The ultimate question legislators need to wrestle with now is how much expense, disruption and grief are Vermonters willing to endure to produce no detectable effect on global climate, but only this symbolic triumph.
The Legislature’s paid consultant says the proposed carbon taxes won’t work. Most Vermont emissions don’t come from a handful of power plant smokestacks; they come from hundreds of thousands of automotive tail pipes and furnaces and woodstove chimneys.
The Kavanaugh hearings and now the Covington incident have sobered the general public who see their husbands, brothers and sons as increasingly subject to irrational attack. I was heartened by the almost immediate fact-based push back.
Reps. Ted Deutch, a Democrat, and Francis Rooney, a Republican, are planning to reintroduce a bill Thursday that would place a $15-per-ton tax on carbon emissions in 2019. The tax would rise by $10-a-year increments until it hits nearly $100 per ton.
The outcry about automated annual car inspections has been so loud that House Transportation Committee sought this week to give car owners merciful relief from the unfeeling, all-seeing eye of the inspection station computer.
If anyone ever bought the notion that a Vermont carbon tax would be “revenue neutral,” or, if passed as such, would stay that way for very long, this week’s Statehouse activities should put that fantasy to bed for good.
Options are a good thing, especially when it comes to education. But today, most American parents remain at the whim of whatever district school they live in. Education choice gives students the opportunity to pick their own schooling option.
Fifteen years later, fellow parents and I have witnessed a sea change in our kids’ education, with more than 10,000 scholarships awarded to attend private schools. These scholarships have helped deserving low-income kids.
The researchers were asked directly, and admitted forthrightly, that they did not consider administrative costs when calculating the impact of the tax.
National School Choice Week raises awareness about the different types of schools and educational opportunities for parents and their children. School choice options include traditional public schools, public charter schools, magnet schools, private schools, online academies and homeschooling.
Today, school choice programs in the states include education savings accounts, tax credits, and vouchers, and are accessed by about 482,000 students. That’s a more than twofold increase in participating students from 2011, the year National School Choice Week was launched.
Former Vice President Al Gore said the recent Central American migrant caravans seeking asylum in the U.S. were fleeing the ravages of global warming.