Governance

The legislature allocated $100 million of YOUR tax dollars to lower the impact of the cost of living, the cost  of mental health care, health insurance, continue the funding of programs established with emergency, temporary, federal pandemic funds, and to pay a study group to study the footprint of public schools rather than allocate your money directly toward the cost of education. How does taking money from you through taxes (to help solve problems that were largely created by legislation) serve to lower the impact of your tax burden? 

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We need a more deliberative process and a shorter legislative session so that a wider variety of citizens can run for office. According to Chapter 2, Article 7 of the Vermont Constitution, the legislature is only required to meet biennially on odd years, and it used to meet for only about eight weeks. Some would say our issues today are more complex than fifty or one hundred years ago. I would argue that the heavy amount of legislation is what has complicated things. At the end of the 2024 legislative session, many bills were hurriedly passed. Even Governor Scott stated in the end of session press release that unintended consequences need to be considered before passing bills: https://governor.vermont.gov/press-release/transcript-governor-scott-details-his-approach-bills-coming-his-desk

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