these are life and death issues when they strike.
What are the “big” issues ahead?
1. Fiscal Responsibility and Economic Stability.
For some years now, fierce budget wrangling in early months all ends in smiling compromise. Has it been because there was a meeting of the minds on priorities? No. It’s been because each year more revenues have come in than projected.
This year, all the fiscal advisors are warning that this won’t repeat. I am committed to fighting against the financial death spiral that sees increased taxes as necessary to provide important social benefits but that hurt economic development, reducing state revenue growth further, creating less personal income stability and greater social support needs.
A couple of initiatives I support include a requirement of a “fiscal note” – an estimate by our fiscal office of what it will cost – on every bill voted out of committee, and a limit on our legislative sessions and the astounding growth (this year in particular) of costly off-session meetings of committees.
2. Energy and Environmental Responsibility.
There may be more chance at compromises that will move efficiency efforts forward, and I hope so and will support them. Again, overdoing it becomes counterproductive if it collapses under its own weight because we create a monster we can’t feed. Our many energy challenges are not answered by 30-second sound bite solutions.
3. Education Costs and the Property Tax.
We did nothing with a milk toast compromise last year (I voted against it), and there is pressure building to repeal it.
Property tax increases are going to appear to be less extreme this year as the housing market calms down, but this means the goose isn’t laying as many golden eggs (the Education Fund is below target, which goes against the norm), It will be tax rates, rather than property values, that will drive taxes up to keep up with education costs.
Schools, just like the rest of us, are paying heat and other energy costs, as well as new health care premium spikes, that school boards can’t control. Are all the costs uncontrollable, or do we need to rethink the essentials?
Will a shift to an income tax help or hurt? The jury is still out on pros and cons, and I have a open mind on the issue but realize it won’t change the bottom line question of affordability.
Two independent steps I am supporting for fairness in taxing and cost equities are to move state support for special education to (at a minimum) the same percentage as for education as a whole, and to promote a statewide health insurance benefit.
4. Health Care Affordability.
Medicaid continues with budget shortfalls, despite the fact that we fund it in large part through paying below cost and making up the difference through private health insurance premiums. The new “Catamount Health” is in the red even as it just begins, despite the plan for it to be self-sustaining.
The proposed solution? Let’s expand state supported health insurance programs to more groups, and pretend the money shifting is solving something as we pay in higher premiums and taxes together.
Starting Catamount when Medicaid was drowning has yet to establish itself as a good idea. Adding more now is reckless.
I have come to agree that a whole-scale change in health care financing away from being employer-based must happen, but the facts are unequivocal: it can’t happen on a individual state basis when such a large portion of health care financing is under federal authority.
What we can do is press more on the cost side of the equation, which benefits everyone, including resulting in better health care. I will be working this year to encourage more use of the health care resources planning tools I developed and that were adopted in 2003 and have remained the foundation for a statewide planning perspective.
As we approach 2008, I continue to need your help and input. It is an honor to serve as your state representative, but your views – as assorted as they may be – are fundamental to shaping how I can best represent you and work on common goals. Get in touch any time via 485-6431 or counterp@tds.net, and the very best to you for 2008.