Newport Daily Express - Opinions/Columnists

Put Their Feet to the Fire

Thursday, 09 September 2010
By John McClaughry The primaries are over and the winning candidates are now in their final run toward Election Day (November 2). Now is the time that citizens concerned about the state's future can pin down those candidates on their positions on key issues they'll face in the forthcoming legislative session. Bear in mind that candidates do not want to be pinned down. Their natural tendency is to evade, sidestep, mislead, and obscure. The trick to pinning down candidates is to ask straightforward, informed questions that minimize the candidate's opportunity to squirm out of a commitment. (Getting answers in writing, or declared before witnesses, is also very valuable.) Here are twelve questions that may be useful. 1. The Vermont income tax now has a top bracket of 8.95%, applied on taxable incomes in excess of $336,550. To what level, if any, would you vote to increase that rate to raise more revenues from the wealthy? 2. The 2011 legislature will vote on whether to allow the Public Service Board to issue a certificate of public good to allow the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant to continue to operate after 2012. Will you vote to allow the PSB to make this determination? Or will you vote to prevent PSB consideration, and thus cause the shutdown of the plant, regardless of the cost and sources of the power needed to replace its 600 MW output? 3. For years some legislators have proposed that the government institute a single payer universal access health care system, where private health insurance and premiums are abolished, all Vermonters are entitled to the benefits of a government- designed taxpayer-financed health insurance plan, and the state compensates all health care providers out of such tax dollars as may be available for that purpose. Would you support creation of such a system? If so, which tax or taxes would you vote to raise to finance it?
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