An open letter to my "Progressive" Governor:

Dear Governor Shumlin:

Gutting welfare is not progressive. Refusing to raise taxes on the wealthy is not progressive. Raising the gas tax by 9 cents a gallon in a state where the working poor already spend an inordinate amount of their income to get to and from work, is not progressive.

It's not enough to be progressive on the environment or provide health care for all Vermonters- something you have steadfastly refused to come up with a funding mechanism for. If your fiscal policies target poor Vermonters as the place to squeeze the budget, you are not a progressive no matter how many times you call yourself that.

Fortunately for poor Vermonters, there are allies in the state house, including House Speaker Shap Smith and Progressive Party Senate Finance Committee Chair, Tim Ashe.

The Progressive Party issued this statement recently:

This is the most regressive tax proposal to come out of any Governor’s office, Republican or Democrat, in recent memory.

- See more at: http://www.progressiveparty.org/blog/2013/shumlin-s-new-tax-low-income-working-vermonters#sthash.HJPhamwc.dpuf

Progressive Party Representative Chris Pearson recently described you as a democrat with progressive ideals and tea party funding schemes. I'll part ways with him:

Nothing is less progressive than screwing the poor.

Sincerely,





It all began with the governor’s second inaugural address, during which Shumlin pitched paying for the expanded childcare subsidies by cutting $17 million from the state’s $26 million match to the federal Earned Income Tax Credit. Last year, that program provided some 44,000 working Vermonters with a tax break or lump-sum check.

Progressives pounced. Republicans panned the plan. And, most troubling for a governor facing a Democrat-dominated legislature, House Speaker Shap Smith (D-Morrisville) said he had “strong” reservations about the funding scheme.

Nevertheless, Shumlin doubled down on the plan two weeks later in his budget address to the legislature. Further inflaming liberals, he used Reagan-esque, welfare-slamming language to propose capping Reach Up benefits to the most vulnerable Vermonters at three consecutive — and five total — years.

That, he said, would save the state $6 million and, better yet, force those bums to get a damn job.

Legislators weren’t exactly overjoyed.

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MONTPELIER — The state of Maine last year imposed the same 60-month cap on welfare benefits that Gov. Peter Shumlin wants to institute in Vermont. But advocates say a new study tracking Maine families impacted by the time limits confirms their worst fears about what the policy change would do to poor Vermonters.

Shumlin’s attempts at welfare reform this year include new lifetime limits on eligibility for a program called “Temporary Assistance for Needy Families” or TANF. Also known as “Reach Up,” the program aims to cover about half the “basic needs” — food, clothing, shelter — for families and individuals living in poverty.

Chris Curtis, staff attorney at Vermont Legal Aid, is among the low-income advocates urging lawmakers to reject the Democratic governor’s proposal. He said a new study out of the University of Maine shows just how devastating the cuts would be.

<snip>

The median monthly income of families that lost assistance was $260, or $3,120 per year — less than 20 percent of the federal poverty level.

Nearly 70 percent had visited a food bank, more than one-third had their phone, gas or electricity shut off, and another 17 percent reported running out of heating fuel. Nearly 15 percent of families surveyed were either evicted or lost their homes, and more than 9 percent ended up in homeless shelters.

http://www.timesargus.com/article/20130303/THISJUSTIN/703039904

In his quest to reshape Vermont’s social safety net on a shoestring budget, Gov. Peter Shumlin has enlisted an unlikely pitchman: Agency of Human Services Secretary Doug Racine.

Unlikely because, for much of the three decades he’s been in the public eye, Racine has fought against just the kind of cuts Shumlin is now proposing.

When the two competed against one another in 2010’s five-way Democratic gubernatorial primary, Racine distinguished himself from Shumlin by focusing on poverty and promising to raise taxes before cutting services to the working poor.

Now some advocates for low-income Vermonters say that by carrying out Shumlin’s budget priorities, Racine is enabling his former rival to do just the opposite.

<snip>

http://www.7dvt.com/2013compassionate-or-compromised-doug-racine-sells-shumlins-welfare-cuts