Roper: Can we dispense with the ‘we’re just asking’ BS?

By Rob Roper

It’s a line we hear from our politicians all the time when they are implementing a tax or passing some draconian regulation: “We’re just asking (insert whoever is about to get screwed) to help” by paying a little bit more or giving up a valuable aspect of their life or livelihood. It is a phrase not absent from the Clean Heat Carbon Tax debate.

Public domain

With S.5, our elected representatives aren’t “asking” us to pay more to heat our homes with oil, propane, natural gas, and kerosene, they are forcing us to do so. They aren’t asking us to voluntarily retrofit our homes with expensive cold climate heat pumps and water heaters that may not work in Vermont winter weather, they are making us an offer we can’t refuse.

It popped up again most recently in an article in the Addison Independent interviewing Senators Chris Bray (D-Addison), chair of the Natural Resources & Energy committee and lead advocate for the tax, and his seatmate, Ruth Hardy (D-Addison).

The reporter plays along, writing, “To meet that standard, fossil fuel importers would have been asked to help subsidize cleaner heat options — primarily for low- and middle-income Vermonters — such as weatherization and heat pumps [emphasis added].”

Hardy is quoted directly as saying, “And all this bill does is ask that the fuel dealers become… part of the solution [emphasis added].”

Let’s be perfectly clear here. This bill S.5, and these senators aren’t “asking” anything, except in the sense that Don Corleone “just asked” that band leader to sign over Johnny Fontane’s service contract. For those who haven’t seen The Godfather, Al Pacino’s iconic line from the movie describing the transaction is, “Luca Brazzi held a gun to his head, and my father assured him either his brains or his signature would be on the contract.”

With S.5, our elected representatives aren’t “asking” us to pay more to heat our homes with oil, propane, natural gas, and kerosene, they are forcing us to do so. They aren’t asking us to voluntarily retrofit our homes with expensive cold climate heat pumps and water heaters that may not work in Vermont winter weather, they are making us an offer we can’t refuse.

Senator Mark MacDonald, who can always be counted on to commit candor, was at least honest about this when he said, “We’re in the business of forcing people… to use less fuels [emphasis added].” After which his colleague Senator Becca White (D-Windsor) can be heard agreeing, “Yes.”

MacDonald may have missed that part of our Declaration of Independence that states, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” but at least he’s up front about what he thinks his role is as an elected representative of his constituents – who overwhelmingly do not consent to this legislation.

When someone asks you for something, by definition you have the right and ability to refuse. And should this bill pass, Vermont fuel dealers will not have the opportunity to politely decline the request to purchase “clean heat credits,” the cost of which will necessarily be passed along to customers, who will also have no choice but to pay those higher costs.

The Global Warming Solutions Act mandates – a mandate is not a request – that Vermonters lower our greenhouse gas emissions to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050, and until that law is repealed, we will be forced to comply.

George Washington warned us, “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence-it is force! Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master; never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.” S.5 is not a responsible action. If it were, the politicians and activists pushing for it would have no problem deriving the consent of the governed to move forward with it, and would have no qualms being truthful about their intent.

So, I’m just asking that our politicians at least be honest about what they are doing with this bill, and I’m just asking our media to help be part of the solution in creating a truly informed electorate by holding their feet to the fire and not let them get away with what is so very transparently a lie.

Rob Roper is a freelance writer who has been involved with Vermont politics and policy for over 20 years. This article reprinted with permission from Behind the Lines: Rob Roper on Vermont Politics, robertroper.substack.com

Image courtesy of Public domain

10 thoughts on “Roper: Can we dispense with the ‘we’re just asking’ BS?

  1. How is it legal for legislatures to impose an asinine business model onto the private sector? And pick winners, big business, and losers, small Vermont businesses? Can these morons be sued by our Vermont business owners?

    And forget about the Vermont press, they are hopeless know-nothings who just parrot dem/prog lies all day and all night.

  2. “Climate Change” is a Religious Cult.. you are being forced to be Believers and Participators.

    This is a great article to read by NH’s Lily Tang Williams, an actual survivor of Mao’s Cultural Revolution.
    She knows what she’s looking at and I suggest people pay attention to what she’s saying..
    Vermont is utterly being strangled by something that is not at all what it’s being sold as.

    https://granitegrok.com/blog/2023/03/dei-diversity-equity-inclusion-is-maos-cultural-revolution-by-another-name

  3. Do these people understand the concept of vox populi?Are they so blinded by their ideologies that they overlook the will of the people?Whatever happened to common sense in Vermont?Have we become too apathetic regarding ideological issues being forced upon us?Perhaps we need to give serious consideration to considering recall provisions as well as term limits.

  4. Their job once we elected them, is to do what “WE” asked them to do. It appears that they think, once they take over, that they can do whatever they want. So are they doing what we asked them to do or they just do what those who bribe them tell them to do??? How else can they become millionaires in several years.
    Looks like they are working their way up to being “Dictator’s !!!!

  5. In line with Rob’s important incites as to what is being forced upon us by a significant number of our Vermon legislators and by what means they are forcing upon us some laws which are quite clearly unsupported by what appears to be a majority of our state’s citizens. It might be useful to note that in a democratic form of governance, a plurality of citizens ultimately determine what laws are passed and in what format they are enforced. It is only in some form of dictatorship that unreasonable, if not actually unconscionable, law is implemented upon them.
    Perhaps this is the hour to explore what variety of government Vermonters choose to live by and under. Are we going to abide being presided over by a tribe of would-be semi overlords who choose to introduce and pass legislation that somehow bows to their own narrow, self-interests or should we insist on being governed by those in our legislature who recognize what is in the best considerations of a clear majority of their constituents? Under current circumstances, retaining the democratic process would seem to be the wiser and more desirable choice. There are already too many active
    dictators in our world.

  6. Rob,
    Thanks for keeping an eye on this agenda from the left, where do we get these inept
    clowns, maybe they need to put their efforts toward the real contributors to this global
    warming, but Nah, it’s not on the agenda’s talking points……………..pathetic !!

    I’ve said this a thousand times ” They Just don’t care “, but all they’ll understand if they
    are voted out.

    S.5 is just another liberal boondoggle, all it will do is put most Vermonters into financial
    distress, it won’t save the state and surely won’t save the world as they try to promote.

    Wake up, people !!

    • Great quote from a recent Op-Ed I saw….worth posting again here……there is no line a Dem won’t cross…to enforce their delusional agenda & power, onto an ill informed VT electorate. This is exactly Sen. MacDonald and all his cadre.

      “…..When it comes to politics, Democrats are capable of anything. There is no bottom for them, no line they won’t cross. And the only way that works is with an ignorant (re:VT) public. Explains the schools in every left-wing stronghold in the country, doesn’t it?…What are Democrats so afraid of? The answer is simple: an “informed public”……so, ignorance of information – where people are kept in the dark about reality, therefore draws manipulated and pre-selected conclusions, and people act accordingly. This is where Democrats live.”

    • CH,
      They cannot be voted out, because they control the registered voter list, they control who gets a ballot, they control what ballots are returned as undeliverable

      The undeliverable ballots are filled in by harvesters, who provide them to tilt close elections.

      Dem/Pro party hacks are selected to staff the counting centers.

      They will tell you what the totals are, when they are ready, meaning when they say all ballots are counted.

      Almost all Vermonter shave been told, ad infinitum, no errors are made, all is ok, Vermont the glasnost state, and other such crap.

      Remember the EB-5 scandal, massaged into a mere blemish, no one going to jail, even though $200 million went missing.

      That is not anywhere near as bad as Ukraine’s corruption, where we are talking a few $billion here and a few $billion there, and NATO’s donated weapons appearing in places they should not.

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