• The most sustainable government is small, locally accountable democracy.

• Local control + local values + local responsibility = freedom.
• We need to chose between:
  • A. Endless growth, centralization, consolidation.
  • B. Sustainability, decentralization, democratization. 
• Sustainability requires local solutions based on local needs, not one-size-fits-all approaches from a central government. 
• Bring our constitutional power as a State back from Wall Street and Washington, to Main Street in Vermont
• Decentralization and sustainability should be our guiding principles of government policy, including how Vermont interacts with the federal government.  

• Vermont needs to become more energy and food independent using our local natural resources, and we should aim to produce 75% of our own food, power and heat energy by 2020.
• This will create tens of thousands of jobs and keep billions of dollars in the local VT economy each year.
• Vermont needs a transition plan that will assure the business community that their energy prices will be predictable in the short term. But we will have to accept some increasing energy costs related to Peak Oil and other market pressures. The more we can insulate ourselves from the Peak Oil factors with local renewable energy, the stronger Vermont’s economic foundation will be in the future.
• Land and the environment is best “conserved” by being put to productive, sustainable use. A major myth of mainstream "environmentalism" is that we should lock away land and prevent it from being used in order to "save it." Instead, we must integrate with our natural resources, put our landscape to work and use our land and resources sustainably. We need to stop locking away our resources in misconstrued “conservation” programs. The Center for Whole Communities in Fayston is a national leader in training community leaders for sustainability, and they have many programs and published works that make this point beautifully.
• Act 250 needs to be reformed to reflect our current economic development needs while removing bureaucratic barriers to sustainable and appropriate land use based on local control and needs.
• The State should make available low interest loans to any home, business or institution that has a good location for solar, wind, efficient biomass or micro-hydro-power, and attach the loan-payments to the annual land-value property tax payments, with an interest rate of less than 5%.
• A similar program should be put in place to finance local food processing and distribution centers and viallage-markets and by encouraging local diversified food production.
• We need to help our dairy farmers transition to diversified and sustainable agriculture. Federally subsidized monocrops like milk are a dead-end market. So let's help our farmers make this transition by creating a Vermont market for diversified agricultural products.
• VT has the strongest organic farming and local food movements in the country, DESPITE state and federal policies that create obstacles for progress. We need to align our policy with our real values.
• VT Yankee needs to be shut down and fully decommissioned to remove this dangerous liability from our State. The ISONE Grid, which all VT utilities buy power from, currently has 14,000 megawatts of excess capacity. VT Yankee is offering VT around 200 megawatts of capacity, which we can easily replace on the open market or from Hydro Quebec.
• There will be no economic loss or significant power price increase from shutting VT Yankee down. The price and terms they have offered for their renewal application would be a very bad deal for Vermont. They are offering half the power available to Vermont as is available today (we’ll have to replace half of that power, let’s just replace all of it), a 45% price increase, and no commitment to fully fund the decommissioning fund = No Thanks Entergy. We’ll put those 200 Vermonters who used to work at VT Yankee, along with thousands of other people, to work installing solar panels, operating biomass/biogas plants, harvesting biomass, and weatherizing homes.
• Biomass gasification and biogas generation offer tremendous potential to meet all of Vermonter’s heat-fuel needs while adding more than $700 million to the local Vermont economy. Solar and wind can meet 40% of our power needs by 2020. In-state hydropower and biomass could meet more than 30% of our power needs by 2020. We can not only cover most of our own energy needs with renewable energy, but we can do it at a lower cost than we’d be paying for fossil fuels and nuclear energy. By shifting our energy economy to local renewables we’ll create thousands of green-collar jobs, incredibly strong local economies, high-value export products and services, while preserving and enhancing our tourism economy.

• Vermont is the healthiest state in the nation, but increasing health-care costs have driven state expenses to unacceptable levels while hurting small business and individual budgets. A State-wide single-payer system without insurance company profit margins and the 30% administrative overhead could in theory make a lot of sense, BUT not until we take major steps to also reduce the costs of health care and determine a fair way to pay for a single-payer system.
• Any single payer system should be funded by some combination of a flat tax and/or a sales-tax of unhealthy products such as cigarettes, soda and candy,  NOT an income or property tax. These questions will take tie to sort out, but in the short term VT needs to trim state health-care related budgets with only a low-level safety net for those in need.
• Until there is a well-designed single-payer system in Vermont, un-insured adults should not have their costs be covered by public funds. We each need to take responsibility, but the State can enable that with low interest loans to the uninsured who cannot afford their medical bills. With a State-owned bank such as the Bank of North Dakota, Vermont could easily setup a low-interest emergency loan fund that automatically covers the uninsured, with a streamlined process by which recipients pay back the loans over time, creating a small extra revenue stream (the interest on those loans) for the state.
• Vermont should nullify any federal health care or health insurance mandate. The US Government has absolutely no authority to require individuals to purchase health-insurance with in a State. The Commerce Clause of the US Constitution gives Congress authority to regulate inter-state commerce only. Any attempt by the US government to fine or imprison people who chose to “self insure” or not buy private health-insurance should be made illegal by state law.
• Freedom of choice and personal responsibility should be the prevailing principles. All health insurance policies should be required to cover costs of non-traditional and preventive medicine, including naturopath and Chinese medicine, chiropractic and any other treatment that individuals consider to be health-care.
• We need to reduce costs and overhead by "tort-reform," meaning reducing the costs of malpractice insurance and limiting the amount of money that can be won as a "pain and suffering" aspect of a malpractice lawsuit.

This is a prime example of where both "sides" of the national political spectrum are wrong. D.C. Republicans pretend we don't need health-care reform, then they complain that the cost of health-insurance for employees is crushing their businesses. D.C. Democrats pretend that this bill, "while not perfect" is somehow progress, even though the core idea behind the original bill, single-payer, was never really even on the Democrat agenda. 

Forcing people to buy health insurance is not progress, this is just corporate welfare for the insurance industry. Just look at what insurance stocks did after this passed.

This question should be left up to each state, the US Constitution gives the federal government no authority over an individual person's decisions regarding their health care. 

I think Vermont should build a plan to create a single-payer system, because this would save the people and businesses of this state hundreds of millions by eliminating 30% of the cost that is now going to cover insurance-overhead.

But I also realize that going to single-payer tomorrow is a short-term challenge, given the state's budget crisis. To transition to single-payer, we would need to help businesses and individuals shift from paying insurance-premium costs, to an increase in taxes, in a way that didn't interrupt our cash-flow. If done properly, the increase in taxes should be less than what we'd no longer be paying in premiums.

Vermont does not have a health-care crisis, we are the healthiest state in the nation, so let's take our time, do this right, and not be distracted by the national drama from D.C.

Below is from a letter posted on the Vermont Commons website, and is an eye-opener on this topic.

Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) - Advocates for Universal Coverage

With 17,000 members nationwide, PNHP is an independent, non-partisan, voluntary "physician organization in the United States dedicated exclusively to implementing a single-payer national health program."

Its March 22 press release expressed dismay with the new law saying it "take(s) no comfort in seeing aspirin dispensed for the treatment of cancer."

Instead of fixing the "the profit-driven, private health insurance industry....this costly new legislation will enrich and further entrench (it by forcing) millions of Americans to buy" defective coverage leaving them worse off than before at a cost of hundreds of billions of tax dollars given predators to game the system for even more.

PNHP's listed problems include:

-- besides millions underinsured, nine years out, 23 million Americans will be uninsured, "translate(d) into an estimated 23,000 unnecessary deaths annually and an incalculable toll of suffering;"

-- millions will be forced to buy insurance "costing up to 9.5 percent of their income but covering" only 70% of their expenses, leaving them one serious health emergency away from bankruptcy and loss of their homes;

-- for most, good policies will be unaffordable or "too expensive to use because of the high co-pays and deductibles;"

-- Insurers will get around $450 billion in public money "to subsidize (buying) their shoddy products," and be more than ever emboldened to block future reform;

-- safety-net hospitals will lose billions in Medicare and Medicaid payments, threatening tens of millions of under and uninsured;

-- workers with employer-based coverage will face higher costs, fewer benefits, and restrictions on selecting providers; most will be hamstrung with future stiff costs because of unrestricted premium hikes, higher deductibles and co-pays;

-- costs will keep rising exponentially because Obamacare doesn't contain them;

-- so-called new regulations (like ending pre-existing condition denials) are riddled with loopholes, ambiguities, and legal interpretations to let insurers manipulate them advantageously; and

-- "women's reproductive rights will be further eroded, thanks to the burdensome segregation of insurance funds for abortion and all other medical services."

As a result, the Obama administration and congressional Democrats scammed the public with a package of expensive mandates, new taxes, sweetheart deals, and "a perpetuation of the fragmented, dysfunctional, and unsustainable system that is taking such a heavy toll on our health and economy today."

Obamacare may or may not be good politics, but for most Americans it's disastrous health policy in lieu of simple, effective, affordable solutions - universal single-payer coverage. Everyone in. Nobody out except predatory insurers gaming the system for big profits, declining benefits, and unaffordability for growing millions.

Major bill components won't kick in until 2014, meaning 180,000 Americans will die in the next four years and hundreds of thousands more won't have expensive injuries and illnesses treated. PNHP calls these stakes unacceptable in "pledg(ing) to continue (their) work for the only equitable, financially responsible and humane remedy for our health care mess:" universal coverage, "an expanded and improved Medicare for All." What members of Congress get, you get. Nothing less provided we fight for it until it's gotten. It'll come no other way.

It's Over but not Entirely - State Government Challenges Over Mandated Coverage

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 36 or more states may pass anti-mandate laws, 33 have introduced bills, and Idaho's CL "Butch" Otter became the first Governor to sign one into law. The Virginia House and Senate passed its own, expected to become law shortly. In Arizona, a proposed constitutional amendment will seek voter approval in November.

In addition, on March 23, Attorney General Lawrence Wasden's press release said Idaho "has joined a multi-state lawsuit" against the Department of Health and Human Services, Treasury Department, and Department of Labor, "challenging the constitutionality of" new health care legislation, stating:

"Our complaint alleges the new law infringes upon the constitutional rights of Idahoans and residents of the other states by mandating all citizens and legal residents have qualifying health care coverage or pay a tax penalty. The law exceeds the powers of the United States under Article I of the Constitution and violates the Tenth Amendment....Additionally, the tax penalty required under the law constitutes an unlawful direct tax in violation of Article 1, sections 2 and 9 of the Constitution."

The press release also says Obamacare infringes on state sovereignty by imposing onerous unfunded mandates at a time most states face severe budget shortfalls, can't handle their current obligations, so they're cutting them.

Joining the lawsuits are the Attorney Generals of South Carolina, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Louisiana, Alabama, Colorado, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Washington, Florida, and South Dakota. Virginia Attorney General, Kenneth Cuccinelli, plans a separate suit in Richmond federal court, stating:

The Constitution's Commerce Clause (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3) doesn't apply because:

"If a person decides not to buy health insurance, that person by definition is not engaging in commerce. If you are not engaging in commerce, how can the federal government regulate you?"

Indiana's Senator Richard Lugar asked his Attorney General to file suit, and other states have pledged to do so. Opponents raise serious concerns over the fundamental "do no harm" patient safety rule. For American Health Care Reform.org:

"Single-payer national health insurance will save our economy, prevent medical bankruptcy and above all, save lives. Medicare for All is the Right Prescription for America. We need National Health Insurance. Anything else is just voodoo."