Vermont House Overrides Douglas Veto

[Henry]

Vermont House Overrides Douglas Veto

House Democrats were able to override Gov. Jim Douglas' veto of the new state budget today in a dramatic showdown at the statehouse in Montpelier.

http://www.wptz.com/money/19631751/detail.html

[PotterFXFD]

 The House should think about what they are doing. Elections are always just around the corner. They should have taken the time to look at what had to be spent, what should be spent and what could wait to be spent. I find it hard to believe the budget could not have been trimmed a little.

 Every year I summit a budget to the selectboard for the fire department. The last two years they have asked use to make cuts, and we have. Both years it was to trim areas of the budget to make room so we could pay on new firetrucks. Crunching of numbers hurts but everyone is better for it in the long run.

[Jason Elledge]

The problem with raising taxes when revenues are slow is they are very rarely reversed when revenues are strong.  This tax layering has been going on for the last 30 years in Vermont which explains why we are always in the top 3 states for highest individual tax burden.  The short-term mindset that our legislature embraces only has damaging effects on Vermonters' financial health in the long run.  Maybe I shouldn't have refinanced my home mortgage today..........future affordability is gonna be very tough with the higher tax burden.  But, I am looking forward to letting my vote do the talking in the next election cycle!

[David Shea]

How effective is the governor with a super majority?

I have an idea... since the governor and his staff are completely ineffective in influencing policy with the current majority in the house and senate, he should issue himself and his staff pink slips.  Eliminating his salary & executive staff would provide a budget savings of about 1 Million.  The net revenue from the sale of related surplus property of staff vehicles would also generate revenue.

Just an "out of the box" idea. 

[edakrupp]

We could all sit around talking about, would haves, should haves and could haves, but what is done is done.

What irks me is that there were good things in both proposals, and bad things and I feel bad that a compromise could not have been met. It would have benefited us all.

What angers me the most is that it came down to party politics in the end. Not the people, or their best interests. Democrats had to defend their proposals and republicans theirs. It came down to in the end what party are you and do you stand with me or not?

Taxes hurt, Cuts hurt, Number crunching hurts, Growth hurts, but lets address the issues, in a non partisan manner and move forward thinking about the long term effects and focus on how we can generate a more fiscally responsible legislature, budget and personal life style. We need to get beyond party politics, grow up and get the job done while listening and thinking like logical human beings and not having to 'defend' or be forced to stand by some label.

[mirjo]

Voting out a rep in one party and voting in the other is nearly useless: the end result is the the same thing with the reverse party in power. Unfortunately, all anyone cares about is their political view on any subject when the reality is AND ALWAYS IS the best answer and politics: LISTEN UP REPUBLICANS & DEMOCRATS The best politics and solutions are always in the MIDDLE

If both parties would stop worrying about  who is better and realize that neither one is, we would all be much better off. The same is true for all the political arguing that people engage in. We've been led to believe that we live in some kind of Democracy, but do we? I dont see a whole lot of control exercised by the people. What I see is an out-of-control two party system where Democrats and Republicans reign supreme and use the rest of us as pawns in their game.

My question is why do we the people allow politics to be such a game if we have to much control? How did Montpelier/Washington get to be so out of control in the first place?
Does it really matter who is president? Because it seems no matter who is in the hot seat, he/she is going to do the wrong thing, make the wrong decision/spend too much/too little raise or lower taxes on the wrong people or spend $ rather than raise taxes or whatever. All of the guff is always going to come from the opposing party. IF someone other than Obama were voted in, McCain, Clinton revisted, or Joe the Plumber each of them would be facing the same issues now. I am certain that no matter what executive decisions each would make, it would not be  the right one by members and supporters of the opposing party! The same is true here. All the partisan BS about whose ideas are better has helped who? A lot of Douglas' ideas were not great, but what the Dems came up with isn't either. No one cares about the other side, it's ME ME ME.

Since this is not how we raise our children to be, how is it that we get politicians who are like this? Whatever happened to those things that were learned in Kindergarten? Listening to other's ideas, compromise, sharing, you are not the center of the Universe, consideration for the greater good? Although I think our officials are decent people in general and mean well, I think as a political party these basic principles fly out the window and the partisan politics monster takes over.

Peter Shumlin is not a bad guy and likely means well by his constituents, but I believe when it comes to the Governor, he is quite contentious. If it's not personal, then it's political. I think the two are just inclined to never agree.

I'm not a Rhode's Scholar or member of Mensa, but I have enough common sense to know that trying to get  200 or so people to agree on something either in Vt or in DC who are more interested in being right, than doing right is equivolent to nailing Jello to a tree. It just ain't gonna work.

I guess we can wait for the second coming of Christ to save us...oh yeah, that was billed as the Obama inauguration wasn't it? I feel bad for the guy, I think he is intelligent and likable, but I'm not sure DC or the love fest in the press is helping him any with this mess.

As for our own leader...I'm not altogether sure at this point. It's too bad we're held hostage by politics. It almost seems like the real terrorist threat to our nation are the POLITICAL PARTIES.

[edakrupp]

Her, Here, Well said. Next time I sit down with a bonifide politician, The first question i am going to ask them is to define the philosophies of the two parties and how they manifest themselves in our culture today. Let's see them wag their tails and tell me the same thing as their opponents!