Schedule for February 2010

    “We have a revenue crisis not a budget crisis,” Dawn Stranger of the Vermont Workers’ Center told the crowd. Stranger said the state should use the rainy day funds, raise the capital gains tax, currently at 15 percent, and increase income taxes on the wealthy to make up the revenue shortfall instead of cutting services and jobs.

    “State jobs are good middle class jobs,” Stranger said. “We shouldn’t be cutting these jobs.”

    An employee of the local Dept. of Labor (DOL) office, who did not give her name, said that her office had been cut to just a handful of workers from an original staff of 21. It’s her job to help other people find jobs, yet she said, “I am one of the workers that might be cut.”

    The governor, she said, has argued that technology can do what DOL staffers can do. But not everyone is computer literate and not everyone is able to draft a resume and upload it to the Web, she pointed out. In addition, another attendee said, people who are unemployed often have to give up non-essentials such as Internet access.

    John Fitzgerald, a member of Next Step Self-Advocates, an organization through which the disabled advocate on their own behalf, said he was not happy about the cuts. He has lost services, as have other members of the group. “I think Jim Douglas should rethink what he’s doing,” Fitzgerald said, adding, “It’s time for Jim Douglas… to do what’s right for people with disabilities.”

    Jim Richardson, a retired state worker, defended the governor, saying, “It’s painful for Jim if he has to make cuts.” Richardson pointed out that bonding agencies frown on small states like Vermont borrowing money.

    Vermont is the only state that does not legally require a balanced budget, but it has a long tradition of balancing budgets, while other states have an equally long tradition of ignoring balanced budget requirements.

    Larry Trombley, a teacher at Bellows Free Academy, St. Albans, and head of the school’s union, criticized the governor’s method of handling the crisis. Douglas’s office issues edicts instead of speaking with legislators, Trombley said. Facing a similar crisis, the late Republican governor Richard Snelling reached out to Democrats and created a temporary increase in income taxes, Trombley said.

    “There is no reason why we can’t have a governor who listens to us,” Trombley said.

    Trombley also supported Stranger’s position on raising taxes on the wealthy, pointing out that during World War II the wealthy were paying taxes of more than 90 percent and during the Vietnam War the richest Americans had a tax rate of 77 percent. We are currently fighting two wars, Trombley observed, yet the wealthy are paying fewer taxes than ever before.

    “The people who are most able to pay more should in hard times,” Trombley said.

    Sara Osaba of Burlington, who was in St. Albans to bring her daughter to ballet lessons, said that she picks up two women from an emergency shelter in Burlington every morning when the shelter closes and takes them to the multi-generational center. At 2 p.m., when the center closes she picks them up again and drives them to the mall so they can be somewhere warm until the shelter opens at 7 p.m.

    The homeless women have disabilities and one of them is 73 years old, Osaba said. They receive assistance from multiple state agencies, yet no one seemed to be able to solve the problem of how to get them somewhere warm and safe during the day, according to Osaba.

    “It’s just crazy, what I’m seeing,” Osaba said.

    Osaba, who works in a school, was also critical of the governor’s plan to level fund education. “It seems so nearsighted. You have to look long term,” she said, suggesting that first the state look at what happened in other states that cut funding for education.

    Foster parent Mariah Murphy expressed concern about cuts to health care funding. Foster children often arrive in foster homes needing health care, and their needs extent beyond check-ups and immunizations to counseling and other services, Murphy explained.

    Linda Ryan, director of Samaritan House, said that all of the state’s homeless shelters are full, and moving people into permanent housing is increasingly challenging. The state has a five-year waiting list for Title 8 housing assistance.

    The St. Albans vigil was one of several protests across the state that drew hundreds of people.

    Douglas met with President Obama (see story page 3) yesterday, where he came out in support of the President’s proposed stimulus package.

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