If Lt. Gov. Phil Scott has his way, legislative sessions will be over by April 1 — more than a month earlier than the one that just ended. Scott, a Republican candidate for governor, called Tuesday for shortening the four-month session to three months.
“I believe it forces the legislature to prioritize,” Scott said. “I believe it’s doable.”
Scott also called on the state to go from a one- to a two-year budgeting process and pledged not to write or approve a budget that increases spending more than the economy grows in a given year. The Democrat-controlled legislature just approved a $5.77 billion 2017 budget that increases general fund spending by nearly 4.8 percent.
All of Scott’s pledges pose challenges.
Scott noted that during each of the last 10 years, the state economy has grown less than 1 percent. Limiting state spending to that growth rate would require cutting some programs. Scott wasn’t ready to say Tuesday which programs should be cut.
“It’s about priorities,” he said. “I’m not saying it’s going to be easy to do.”
Asked what items would not make the priority list, Scott took the same kind of sidestep that Bruce Lisman, his rival for the Republican nomination, did earlier this year. Both were unwilling to name specific services.
Scott contended there surely are savings to be found in the growing Medicaid administration budget. But what specific item would he lop off when proposing a new budget next January? “If I start at this point before it’s fully vetted, everybody will focus on the cuts,” he said. “I’ll get more refined with this as the campaign goes on.”
A two-year budget cycle would improve planning and has worked well for the state capital project budget, he said.
One of Scott’s allies wasn’t so sure that would work for the overall state budget. Vermont used to have a two-year budget cycle, said former Republican governor Jim Douglas, a Scott supporter. “It was abandoned because, frankly, the legislature found themselves amending the budget so much in the interim,” Douglas said.
And would the House and Senate agree to a shorter session, during which they would earn less pay and have less time to work on bills?
Scott contended more people would be able to run for the legislature if the time commitment was reduced. Some debates could be shorter, he said.
This year, lawmakers discussed legalizing marijuana for four months before the legislation failed. Had that debate gone just three months, he said, “I don’t know that the outcome would have been any different.”
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!
Phil Scott in short: I’m going to promise to rein in spending, but I’m not going to tell you before the election the programs I’d have to cut to do that because it would cost me votes.
(And if I’m going to be Governor, I don’t want that pesky legislature around to keep an eye on what I’m doing.)
You’d think that after collecting a salary as Lieutenant Governor for the past 5+ years, he might manage to take an actual stance on something… anything.
Well, something has to change.
@ terjeananderson:
You’re wrong. Just for one thing, for years Phil’s been saying that Vermont should shut down the failed Vermont Health Connect program and switch to the federal website. That could have saved hundreds of millions of dollars. But the Governor’s stubborn pride wouldn’t let him do that. And the Democratic enablers in the legislature refused to force Shumlin’s hand on the issue — for no good reason other than misplaced loyalty to a Democratic governor, regardless of how foolish it was to continue throwing good money after bad.
BTW, there never, ever, ever was any good reason for tiny Vermont to have its own separate website for the Affordable Care Act. That was done for one reason and one reason alone: because Shumlin wanted to use it as a portal for his Vermont go-it-alone single payer healthcare system, and bask in the glory of being the first Governor to enact single payer. All for the glory of Shumlin. But even after he belatedly admitted that Vermont couldn’t afford go-it-alone singer payer, he refused to accept the obvious and shut down the crappy, nonfunctioning VHC website. Everyone knew that the emperor had no clothes on this issue but the Democrats refused to admit it.
If only for his stand against continuing to throw money at VHC, Scott should be elected.