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US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) today detailed how Vermonters would be hurt by budget cuts recommended by congressional Republicans.
‘The rich are getting richer. The middle class and poor are getting poorer. Meanwhile, we have a $1.5 trillion dollar deficit and a $14 trillion dollar national debt. What is the Republican solution to the deficit crisis? More tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires. Savage cuts in programs that are desperately needed by working families,’ said Sanders, a member of the Senate Budget Committee.
The House-passed budget bill would throw 336 Vermont children off of Head Start and cut or eliminate Pell grants for 13,000 Vermont college students. The average Vermont college student would see their tuition assistance fall by $700.
In addition, some 37,000 Vermonters would lose access to primary health care because of a $1.3 billion cut to community health centers.

Standing alongside Vermonters struggling with rising gas prices, Representative Peter Welch on Monday announced three pieces of legislation to help calm rising prices in the short term and combat energy market speculation in the long term. Gas prices in Vermont are up nearly one dollar since September, hitting $3.74 in parts of the state.
At the Montpelier City Public Works Department, Welch was joined by Cabot Cheese Warehouse and Distribution Manager Louie Quintin, owner of Middlesex Electric Donald Pierce and Montpelier City Manager Bill Fraser, all of whom are trying to absorb rising gas prices into tight budgets. The legislative initiatives would eliminate tax loopholes that encourage energy market speculation, release fuel from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to calm rising prices and set criminal penalties for those found to be engaging in price gouging.

Vermont Housing affordability improved in 2010 for the fourth consecutive year, according to The Vermont Economy Newsletter’s annual housing affordability analysis.
‘The share of median family income needed to finance the payments on a median priced home in Vermont fell to 14.8% in 2010, the lowest percent of income needed to service a mortgage since 2002,’ said Art Woolf, author of the study. ‘In the 24 years we have been tracking housing affordability, there have been only four years when housing has been more affordable than in 2010.’

The International Center for Captive Insurance Education (ICCIE), based in Burlington, closed the book on 2010 by finishing another year in the black - and by graduating 50 Associates in Captive Insurance (ACIs), bringing the total to date to nearly 200 industry professionals who have completed the captive industry's only designation.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is slated to be named chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging. Part of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions, the panel that Sanders will head is responsible for several areas that are among his top priorities, including community health centers, home heating assistance, seniors programs, pensions and dental care.
Sanders has been a champion in Congress for community health centers, securing $11 billion in last year’s health care reform law to increase the number of patients served in the next five years by 20 million. That infusion of support came on the heels of another $2 billion that he added in the 2009 stimulus bill.
The centers provide affordable primary and dental care as well as low-cost prescription drugs and mental health counseling. In Vermont, Community health Centers now serve over 100,000 Vermonters.

Champlain College's annual Spring Job Fair will play host to more than 100 area businesses and organizations and offer an array of workshops to help students and others find employment.
The annual Champlain College Job Fair will be held on Monday, March 28, from 1:30 to 5:30 p.m. in the Argosy Gymnasium at 262 South Willard St., Burlington. The event is free and open to the public.
By co-mingling students with the general public, Champlain's Career Services Office feels it provides a more realistic view of the job market and is also more attractive to area businesses. "It enables our students to understand first hand that the market is competitive and that they must be prepared and professional to get a job," explained Dolly Shaw, director of Champlain College Career Services.

The Lake Champlain Committee is joining with the EPA’s WaterSense Program to promote Fix a Leak Week. Fix a Leak Week encourages Americans to find and fix residential leaks and to help put a stop to the more than 1 trillion gallons of water wasted from household leaks each year. Leaks can also account for more than 10,000 gallons of water in an average home every year’enough water to wash nearly 10 months’ worth of laundry.
‘Conserving water saves money, saves energy, and helps reduce nutrient pollution in Lake Champlain’, notes LCC Executive Director Lori Fisher. ‘Letting a faucet run for five minutes uses about as much energy as letting a 60-watt light bulb run for 14 hours. Even a pin-hole size leak can waste 4,000 gallons a month!’
To help save water for future generations, the Lake Champlain Committee is asking consumers and businesses to take time during the coming week to improve water efficiency by finding and fixing leaks.

US Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and IBM Friday celebrated the overwhelming Senate approval of patent reform legislation as one of the country’s first steps toward modernizing the USpatent system which is essential to protecting inventors, preserving American innovation leadership and generating economic growth. The bill passed this week, 95 to 5, with a tidal wave of bipartisan support. If passed by the House and signed into law by President Obama, the America Invents Act would be the first comprehensive reform to the US Patent System in nearly 60 years.
Patenting is increasingly important for protecting new innovations and helping a range of entities from entrepreneurs to large-to-medium-size companies to bring ideas to fruition and job creation.

by Anne Galloway vtdigger.org on March 10, 2011 What do Dominica and a Middlesex highway garage have in common? Not much, unless you happen to be tracking the whereabouts of Governor Peter Shumlin.

The Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans) and the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT), in cooperation with the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), are working together to identify and establish intercity passenger rail service to parts of southwestern Vermont and adjacent areas in New York that are currently underserved, and have scheduled the first public meeting to discuss the study for Tuesday, March 22, 2011 at 7:00pm-9:00pm at the Bennington Fire Station, 130 River Street, Bennington, VT, 05201.
The project study area, which is generally located between Albany/Rensselaer, NY and Rutland, VT, includes Bennington and Rutland Counties in Vermont, and Rensselaer, Albany, Schenectady, Saratoga, Warren and Washington Counties in New York.

The Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council is inviting Vermonters with developmental disabilities, their families and other interested community members to talk about what is working for them and what could help.
The input will be shared with policymakers and help VTDDC write its State Plan that will guide how it spends its federal funds for the next 5 years.
Come have dinner and join a forum near you:
March 17 ~ Swanton April 4 ~ Newport
March 21 ~ Rutland April 5 ~ Brattleboro
March 24 ~ Burlington April 7 ~ White River Junction
March 29 ~ Bennington

by Anne Galloway on March 11, 2011 vtdigger.org Whether you’re talking about your household checking account or the state General Fund, the math can be boiled down to a simple subtraction problem: revenues ‘ expenses = X.
In good years X equals surpluses; for the last four years, that X has been a negative number in the many millions at the beginning of the state budgeting process. This year the figure in red represents 12 percent of the state’s budget, or about $176 million. In this legislative session, there is no Uncle Sam at the ready to bail out states with fistfuls of ready cash. In fact, the old man may have empty pockets next year and leave us with a new deficit problem caused by significant reductions in programs like the Low-Income Heating Assistance Program (that federal cut would amount to $14 million if it goes through).