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Political notes from Free Press staff writers Terri Hallenbeck, Sam Hemingway and Nancy Remsen


1.22.2008

 

Budget guidelines

Later today, Gov. Jim Douglas will deliver his 2008 budget address. He has already suggested that this has been the most difficult of the six budgets he has prepared since becoming governor in 2003.

When Douglas first took office, the state and nation were emerging from an economic downturn. In his premier budget address, the governor outlined the principles that guided the decisions in his spending plan. They are likely the same principles he has used in 2008. Here’s what he said:

  • First, government must live within its means because every dollar we spend beyond our capacity to pay is a dollar that must be repaid by our children.
  • Second, government will fulfill its commitment to the neediest Vermonters because a society is judged by how it treats the most vulnerable.
  • Third, we should not dip even further into the pockets of struggling taxpayers.
  • Fourth, sacrifice must be shared broadly so that no one is asked to carry an undue burden.
  • Finally, the most direct route back to prosperity is to invest in Vermonters' education, skills and aspirations.

He concluded by saying, "My budget lives up to these principles and any budget that arrives on my desk for signature must as well."

Expect the same message from Douglas today. He obviously will promise no new taxes. He will propose money for job training and telecommunications -- investments designed to help reverse any economic downturn.

The question is who will feel the pain as the budget belt tightens elsewhere? We'll see soon, assuming it is obvious.

-- Nancy Remsen


Comments:
"Third, we should not dip even further into the pockets of struggling taxpayers."

What if you are not struggling?

Doesn't this imply that all taxpayers must struggle?
 
Life is a struggle. Everyone struggles.

Thus:

"struggling taxpayers" is redundant.
 
Or

We'll tax you until you struggle.
 
I'm not struggling.
 
"We'll tax you until you struggle."

Look out capital gains folks! You ain't struggling, but by god you're going to.
 
Why doesn't Douglas lead by example and void the $6.3 million contract the Dept. of Taxation just signed with CGI Group (a Canadian company)? Put that savings towards property tax relief? The State's tax computers have been doing just fine. They can functionwithout an upgrade a little while longer or until we're back on solid economic footing.
The Douglas double standards should make all Vermonters very wary of any budget nonsense coming out of his mouth.
 
Yeah and Shrub will push for another tax cut which is basically the same as having everyone in the US take a cash advance on their credit cards.

And the economic growth that is supposed to pay back this money will actually occur over in China, Brazil, and India at the hands of so-called US companies..just like the last one.

And in the end, our debt will be greater and more of the US and the corporations that US citizens built will be owned by foreign investment.
 
I'd say its time to suck up some of that Iraqi oil.
 
Anonymous said...

"I'd say its time to suck up some of that Iraqi oil."

Yeah, that's gonna fly.

I say we stick the gops with the bill ship 'em to the Hague at gop expense where they can be, indicted, tried, convicted, sentenced and executed as the War Criminal Scum the are.

That would dramatically increase the chances of getting some International Financial Support for the Clean Up of the mess these clowns have made of things after that's outta the way and we've put shrubco out of the World's Collective Misery.

Think of it as the Coalition of the Willing to rid the world of the clueless cretins who got us into this mess in the first place.
 
Gee, and I thought we had a dimocrat US House and Senate! Oh, bye the way - where are all of those liberals that screamed bloody murder because the poor, irresponsible credit risks couldn't get home loans subsidized by the people that actually pay their loans back? You know, the "subprimes"? (That's not a rock group, jw)
 
AWESOME! JW HAS A NEW POST!!

I'm excited to spend the next ten minutes reading what he has to say!!

Oops ... nope, my mistake ... I actually don't give a damn.
 
jw has lots of new posts but they all say the same thing. At least he could come up with the "proof" (known only to him)that JFK was to immediately end the Vietnam War. The world awaits. On another matter - jw blames all of the country's ills on the people that believe in free enterprise, limited government, law enforcement, national defense, etc. If this is true then why does the state with the complete opposites running the show for most of the last 20 years or so have such a dismal economy, infrastructure, taxation, job loss, etc?
 
here's a news flash for ya bubba:

You don't make any more sense than JW.

I swear that the two of you must have fallen out of the same idiot tree.
 
jw - depression started from the effects of the 1929 market crash, you idiot! How could I have said the dimocrats started it? You are SO stupid. And no one said Roosevelt started WWII to END the depression - but that is what DID happen, fool! (There is a train of thought that FDR goaded the Japs into attacking us, and the same for Germany because of our support for England). If I'm over you're head, let me know.
 
Ah, yes. jw has had another busy little day!
 
"Ah, yes. jw has had another busy little day!"

Apparently Tuesday's are his day off from the ice cream store.
 
"How could I have said the dimocrats started it? "

He never said you did.

did you even read it?
 
...not struggling yet...

common' Jimmy D, give me your best shot
 
common=come'on
 
"Any Dem with a pulse could do better than the schmuck fest you gops keep trottin' out over the past 40 years. "

Please offer proof of this statement or join the ranks of your fellow nitwits.
 
Anonymous said...


"Please offer proof of this statement or join the ranks of your fellow nitwits."

In other words, the likes of you.

Thanks anyway, I'll pass.
 
jw - can you open your mouth WITHOUT putting your foot in it? Your mouth seems to work faster than what passes for a brain, however small it must be. Try backing some of your lib-poop with facts once in a while and maybe then some of the kids in pre-school may start talking to you.
 
bubba and JW were born together.

Two morons in a moron pod.
 
bubba said...

"jw - can you open your mouth WITHOUT putting your foot in it?"

Ya mean like this clown, bubble boy?

"As anyone with even a brain the size of jw should know, the only thing Roosevelt did to get us out of the great depression was WWII. Things were as bad in 1941 as they were in 1932, but the war against countries posing absolutely no threat to us bailed out the U.S. and gave us a booming economy."


"Try backing some of your lib-poop with facts once in a while and maybe then some of the kids in pre-school may start talking to you."

Ya mean like this clown, bubble boy?

"...Things were as bad in 1941 as they were in 1932, but the war against countries posing absolutely no threat to us bailed out the U.S. and gave us a booming economy."

That's what I thought.

Like I told your little Brokebrain Mountain buddy, I see enough of you clowns here as it is.

Nice talkin' to ya.
 
In other words, ya got bupkis, little anonymous fact-free fella.

Always a pleasure.
 
"JWCoop10 said...
In other words, ya got bupkis, little anonymous fact-free fella.

Always a pleasure"


Did I just hear the rumblings of Mr. "I have no proof" Coop?

Go away little man. Your act is old and trite. Yawn.

Please go back to the playground where you came from.
 
God, now we have a jw CLONE! Hard to believe there are TWIN idiots, guess he/she must be part of jw's double-secret-he-man-club.
 
"...he/she must be part of jw's double-secret-he-man-club."

Bubba, you make me laugh... glad your back.
 
"glad your back"

Another uneducated Bubba supporter weighs in, using the incorrect form of "you're."
 
Thanks for the grammar check. I am sure you never had a typo. Even JW has been known to have one every now and then.

Do you have anything of substance to offer us uneducated folks or just more dribble?

And by the way, I am still glad Bubba is back.
 
This comment has been removed by the author.
 
It's "drivel," not "dribble."
 
It's "drivel," not "dribble."

Thaks School Marm but with JW it dribble...foaming at the mouth, down his cheek, on his shirt and on and on and on.
 
It's both with you, little anonymous fact-free fell.

Always a pleasure.
 
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