I feel safe here in Vermont knowing our fiscal leaders, like Sens. Ancel, Bartlett and Ayer have a solid grip on reality.

Of course they do, that’s why Vermont’s shortfall isn’t $300,000,000.00 and growing.

We’re so lucky to have them!

New Mexico faces Medicaid Cuts!

Nearly one-in-four New Mexicans receives health care assistance from the state or federal government, including Medicare that covers older Americans and Medicaid that covers children, poor adults, and the disabled. Medicaid is New Mexico’s largest health care program and it accounts for 11% of state spending. New Mexico’s Medicaid program faces a budget shortfall of up to $300M in the next two years that will result in reductions in coverage, payments to providers, and/or services:

“Options range from reducing or eliminating benefits, such as dental care for poor adults, to lowering the reimbursement rates for doctors and other providers, according to New Mexico Human Services Secretary Pam Hyde. If drastic cost-cutting becomes necessary, she said, the state might need to scrap entire portions of Medicaid, such as a program to help low-income workers with insurance coverage, or revamp Medicaid to provide a minimum amount of services.

“We know there is going to be some cost containment. The only question is how much,” Hyde said in an interview last week.” [snip]

Reduced services, limits on payments to health care providers, onerous bureaucracy, and increased taxes … it could be a preview of ObamaCare.

What do you mean “COULD BE?”

According to the Wicked Witch of the West this is an American Right!
Unless of course it is an American wrong!

Here’s a flashback to the Ranter of the House talking about disruption. Great video from the”‘Naked Emperor”

Just ask Bernie about protest the one’s on the Left are GOOD. On the Right are an OUTRAGE! A UGE outrage.

The GOP in Vermont are RINO’s. Bibbed overall wearing hayseeds sitting on the curb, getting their toes run over by the left’s uncivil parade. The dope smoking granolas have more brains.

Think not? 6 years ago, the GOP let the Jackasses vote in their primary, elect a goof from Tunbridge who then dropped out saying “You da Man, Leahy.” The RINO’s mumbled, “Well you see, McMullen, well you know, he was, well from MA, a uh-ah,a carpetbagger, you know.”

What in hell is Sanders? He never held a productive job in his life and he bozoed a city to boot. That didn’t bother the Loony Left. That gave the sickle swinging Marxist Street Creds! Like Yo dude, like I shot that %*#@% city, yo dig!

Then the GOP went and found Martha Rainville, who turns out to be a closet Cap&Taxer. A gender based promotion over a Flag Officer to head the Vermont Guard might have tipped off the Vermont Republicans, EXCEPT, they’re all RINO’s, moderates, the types that believe we shouldn’t offend anyone. We rather lose and be liked.
No wonder there isn’t a GOP Congressman in all of New England!
This is akin to Tug of war where the GOP starts at the crossover line!

As that idiot Dr. Phil asks, “How’s that working out for you?”

According to the body count after the last election battle, not well! Veto overrides just for yuks.The legislature yukked it up with social engineering, meddling in family and church, instead of the state’s true prefecture, fiscal responsibility. (Damn, I know not to use those two words together in the same sentence in Vermont.)

So, whomever is heading up the Vermont Pachy Party this week, name the sacrificial corporate/income groups tossed in to the fiscal sinkhole in 2010. NEA or teachers can’t be touched. Neither can the parasites of the Vermont budget, the non-profit lampreys.
If they’re strong movers and shakers for humanity, corporate money donations flow their way simply for the tax write-off.
If not, let Sanders warmth and generosity pick them up; otherwise, they wither and die.

Bernie’s myrmidons run rampant through GOP rallies, disrupt meetings; meanwhile go to the Vermont Tiger and read the comments. One from someone exhorting all to be civil; he moved to Alabama, doesn’t care for Bernie’s  and Madlein’s social programs I guess. The link will take you these; I commented too.

The rules changed in the late ’60’s, Chicago Convention to be exact. The GOP didn’t react politically to the message. The Far Left has worked on this from the ’70’s forward, making strides in the early ’90’s, moved too soon, and came back in 2000. It doesn’t take many to steal elections at grassroots level. Obama intends to control the Census; what do you think that is going to do to Congressional Districts and the Electoral College?

How many of you know who the 3%’ers were? Go find out; you’ll be shocked! But this is what is happened to the GOP/RINO Party. I don’t belong to it; I don’t have a dog in this fight except to try and pick off the moderates and replace them with Libertarians. Not the dope smoking type, the fiscal conservative, non-social engineering individuals.

Then,

can someone explain just what in hell the GOP is thinking?

Warning over US cash-for-clunkers scheme

The popular US cash-for-clunkers programme may be drawing money from other consumer purchases and could also undermine future car sales, US economists have warned.

Add these payments to the monthly budget and we see how retail spending shapes up for the next 1½ years.
Layoffs, foreclosures and bankruptcies are rising still and forecast to continue on this path through 2011.
The Obamaconomy doesn’t bode well for state income, corporate, rooms & meals or sales tax receipts.

Motor vehicle and parts sales, down 8 per cent on the year, jumped 2.4 per cent from June, according to data from the US commerce department on Thursday, but other retail sales fell 0.6 per cent in July.

“With income flows very constrained and household balance sheets over- leveraged, any incremental increase is likely to weigh on non-automotive sales,” said Joshua Shapiro, chief US Economist at MFR, a consultancy, noting that fading interest suggests current car sales are borrowed from the future. [snip]

Voters eagerly await how the Dynamic Duo will bridge the Slough of Squander that is the Progressive’s inadequacy in all matters legislative.
With the OVERRIDE of Gov. Douglas’ veto, you own the debacle on your lonesome.
Being a Libertarian, I don’t have a dog in this fight; I don’t like one party rule however.
It would be condign to see a Prog Governor plus all you Jackass Party legislators, vote your heart’s desires for two years.

California would be a model of success in comparison.

Interacting with a government
run anything is always a joy.

The well worn lefty chant “anything is better than this” needs a gimlet-eyed look the next time you hear those words. Think about it when you contemplate a looking to hook up at your favorite haunt.

From Maggie’s Farm this delightful morsel, smile when you read it.

Another of Britain’s National Health Service debacles is hard to chew on, as found by Chris Reed, an editor at the San Diego Union-Tribune, who relays to us an essay by a state-run medicine supporting former U of Chicago PoliSci professor and aide to former Dem Senator Bill Bradley.  She now lives in Britain.

The idea that if the government expanded control of health care, costs could be reduced without any reduction in available services is just on its face laughable. Yet that is actually a talking point of the proponents of President Obama’s health “reform” proposal. C’mon. Please be serious. If you really think this is a good idea, be honest about it. [snip]

[Dentists] are now paid a flat rate covering the amount of work they are contracted to do each year, which is measured in UDAs (units of dental activity). In theory, at least, there is both greater guarantee of access … as well as more emphasis on clinical and preventative dentistry (you are paid the same amount for one filling as for six). Crucially, the new contract also simplified the complex pay structure for dentistry (unlike other areas of the public health system, you do pay a nominal fee to see [a National Health Service] dentist). The previously highly complex payment structure of more than 400 charges is now divided into three bands: roughly 16 pounds ($27) for a check-up or minor treatment, 44 pounds ($75) for fillings, root canal work or extractions and 198 pounds ($336) for crowns, dentures or bridges.

So far, so good. Right?

Well, actually not. While these reforms were supposed to increase access to NHS dentists, in practice, they’ve had the opposite effect. NHS estimates suggest that nearly 1 million fewer people have access to an NHS dentist than they did three years ago. According to a citizen’s advice survey carried out in early 2008, approximately 7.4 million people hadn’t been to an NHS dentist since April 2006 because of difficulties in finding one. In light of these access problems, many Brits simply do without a dentist or go abroad for treatments. (The NHS acknowledges that there is an access problem, but argues that it is closing the gap.)

Not surprisingly, the new system also makes NHS work less attractive for dentists. Before Tony Blair became prime minister in 1997, only 6 percent of dentists’ income came from private patients. By 2006, it was 58 percent. The first month that the new contract went into effect, some 2,000 dentists (about 10 percent) refused to sign the new contracts and left the NHS altogether, while many more signed “in protest.” Many of the dentists I’ve talked to informally have complained about the “assembly line” feel of the new target-driven system. …

The incentives set up by the new system also mean that dentists are more likely to “under-treat,” i.e., to fail to provide complex (and costly) treatment, even if it’s clinically necessary. After all, they are now paid the same to perform a root canal as they are to pull a tooth. Not surprisingly, the number of complex procedures has dropped precipitously in the last few years.

Think about the story above. And the photo above.
Oh yeah, and that good night kiss!

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) is calculated to rouse the economy, create and protect jobs, and invest in key priorities, alleged Governor Douglas.

Keeping the spirit of t he American Recovery and Reinvestment Act alive in Vermont, Governor Douglas achieves this by awarding Gold Shovels to 42 Vermont arts organizations totaling $606,000 through Porkulus (ARRA). These grants taxes will help preserve jobs in Vermont’s nonprofit arts sector that have been threatened by declines.

So where are the liberal lovers of the arts? The NPR listeners, who constantly harangue us. Why are you not leaping into the breach, fetching out the checkbook and quill and dashing off a doubling donation.

Waiting for the Philistines loot?

Isn’t this simply marvelous?
The $9,200 allows the VSO to play Happy Days are Here Again for those queued up at E&T or Family Services.
While Dad is there, he can have his face painted by a working artist, might as well look good for the non-existent job interview.

Middlebury lucked out too! Folk life in the Shire town gets archived by a real live Archivist at the Vermont Folk life Center for the munificent sum of $10,000. Evidently, this also keeps the Center’s Director of Education from begging on the street.
One would have thought the College could have “coughed” up this loose change from the Biomess plant savings.

Vermont has a surfeit of non-profit jobs. Even those intended to be for profit aren’t, witness the dairy farmers. As for the rest, the Marxist in the Legislature are working very hard on either making them non-profit or running them out of the state.
With that, we have a NON-PROFIT NIRVANA, where quality of life reigns supreme.

The Stimulus funds enable us to continue staff and programs at current levels and to add back an important artist residency. Both are hugely important to Burlington’s downtown economy and the quality of life of the region, said Andrea Rogers, Executive Director and CEO, Flynn Theater, Burlington

You BETCHA, Andrea!

A delightful harpoon in the Vermont liberal whale!

Now all go sing “We’re holier that thou”
in the outhouse.

Vermont Senators vote against Americans jobs

Notably Sens. Leahy and Sanders voted against returning war veterans getting jobs. Instead, they voted to let illegals have the jobs while Americans suffer a punishing 9.6% unemployment rate.
Actually, people past collecting unemployment comp, working PT jobs or giving up looking for work, pushes the rate is closer to 16%.

What do you have to say about these numbers, Senators?

After several defeated efforts, Sen. Sessions (R-Ala.) finally won over a majority of his colleagues this morning. They agreed with him that illegal aliens should not get jobs created with federal tax dollars.
In March, the Sessions E-Verify amendment was killed by tabling in a 50-47 vote.
But this morning, the tabling motion failed 44-53. (The amendment then passed on voice vote.)
12 Democrats and 1 Independent defied Party leadership and voted with all 40 Republicans to:
permanently authorize E-Verify, so the pro-amnesty forces can’t constantly threaten to kill it if they don’t get their way
require all federal contractors to use E-Verify so returning veterans and other unemployed Americans will get jobs created with federal tax money. [snip]

Here’s the rest of the story and the vote tallies plus the vote on the fence.

Vermont’s Congressional Delegation has consistently VOTED against American workers and returning Veterans and for illegal immigrants.

Don’t say you didn’t vote that way; I have your voting records! Bernie voted for corporate slavery in the chicken plants, keeping the wages down. Leahy doing the same by making sure no one can check eligibility of the illegal workers on federal and state job sites.

Next time you meet them ask them why they voted for illegals and not the returning vets. Why are they voting for Jose and Miguel instead of Joe and Mike who are paying taxes to the schools here and across the country. What about the Guard deploying to Afghanistan this year.

Are they coming back to no jobs because Leahy, Sanders or Welch voted for illegals getting jobs and amnesty?
Call them up and ask them!

A CAP & TAX winner from P-O-R!

This is soooooo retro. Why it will make you lust for metal edged Formica countertops in the kitchen.
Think Metropolitan and cement mixer in the same image. Conjoined!

…that believers of the national media’s fantasy that Barack Obama understands economics have a greater statistical probability of being struck by lightning or winning Powerball?
The same odds carry over to believers in the Vermont Legislature’s prowess.

The Vermont Woodchuck did some digging; all will affect your economic future.
Here are some choice pieces for your afternoon reading. Snow in June, is Attila coming back in Europe, another Kennedy boondoggle to “keep somebody healthy” and Canada gets even with Obama.