In testimony provided to the Pension, Benefits, Design and Funding Task Force on September 9, Paul Cillo, President of the Public Assets Institute, came to testify about the “fiscal issues related to the state’s public employee pension systems.” He suggested that “it’s irresponsible to not raise revenue” to pay for the pension underfunding crisis. According to Cillo, “Many Vermonters at the top, with much greater amounts of discretionary income, still pay less as a percentage of their income in state and local taxes than their lower-income neighbors, according to a 50-state analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy” (a left-leaning think tank).

Here’s an outstanding example of how your government, in this case the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,  puts out deliberately misleading or false news about the terrors of climate change, and how Associated Press inflated it into a scare headline.

            The national debt is $28.43 trillion and rising steadily. Even at historically low interest rates, that can’t last forever, the Federal government is paying almost a billion dollars a day in interest on its debt. Social Security will run out of money to make promised payments in 2034. More seriously, The Medicare HI Fund will have to reduce expenditures by nine percent as early as 2026 – and two years earlier than that if Congress and President Biden enact the Sanders $3.5 trillion entitlement bill. What’s the remedy? At the very least, don’t make this worse.

At the September 2 meeting of the Cross Sector Mitigation subcommittee of the Climate Council, member Christine Donovan asked hired consultant David Hill a reasonable question, “If we have missed an important pathway [to decarbonization] or have been promoting a pathway that isn’t really a highly effective pathway for the state moving forward will you all be telling us that?”

The expected answer would, of course, be “Of course!” If there was some way to meet the carbon reduction benchmarks mandated in the law then one would expect the person you’re paying good taxpayer money to help find a solution to say so. Not so David Hill.

Citing the Delta variant, Vermont officials have extended universal masking for all K-12 students until early October (after which it applies to the unvaccinated). Though a mandate cannot be enforced absent a state of emergency, psychological and social pressures to ensure student compliance abound.

A few weeks ago, VTDigger reported that “since Irene hit Vermont Aug. 27, 2011, many have warned that climate change would make similar rain and floods more frequent, and the August storm appears to be an example of that.”

At the September 7 meeting of the Vermont Climate Council Steering Committee, member Chris Campany committed a bit of candor regarding the Global Warming Solutions Act. Discussing the goal of greenhouse gas emission reduction – which is the primary focus of the law – versus strengthening and modernizing infrastructure, Campany admitted, “We can go negative emissions tomorrow, and for everybody in Vermont we’re still going to be dealing with the same issues.”

Here’s a quick peek at what the Vermont Climate Council is planning to unload on us in a month, courtesy of Matt Cota of the Vermont Fuel Dealers Association.

The Vermont Climate Council continues its discussions about what they plan to do – or more accurately, what they are going to force YOU to do – in order to lower Vermont’s greenhouse gas emissions. During the September 2 meeting of the Cross Sector Mitigation subcommittee, talk turned to eliminating fossil fuel use for cooking, 100%, by 2035 (44 – 55 min mark). This means that if your home or restaurant uses gas for cooking today, you better start planning to rip that system out and replace it with electric.