When Clear Language is not Enough
Each year as we return to Montpelier, we discover that laws we worked hard to draft in recent sessions are being ignored or subverted by the administration. One of the most frustrating areas is the promulgation of regulations to implement a new law. It is the legislature’s job to write policy; the administration develops the detailed rules to make it work. Part of the mandatory review process for the proposed rules is analysis by a legislative committee to assure that the rules are consistent with the intent of the underlying law. This is where differing agendas of the legislature and the Governor can come into conflict. Sometimes the rules seem to go beyond the scope of the new law intended by the legislature.
Usually any debate about “legislative intent” focuses on language that can be read in more than one way. But this year the Human Services Committee has discovered that even clear and express language can be ignored. In the lengthy committee debate on the Prescription Monitoring Bill passed in 2006, we consistently resisted administration requests to make information generally available to law enforcement. Finally, as a compromise, the committee agreed to one exception allowing the commissioner of health, personally, to communicate with the commissioner of public safety, personally, in a very limited circumstance. Despite our clear words, the proposed regulations include a list of public safety employees to whom the information can be given. The committee was speechless as administration officials baldly asserted that they believed their language “met legislative intent.”
This clear overreaching by the administration must be viewed in the context of the well-publicized “raid” on pharmacy records last month. The attempted raid was based on a 40-year-old statute that is part of the law regulating pharmacies, and the time has come to repeal that law.
Revenue Forecast - the Rich Get Richer
On Friday the House of Representatives was presented our state fiscal situation. It ain’t pretty. Clearly, our economic scenario is tied to the overall U.S. economy, where a slowdown and likely recession seem eminent.
There were some particularly interesting statistics with respect to who has been “winning” and who has been “losing.” (http://www.leg.state.vt.us/jfo/State%20Forecasts/2008-%20January%20Forecast.pdf)
Page 16 is critical. The graph shows the percent change in adjusted gross income for Vermonters by income class from 2002 to 2006. For those few Vermonters making over $1,000,000 per year, their income has grown 287%. For those earning less than $60,000, income changed by either a loss of 9.2% or a small gain of up to 4.6%.
When the Governor talks about affordability, he gets the problem right. Under his leadership, though, most of us have had negligible growth, except that those in the high end. Still, Douglas wants to offer those at the top a tax cut instead of looking to them to maintain state government. Faced with similar economic trends, the last Republican to hold the Governor’s office, Gov. Snelling said, “You do what you need to do. You don’t waste money in good times and you don’t under-nourish the family in bad times.” So much for responsible conservatives.
The overall picture was the same nationwide - while average income has been flat and many indicators are not poor, the business world was seeing some of their biggest profit margins in the last 30 years. Shareholders who already have enough money to invest are doing very well right now. Meanwhile, the average person is falling farther and farther behind.
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Get involved and change the future of our great state! Email me at Jeremy.Ayotte@jsc.edu