It has been a quiet week in the Legislature in the aftermath of last week’s emotionally charged debates on the House floor about funding human services, raising taxes on providers and wealthy Vermonters and the historic universal health care bill.
As of tomorrow, all of the major legislation, including the capital and transportation bills, from the House will go to the Senate. The Senate Health and Welfare Committee has been reviewing H.202, the health care bill, line by line; the Senate Finance Committee continues to work on the omnibus telecommunications bill; Senate Economic Development is looking at the jobs bill.
In the House, lawmakers took up the transportation and capital bills for second reading all in one go on Thursday, and as expected, neither bill was significantly altered and both pieces of legislation are set for final approval Friday.
Read about the transportation bill.
After the House members went through the substance of the $154 million capital bill late in the afternoon on Thursday, the mood turned giddy when Rep. Duncan Kilmartin, R-Newport, began grilling a member of the House Corrections and Institutions Committee, Rep. Jason Lorber, D-Burlington, about the wisdom of converting single stall restrooms in state-owned buildings into “unisex” bathrooms.
A half-hour floor discussion ensued – the longest of the afternoon. Lorber explained that the sign on the door would simply say “bathroom,” instead of “women’s” or “men’s.” Kilmartin, in prosecutorial fashion, cross-examined Lorber about whether, for example, urinals would be located in the single-stall bathrooms. That could, indeed, be possible, according to Lorber, as the proposal is to change the wording on the door of the restroom – not the plumbing fixtures.
Rep. Francis “Topper” McFaun, R/D-Barre Town, chimed in with a concern that the state would begin constructing unisex bathrooms in state-owned buildings. Lorber said that was not the intent of the language in the bill.
“This is common sense,” Rep. Anne Donahue, R-Northfield, intoned. “You see in many places single-use, locked bathrooms. It’s silly to see women waiting for a ladies=only bathroom.”
McFaun noted that in the Statehouse, there is only one single-stall bathroom – in the House Speaker’s office. McFaun asked: “How are we going to accommodate single-stall bathrooms in the Statehouse?” To which, Shap Smith quipped, “Are you interrogating me?”
“I’m not going to get into that,” McFaun said. “The last time I did that I had to apologize.”
The discussion turned to what should be written on the doors in general, and then the speaker’s door in particular. Just what does the bathroom door in the Speaker’s office say? “It says ‘Speaker’s’,” came the reply. The floor erupted in laughter.
In Washington, House GOP continues to wield budget axe
The federal government is on the verge of another government shutdown next week because the continuing resolution in place is expected to expire on April 8 if the House GOP can’t strike a deal with the Senate. The House cut another $6 billion from the federal budget on March 24.
Funding for the Low-Income Heating Assistance Program, community health centers, Planned Parenthood, Headstart, the Community Service Block Grants that fund local community action groups and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, among many other programs are on the House GOP hit list.
Read VTDigger.org’s stories about how the federal budget cuts could affect Vermont programs:
Congressional cuts would cripple programs for the poor
Congressional proposal would gut Planned Parenthood.
On the chopping block: Community Service Block Grants
U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., described the cuts as the fiscal equivalent of Russian Roulette. He told the House Budget Committee on March 30 that it must put “everything on the table.”
It means defense has to be on the table, tax expenditures have to be on the table, means line items in the appropriations bill have to be on the table, and it means we cannot pay for wars on the credit card.
The way we’re going right now is that we’re trying to attack the problem to get 100 percent of the solution by focusing on 12 percent of the budget — the nondefense discretionary funding and it means the decisions being asked of Congress is to do such things as to cut low-income heating assistance, scholarships for students who want to get ahead, to cut back on economic development aid essential to our communities, to cut back on the community block grant. All of these are legitimate questions, but if the goal, if the goal of the committee is the stated goal, which is to restore fiscal solvency to this country, then the only way we can be successful is by putting every element of the budget on the table and that as I mentioned is entitlements, defense, tax expenditures.
The problem I have with it is: It will fail. It will fail in meeting the goals the majority states is its goal and that’s to restore fiscal stability to this country. It happens to be a goal I share. We have a chance of getting from here to there if we put everything on the table so that those tough choices we have to make … if we put everything on the table we have a chance of succeeding together. Everything is not on the table now and that is going to affect everything we do on the budget.
We are starting down a road of playing Russian Roulette with the American economy and we are on the brink of doing real damage. There are people in this body who are suggesting that we should stiff the American creditors of the American government by saying no on extending the debt limit. I believe that’s reckless and it’s irresponsible. It’s a politically loaded decision that will do great harm to this country. My view is we’ve got to acknowledge the obvious: America pays its bills. Extending the debt limit is not paying new obligations it’s about honoring past obligations. Some under Democratic administrations, some under Republican administrations. It’s true we have debates about what those budgets should be but those debates should be resolved in the budget. We should not use the debt limit ceiling as a hostage that is going to have real consequences, detrimental consequences to American families and American workers.
Why is it that we continue tax breaks for oil companies are doing well, a trillion dollars in profits in the past 10 years?
Why is it that Goldman Sachs paid 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it had a profit in of $2.3 billion and received, courtesy of the American taxpayer and the Federal Reserve in the form of subsidized interest rates, $800 billion?
Those sorts of distortions have to be part of our discussion.
Government Web portals to close as a result of federal cuts
Lost in the discussion of more well-established programs, is the elimination of a suite of Web portals that were introduced by the Obama administration to give citizens access to data sets produced by the government (Data.gov), including raw data and mapping (you can look at geospatial views of the BP Gulf oil spill on the site, for example).
On USASpending.gov, you can track expenditures on student and housing assistance. In addition, information about private contracts for the gulf oil spill, construction and research and development are also online.
The sites will disappear come May 31, when funding runs out, due to House GOP budget cuts.