Here are twelve salient questions and straightforward answers about the workings of the Affordable Heat Act (S.5) now moving toward the Senate floor.

It turns out the real long-term cost of The Affordable Heat Act, S.5, proposed by the Natural Resources and Energy Committee is $5 billion dollars over a 5-year period as demonstrated in a detailed financial analysis by the Ethan Allen Institute.  Most of that cost will be on the backs of low- and moderate-income Vermonters who will pay for it through increased fuel costs in the range of $5 per gallon.  Worse, hoped-for long-term energy savings will not occur.

The frightening prospect of having to tuition pupils to parent-chosen sectarian schools has motivated the “Education Equity Alliance”, formerly known as the Public Education Blob, to demand passage of S.66, to exterminate tuitioning altogether.

The newly elected super-majority Democratic House and Senate are working at flank speed to pass the majority’s agenda, that Gov. Scott has no power to veto. Here are seven leading issues. There will be more.

For over 40 years Sen. Bobby Starr has battled to get state or federal governments to set and enforce over-order (premium) prices paid to dairy farmers. His latest bill is a “hidden milk tax” that consumers would pay, but never know why.

Last year H.715, an act relating to the Clean Heat Standard, which would have mandated that fossil-based heating fuel dealers pay a carbon-based “credit” fee for selling their products, was vetoed by Gov. Phil Scott and that veto was sustained by one vote (99-51) in the state House of Representatives. Democrats and Progressives are hoping that newly elected supermajorities in both the House and Senate, along with a new name for what is essentially a carbon tax on home heating fuels, will ensure that that the Clean Heat Standard will become law this year.

Disreputable politicians all too often assign deceptive labels to legislation to mislead voters who don’t pay close attention. A deplorable example of such mislabeling is the forthcoming Affordable Heating Act.

For over 150 years, Vermont has operated the most equitable and dynamic school choice program in the nation. Any parents of any children in towns/districts that do not have a public school (some 90 Vermont towns) can choose any public or approved independent school to send their child with an amount of money following the child that is competitive with, if less than, the cost to educate that child in the public school system.

One day in 1903 a police officer in Rutland accosted Andrew Rosenthal. We don’t know why he was accosted – whether he was in the act of committing a crime or otherwise attracted attention. In any case he was arrested and cited for “carrying a pistol loaded with powder and bullets, concealed on his person” without written permission from the mayor or chief of police, in violation of a city gun control ordinance.