WE'RE BACK? DON'T BE TOO SURE

Congratulations! This is one New Year's resolution kept: publishing the Dwinell Political Report in 2008. Now, about those extra hundred pounds...

THE ARGUMENT

Governor Jim Douglas (R) tours the state listening to Vermonters. To make Vermont work, he hears, we must lower the tax burden, improve the permitting process, provide affordable housing, reduce the never ending medical cost increases, and provide better job training.

Speaker Gaye Symington (D) tours the state listening to Vermonters. Vermont works, she is told, because of its quality of life, our sense of community, the strength of our educational resources, and our size. And it can work better if Vermont develops a strategy which is grounded in our unique strengths and challenges.

BUILDING A SOCIETY

The Republican Party generally believes that in order to build a better society, government must enable its citizens. The Democratic Party generally believes that, for building a better society, it is essential to allow government to be the builder.

In Vermont it is clear that the Democrats rule, with the exception of Jim Douglas. They control all three seats in the congressional delegation and both houses of the legislature.

TO DENY

In Vermont it is not just that the Democrats believe that the government is the answer, it further has created and promoted institutions for the people who are the un-enablers.

Take almost any business proposition; real estate development, communications development, highway development, or general economic development. The Act 250 development review process was enacted during the last era of common sense, the Governor Deane Davis years. The original law could have been printed on two pages. Today the governing rules for Act 250 are about two inches thick.

Richard Pipes is quoted as saying, "The decisive factor is human will." And in Vermont there is much more "will" to stop development than to develop; there are many easier places to risk your money and time.

Act 250 envisioned allowing concerned citizens a voice in local development. Over time, this participation has turned into a stop development movement. The movement uses the newer rules such as those governing prime agricultural soils and view sheds to stop needed community projects just because they can.

INCREASING YOUR MEDICAL COSTS

One example is the Southwestern Medical Center's plan for a senior medical facility in Bennington. While everyone agreed that the land proposed for the facility would never in fact be farmed, it was to be built on prime agricultural soils. And thus it was not built and the Southwest Medical Center lost nearly $2,000,000 in planning costs.

INCREASING YOUR HOUSING COSTS

A more recent example is the Morgan Meadows housing project in Windsor. Black Dog Realty, the developer, worked for over three years to obtain an Act 250 and related permits. The town of Windsor supported the project but the NIMBY's did not. The project was already hobbled by an "interstate view shed" rule and density objections thereby reducing his proposed units from 120 to 90, and by a requirement to provide twenty "workforce" units, defined as units for folks with no more than twenty percent greater than median income. Obviously with these restrictions, the expected price per unit has jumped considerably. But finally Black Dog received its Act 250 permit, only to have it appealed by Jim Douglas' Agricultural Agency on the basis of prime agricultural soils.

MINDING THE STORE?

When asked, Douglas, an advocate for special permit mitigations for affordable housing as part of his new neighborhoods program, had no clue that his own agency had just appealed the permit.

Expert testimony before the Act 250 commission agreed that there were some prime agricultural soils on the site, but that they were not contiguous, thereby making the land uneconomical to farm. But this was not good enough for Douglas' Ag Agency. Just when you think that maybe there is a friendly voice in Montpelier, you find another un-enabler lurking.

HOW DID WE GET THIS WAY?

Pick your poison. There is the famous Playboy article in the early 70's about how the Woodstock generation was going to move to Vermont and take it over; then they did.

Or you can believe it was the trustfunder/ski bum invasion of the 1980's; how they too were coming to Vermont, a place where they could become involved, active in local affairs, and make a difference, and they did.

Or you can believe it was the natural reticence and taciturnity of the local population and its disregard for politics, in favor of letting somebody else tend to that, and they did.

Regardless, liberal activists became involved in school boards, planning commissions, local boards and commissions, the legislature, and statewide elective offices. And today, they rule.

TRAIL OF TEARS

Interstate Highway 95 to Florida could be called the trail of tears. Thousands of Vermonters trek down I-95, many happily, many sadly. The sad ones often take with them millions of dollars of earned income. But now, instead of feeling appreciated for organizing work, taking risks, preserving through the perils of competition and undercapitalization, to create jobs, sales, and profits, these Vermonters feel hounded out of Vermont by the engorged tax man, taking more and more of the reward they earned through toil and creativity.

CAPITALISM

In the capitalistic model, capital and labor are mobile. Florida has no income tax. To protect the nest egg, he/she sadly decamps to Florida. They take their money, they join a new community, they invest in their new community, they donate money to local causes, they serve on public boards and commissions, offering their experience and common sense to an appreciative community; and Vermont loses.

Some people can organize work, others cannot. As with John Galt from the novel "Atlas Shrugged", these Vermonters went on "strike" and left Vermont, only to create elsewhere. These golden geese were scared away by the fatted calf.

AND AWAY THEY GO

Vermont is an entrepreneurial society, by necessity. There are not enough great jobs here. To have one, you often have to create one, and in so doing, you create a business, invest money, employ people, and pay taxes. This is the niche in Vermont.

Once a business grows to a certain size, people find it hard to function in Vermont. Permits for expansion are difficult, very slow, and expensive. Needed expertise to grow a business is hard to find. You may make a good hire only to find that once that hire arrives they can't find an affordable house or the trailing spouse cannot find an appropriate job. Employers claim that some employees leave within ninety days. Necessary infrastructure is years from being available. Markets are far away necessitating travel, expensive and slow, and away from family, friends, and community.

Recently, a local company was purchased by a southern company. A new manager was sent. He came to Chittenden County with a $300,000 budget for a home, could not find one and ended up in a rented condo. But not for long.

In order to succeed in an increasingly competitive world, you may either move the business out of state or sell to an out of state company which will then relocate Vermont's jobs to its main company offices. There is little synergy in Vermont. You must then start once again, or pick up and move with your business. This is discouraging.

You look to invest your assets here in Vermont but everything is now hard. Instead of being an underdog, you are now a rich "overdog", ripe for picking. Opponents you never dreamed of appear on the scene. The tax man approaches; could death be far behind!!

Or you look at real estate, for example, and find that the prices have been bid up by people not from here, people who similarly invested as you did, but in a much larger market and thereby made much larger profits. Now the two of you are bidding for the same asset. They have lots more money as the velocity of transactions in their market netted them a much larger profit. In frustration, you may decide to move on.

GET A JOB

Before leaving, you look for a job. Most of the jobs on offer are now government related, not your thing. More jobs are offered in government, government supported education, government supported NGO's, and government supported health care, than in the private sector by far. And it occurs to you that this is why your taxes have grown, to support these growth "industries".

TO REVIEW

Vermont had struggled economically since the 1920's. During the Depression, many of the remaining hillside farms emptied; grain bills could not be paid, nor taxes. As the war ended, almost all of Vermont's thirty-five largest companies were owned by Vermonters. But when the war was over, many boys did not come home. Some were buried under rows of monuments, and others had seen greener pastures on the troop trains to the west coast and did not come home.

With the inheritors and middle management gone, by 1965 fewer than five of the largest companies were owned by Vermonters. It was a tremendous challenge for the younger folks of that era to build new businesses and for the government to attract new business. But as decimated at it was, Vermont in its own way was the China of its time. Al Moulton of Vermont's Development Department created "the beckoning country" ad campaign. Sacks of tear stained letters came over the transom from misplaced Vermonters just dying to return home, if only there was a job for them.

IBM, Ethan Allen, Waterbury Plastics and dozens more "foreign" companies built plants in Vermont. Home-grown industries began to grow once again. And the ski industry blossomed all over Vermont with the state government investing in access roads in Killington, Randolph, Bolton, Warren, and other towns. The Vermont Economic Development Authority was created providing bonded low cost funding. The Whey Authority was created to help the environment and farmers.

New ski areas attracted unscrupulous developers, subdividing hillsides in completely unregulated communities. Raw sewage seeped down hillsides, unprotected soils eroded into streams. Towns and cities were still dumping raw sewage into rivers and streams.

To the rescue rode the legislature and governor passing one environmental and development control law after another. And the rape of the land slowed, the streams and rivers were cleaned, and the air pollution slowed. And back came the fish, canoeists, and swimmers, long gone from many Vermont rivers.

The hippie generation created jobs with new niche businesses like Ben and Jerry's, Annie's, Vermont Castings, Earth's Best, and many micro brews. People were making skis, ski poles, bindings, parkas, sweaters, hats, ski pants, ski racks, snow chains, and snowshoes in nooks and crannies everywhere. Commercial cross country skiing started and grew here, ski lodges popped up like dandelions.

And a large tax base grew of ski areas, industries, shops, hotels, and second homes. New schools, municipal buildings, and highways were built.

GOVERNING ELITE

By the mid 80's a new governing elite had arrived. Bernie Sanders was mayor of Burlington, Madeline Kunin was governor, Howard Dean was lieutenant governor, and Ralph Wright was speaker.

Tax rates grew, deficits grew, rules and regulations grew, and Act 250 went from a few pages to inches thick of regulations. The circ highway was stopped. The promised Bennington bypass was shelved. A new Bolton I-89 exit was twice appropriated by the legislature, engineering was done, and economic feasibility studies trumpeted its value. And twice Governor Dean (D) refused to build it.

Thousands of acres of land available in Chittenden County for affordable housing were made inconvenient. Four Bolton Ski Area operators in a row lost millions of dollars of equity. The government which once built access roads to build the tax base refused to spend appropriated monies to stabilize and increase that tax base.

TAX BASE BURNS WHILST MONTPELIER FIDDLES

Here is a short story. During this same period while the legislature purloined the property tax from the towns, stopped logging without a permit, and took up the civil rights crusade of our times, a little known company called Pixel Magic, magically disappeared from Vermont's landscape. An essay in Vermont Business by Daniel Foty tells the story. Pixel Magic was a Massachusetts based company owned by a Silicon Valley company. They planned to open an integrated circuit design center in Chittenden County employing at the outset eight to ten top flight engineering types and grow from there. They advertised, recruited, and interviewed, but they could not find even three engineers with the required training, and left Vermont forever.

Annette Renaud of Essex Junction wrote Governor Douglas recently, "Spread the tax base before it is too late." We asked Douglas if he was worried about the shrinking tax base, and he said, "Yes."

THE TAX BASE IS AT RISK

In Essex they are very worried about their tax base as the IBM plant appraisal was recently lowered by $43,500,000 meaning that everyone else in Essex had to pony up more tax money to keep their school running. Really though, the IBM plant has no value, not the $104,000,000 it is now appraised at.

Below the ground at IBM the rumor has it there is a brownfields site, a site of Tetrachlorethylene (TCE), a particularly nasty carcinogen used in their early production. Small wells were drilled around the site, some of them yielded up basically pure TCE. The objective of the wells was to pump groundwater out to try to bring along as much TCE as possible and also to create back-flow to keep the TCE from leaching into the Winooski River.

Rumor also had it that Seimens was about the buy the site until they learned of the TCE underground, which suggests that the plant is not saleable and therefore has no value, maybe even a negative value. It appears they will be allowed to operate, but when they shutdown, they may have to clean the site, a very expensive task. It may be cheaper to operate, even at a loss, than to clean up.

An article in EE Times ("Used fab gear to flood market", Mark LaPedus, 01/10/2008) suggests that a shutdown may come sooner than later. "There is more bad news for the IC equipment industry; a glut of used and cheap gear is expected to flood the market. Based on analysis of probable fab closures, the availability of used equipment will grow from $300 million in 2007 to more than $8 billion in 2009."

Ethan Allen closed two plants, and halved another. Waterbury Plastics moved to China. IBM furloughed twenty-five percent of its staff. Some businesses just closed, others moved to new locations out of state, others sold out and disappeared from Vermont's economy.

Governor Kunin (D) was famously known to have said on touring the Northeast Kingdom, "We must preserve all this." A noble thought, but not to those who lived there. Maybe we would like a McDonalds, a video store, maybe a mall with a Starbucks they said. They have been working for over three years to land a Wal-Mart so as to avoid the 120 mile round trip to the Littleton, NH Wal-Mart. Governor Dean took the Champion lands, ending centuries of historic land use by Vermonters. Dean by edict said there would be no commercial activity at interstate exits and there wasn't.

RETIREMENT COMMUNITY

The Kunin/Dean years appeared to turn Vermont, outside of Chittenden County where they each lived, into a National Park, perfect for those who visit, retire, or have a bundle of unearned income, but harder for those who live and work here to prosper and grow.

Retired folks, loving the park, moved here in droves. Many invested in homes and volunteered time at the local library and other town services. But they did not organize work, build business, and create products, jobs, and services.

They did not want their retirement to be bothered by construction, roads, trucks, and development. Woodstock shut down its highway to trucks with 53 foot trailers, the industry standard. These people often joined the NIMBY class and became one with the people resisting almost any business growth activity in their communities.

Following the departed investor/builder class, many people in the opportunity ages of 25-40 viewed the playing field that was left and began leaving. By the time the Kunin/Dean years ended, the over-60 group became Vermont's fastest growing group, the 25-40 age group began to shrink; demographic changes which define Vermont as a failed state.

As Howard Dean's term as governor approached its close, the governor's chair was controlled by the new governing elite, as was, the senate pro tem, over ninety percent of the judiciary, over ninety percent of the media, most of the boards and commissions, and soon, the speaker's chair.

If native Vermonters were black, the United Nations Human Rights Commission would have set up shop in Montpelier saying that Vermont may not be colonized by white people. The white people may not take from the natives the media, the judiciary, and the state government. They might have created an affirmative action plan for the natives.

They might have followed President Yeltsin's decree: that foreigners would not be allowed bid on local property, as they clearly have most of the capital so clearly they could buy most of Russia, or in this case, Vermont.

# # END OF SIDEBAR # #

STOP WHINING

Hey, they worked harder, and they worked smarter. Douglas has had an opportunity to arrest the descent. But he has fiddled, been unclear about what he wants, and has initiated or gone along with the greatest expansion of Vermont's government, a increase in its employees in five years, during a period of unprecedented computer applications to reduce office work. We now have one of the highest figures for state employees per capita in the country.

ENDEARMENTS

For some, there are many endearments about Vermont.

We have the most beautiful hills, towns, and views. We have no billboards; it is quiet, crime free, and no visits from the president. We have small classrooms, lots of live theatres, newspapers, great restaurants, lots of tasty local food, great skiing, sailing, ice fishing, and snowmobiling. We have history, character, town squares, and archeological digs. We join groups, communities, and restore the past. We have unparalleled quality of life.

Hey, wait a minute. There are many, many places in the United States which had great quality of life; just ask them. Are we really that special?

Because we also have the weirdos, folks who pee in the aisles of planes, threaten to blow up planes, walk naked around Brattleboro attracting pedophiles, vote for impeachment, seek arrest warrants for the president and vice president, are working to be able to smoke marijuana without serious judicial consequence (while in the UK such a relaxation of the penalties increased the number of citizens in treatment by fifty percent), and a socialist United States senator. And we are the only state where the iPhone does not work; fewer electronic waves causing brain damage, hooray.

THE WAY WE WERE

Jim Douglas campaigned on the O'Neal Report, the $80,000 study completed at the end of the Dean/Kunin years on our business environment. He campaigned that Jim equals Jobs. But it seems that Jim has not read the O'Neal report lately. It concluded that there is no rational business reason for a person to move a business or start a business in Vermont.

In recent times the rational Vermont business community has voted with its feet: Omya of Proctor moved it headquarters to Ohio, Weidmann Technology of Saint Johnsbury is "unable to expand in Vermont" but did so in Switzerland, NSK Systems of Bennington is expanding in Tennessee, Neo EMS of Brandon moved its jobs to Texas, Qimonda of Williston moved its jobs to North Carolina, and MetroGroup of Rutland moved its jobs to Nebraska.

Do we smell bad?

Gaye Symington may not have read the O'Neal Report either as she believes that if we just say it's good, it's good. Maybe the pot law has already been adopted in the speaker's office.

Therefore Douglas goes off and spends money trying to attract "rational" businesses, though the O'Neal report says that they won't come. He uses VEPC bait but there really are few takers. At the recent Vermont Tiger Conference folks said that Douglas' high tech first e-state proposal was like suggesting that we need a "plan in order to zip our zipper." They commented that there are "green valleys" all over America and one is not going to grow here. They concluded that Governor Douglas has no viable vision/plan to put Vermont's economy on a growth/value track.

The state's economist Tom Kavat commented on public access television that the governor's plan to "bribe" kids to stay was foolish and unworkable, that kids have always gone, should go, and learn what the world is all about, and maybe, luckily, some may return.

THE OTHER WAY

Maybe an effort could be made to understand the success of the members of the Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility, and to try to attract similar people. We have built a socially responsible society in Vermont; one that puts the group ahead of the individual, one that believes in redistribution of wealth, and one that wants its government to be compassionate instead of fair.

Ask the Ben and Jerry's, or the Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, or the Magic Hats, or the Seventh Generation folks about an economic vision/plan. Maybe they are your best recruiters.

WE ARE THE BEST

Vermont has the nation's cleanest air, the smallest carbon footprint, smallest classrooms, the most libraries per capita, lowest student teacher ratios, highest spending per capita on primary and secondary education, the highest state college costs, college bound kids, most children with health insurance, the healthiest kids and adults, fewest uninsured people, the best energy efficiency program, the leading renewable energy state, the most patents per capita, the smartest state, the lowest foreclosure rate, the highest bond rating, the lowest rate of teenage repeat births, the third lowest alcohol related traffic fatalities, and the third least obese state. That's quite the list, but there is even more.

We have no death penalty, we are the only state capital without a McDonalds, insurance, Creameries, and health food stores all use the cooperative business model. There is a lot to be said for what all these values represent. We are only 620,000 souls out of 303,000,000 in the country. There must be doctors, dentists, nurses, pharmacists, and business people, all of whom are in high demand in Vermont, out in the real world who would be happy to drop everything and move to Vermont to pay higher taxes, be regulated, and be unappreciated by the ruling elite. And be part of our great communities, or not.

So put your money where your mouth is; go find fellow travellers, bring them here, with their money and skills sets so they can begin to organize work, create jobs, and get this state moving again.

WE WILL BE THE LUCKY ONES

That it has not worked elsewhere, ignore. This is Vermont, we are unique. Forget that Poland's new prime minister "promises a machete approach to eradicate Poland's fetish for regulation," that Austria sees "the key to improving the growth rate in innovation," that France will try to implement "free market muscle to the labor markets, cut spending, and reduce red tape." Forget Tony Blair's valedictory in the Economist, "The role of the state is changing. The state today needs to be enabling..."

Even from Cuba comes, "We have a system in which anything you do is either forbidden or compulsory. Perhaps we need to change that to become more efficient."

Our hero, Bernie Sanders, speaks that he is no longer a socialist in the Soviet Union mode, but in the democratic socialism mode of Sweden. But a recent New York Times article was about how "young Swedes who are 18 through 25 and are prepared to work hard" are migrating to Norway where the jobs are. Sweden's socialist economy has "started to stumble, and the vast welfare state has begun to show cracks." Swedes in Norway often live in "Swedish ghettos". Maybe if we are lucky, after the inevitable crash of the Vermont economy, we can get jobs in New Hampshire.

KEEP IT SIMPLE

Or, you could merely create a one-stop, 60-day permit shop. The tax base would grow, affordable housing would be built, the emigration of our builder class, the 20-40 year-olds, would stop.

THE HILL

Hillary Clinton, like Bill, has been running for president since birth. She is smart, articulate, and passionate. She began this campaign months ago. In one day she did four morning talk shows. At each stop she said, "You don't know who I am," as described by Elizabeth Kolbert in her article "The Lady Vanishes" in the New Yorker.

This was strange. After being in the public eye for decades, she began her presidential quest telling people that you don't know who I am. Why? We are not sure; so that she could turn on a dime when it suited her, and that would be okay as we did not really know who she was?

Knowing who you are was Ronald Reagan's gift. In the mid 80's you could ask a stranger on the streets of Timbuktu about a world issue or crisis, and ask that person what they thought Reagan would do. That person thousands of miles away in a totally different culture would have such a sense of who Reagan was that he/she could correctly guess what Reagan would do.

But not for Hillary. She ran on experience. Okay, but when the wave began to build for change, suddenly she was the real change agent in the race. And then she ran out her husband Bill just to prove that she was wrong. And of course he lied, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman..." Whoops wrong lie. He said that Obama had changed his positions on opposing the Iraq war.

Obama called Bill and they chatted. Obama told Bill he was wrong, Bill was contrite. And Bill went right out and kept repeating the lie. Politics ain't beanbag.

Can Obama ride the wave? It seems that the answer is no. When the spotlight shines on you, you best be perfect. Just then Obama slips and Hillary wallows in self pity which people mistake for her showing her soft side. A couple of dirty tricks guys shout, "iron our shirts!" Older women run to the polls and pulled the Hillary lever. And once again, Clinton is the comeback kid.

The experts missed the Iowa Obama vote. In an Iowa caucus, a candidate at each caucus must receive fifteen percent of the vote or his/her supporter must move to their second choice. Obama was the second choice of many; Hillary was the second choice of almost none. If Iowa had been a regular election, Obama and Hillary would probably have been about even.

THE BEAST WOKE UP

For years, decades, the question has been, "How can we engage the young people, when will they ever wake up and finally vote, participate, and not just watch, stay on the sidelines, and have a good time."

Well, they are back. First last summer in the Ukraine in an election about whether that country would go back under the domination of neighboring Russia, following the lead of the former Prime Minister Victor Yanukovych, or continue its movement towards the West. The youth turned out in big numbers and a close election allowed the movement towards the West to continue.

Then in Poland this fall, the Kaczynski twins, one as president and the other as prime minister, were moving the country backwards to a time of paranoia, regression, racism, and hatred. Again the youth turned out and turned out the prime minister. A new government is returning Poland to the path of reform.

In Venezuela in late fall, a referendum to make Hugo Chavez president for life was narrowly defeated, the defeat led by the students supported by King Juan Carlos of Spain who famously told Chavez, "Why don't you just shut up," a quote so loved that it became the answering message on over 2,000,000 cell phones in Spanish speaking countries within two weeks.

And early this year in Iowa, the young voters turned out once again to support Barack Obama. Will they continue to do so? Not in New Hampshire, the young voters read the polls and decided that they did not have to get out of bed; a big mistake.

A TRANSLATION

Jim Douglas addressed the legislature with his State of the State chat. He began describing our values, but forgot the constitutional "fundamental principles of adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, industry, and frugality," none in favor today.

He told us that we are "working harder than ever" forgetting those who cleared the land and built the stone walls. He praised his "largest jobs package in state's history...creating 12,000 new jobs," but didn't mention that we lost many more than 12,000 jobs and our labor force shrank by almost two percent, just disappeared, in the first eight months of last year. Jim does not equal jobs.

He said that our unemployment rate was below the national average. However, a study by Art Woolf, of the Vermont Economy newsletter, found that 6,800 workers just disappeared from Vermont during the first eight months of last year. And to date there are probably more. If they moved because they were jobless, our effective unemployment rate would be closer to six-percent, putting us in the basket case category.

He spoke with pride of the 1,700 new Catamount Health members but didn't tell us that these were created by an unprecedented and expensive marketing and publicity effort over more than a year, and that 1,700 was less than four percent of our uninsured. Folks are not exactly rushing in.

OVERREGULATED HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY

Already, Vermont has an over-regulated health care industry according to the Pacific Research Institute. In answering the question, how free are Americans to use health resources without state interference, Vermont is ranked 49th, Utah and Nebraska are one and two.

CURRENT USE HAS AN UPSIDE

»» Ken Johnson, Bristol: I enjoyed the latest issue online. However, I believe that the current use program is both more nuanced and more useful than you described.

Our family operates a sawmill in VT and we are fortunate enough to own some property, on which we have used good forestry practices for many years. The current use program is one of the primary reasons we can continue to own land in Vermont and keep it as timberland. The returns from timberland are modest and are slow to be realized. We often to not go back to a particular piece of land for 15 years. It is very difficult, perhaps impossible, to own land, harvest responsibly and pay taxes on the development value of that property. In the current depressed markets, this timber and the lumber from it also has to compete with lumber from Russia, obtained basically at the cost of a bribe. This competition lowers the return from the land even more.

You also neglected to mention that the program applies to parcels of 25 acres or larger, which makes possible ownership by more than just the "upper class". If you look at the ownership of 25 acre and larger parcels, I'm confident you would find a diverse ownership.

One thing the Current Use program does is require harvesting, but it is not a certification program. There is a proposal afloat to eliminate the harvest requirement. If that change occurs, some of the private land that is available for harvest will pass into ownership that does not feel any need to harvest. That may just be the nail in the coffin for the sawmills, since environmental groups, among others, will have an avenue to own property and not harvest. That change would truly by the one you fear, making forest ownership much more an option for those with no concept of a rural economy.

So, please cut the Current Use program some slack, as it gives us a chance to manage our property responsibly and afford to continue to own it. That helps keep some of the forest everyone enjoys looking at in private, responsible ownership and providing forest products for everyone.

THEY LIKE US

»» Sandy Albright, Jeffersonville: Having not received one of your edifying and wonderful posts for several months, I am writing to check in and to let you know that you are missed. I hope you and your family are well and that you have a wonderful New Year.

»» Dave Usher, Colchester: Your insights are so well captured in your punchy writing style! I enjoy your work.

ARGUMENT

"A liberal is one who won't take his own side in an argument." --Robert Frost

THE LAST VERMONTER

"You know the real reason why I voted against the seat belt enforcement law? Because when you are road hunting, and buckled in and drinking a beer, it is next to impossible to grab your rifle and get a shot off if you see a deer." --Unnamed legislator, The Chronicle, April 25, 2007

THE CURRENT VERMONTER

"I was pursued not by bigots in white robes, but by left-wing zealots draped in flowing sanctimony." --Clarence Thomas, "My Grandfather's Son"

KIDS

"Barack Obama has won the Iowa caucuses. You'd have to have a heart of stone not to feel moved by this. An African-American man wins a closely fought campaign in a pivotal state. He beats two strong opponents, including the mighty Clinton machine. He does it in a system that favors rural voters. He does it by getting young voters to come out to the caucuses" --David Brooks, New York Times, January 5, 2008.

ADULTS

"They may be surprised to find that what you get from a goose when you squeeze it too hard is not necessarily golden eggs." An old frustrated Vermonter.

SELL THAT LOTTERY

"Scratch-off tickets are to the lottery what crack is to cocaine." --Eliot Shapleigh, Texas state senator.

TESTIMONY, Internet babble

1) Back off and let those men who want to marry men, marry men.
2) Allow those women who want to marry women, marry women.
3) Allow those folks who want to abort their babies to abort their babies.
4) In three generations, there will be no Democrats.
5) Man - I love it when a plan comes together.

Do you enjoy the Dwinell Political Report? Think of a voluntary subscription. For $25, you can receive the newsletter for a year and help offset the costs of production. Make checks payable to JDLS Publishing, LLC and mail to 610 Mason Road, Randolph, VT 05060.

The Dwinell Political Report is published weekly by JDLS Publishing, LLC.
Portions of the Dwinell Political Report may be reprinted with attribution.

Contact the Editor with news & comments at: dwinell@comcast.net or 802.728.4793

The mission of the Dwinell Political Report is to give readers another view of the news that is refreshing, provocative and sometimes irreverent.