House Republicans say Dems trying to ‘buy votes’ with new budget proposal

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(Host) Democratic Legislative leaders have unveiled a new financial package that they hope will encourage Governor Jim Douglas not to veto the state budget for next year.

House Republicans immediately criticized the proposal as little more than a blatant effort to win the support of undecided lawmakers.

VPR’s Bob Kinzel reports.

(Kinzel) Many of the elements in the package are issues that Douglas has raised in the last few weeks.

They include a plan to stabilize the state’s unemployment insurance fund, the addition of research and development tax credits, exempting farmers and foresters from new changes to the capital gains tax, and a retirement incentive program for state employees.

House Speaker Shap Smith says the package is designed to bridge the budget gap with the Governor:

(Smith) "I think it’s important to recognize that we haven’t wanted a veto showdown. We’ve continued to have conversations with the Administration. We would love to reach some sort of an agreement but if we can’t we have the mechanisms to go forward and we will go forward on June 2nd."

(Kinzel) House Republican leader Patti Komline accused the Democrats of proposing the changes as a way to "buy" the votes of some Democrats who are undecided about overriding the Governor’s veto:

(Komline) "The press conference makes it very clear to all Vermonters that as of today they do not have the votes to override the Governor’s veto and what this is is an attempt to do to peal off votes buy voters from people that were going to be voting with the Governor and avoid the compromise for Vermonters."

(Kinzel) Speaker Smith said that’s not the case at all:

(Smith) "I know that it’s hard to take at face value but I actually think that this isn’t about shoring up votes or anything like that. What this is about is we’ve had two weeks to listen to the concerns of Vermonters, the concerns of the Administration and the concerns of the members of the House and we have gone back and looked at the issues that they asked about and these are meant to address those issues."

(Kinzel) It appears that the Democrats’ plan did little to bring lawmakers and the Governor closer together. Douglas complained that the Democrats are taking a scattered approach to the budget: 

(Douglas) "That’s not the way to put the state budget together this is piecemeal what they need to do is to come back to the table to work with me and my administration and work out a budget that makes sense."

(Kinzel) While the Democrats say they’re willing to make compromises on some of these financial issues, they say they won’t bend on Douglas’ plan to shift responsibility for the Teachers’ Retirement program from the General Fund over to the Education Fund.

(Kinzel) That’s because they argue that transfer will result in much higher property taxes.

For VPR News I’m Bob Kinzel in Montpelier.

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