The state considered online lottery sales and started selling bonds to Vermont residents, Congressman Welch called for curbing college tuition fees, the Veterans Home in Bennington maintained its federal funding and a plan was unveiled to create thousands of jobs in the Northeast Kingdom.
These were some of the voices in the news this week.
Shumlin Says Lottery May Want To Go Online; Brock Disagrees (9/24/12)
(Governor Peter Shumlin) "Internet lottery is going to be the wave of the future. I’m not suggesting that we won’t sell tickets and I want to sell tickets because it’s good for our downtown stores. But we also have to recognize that the technology is taking us to the Internet and the question is, what’s the role of the Internet in our lottery for Vermont in the future. And we don’t have to hurry but we better figure it out."
State Begins To Sell Citizens Bonds To Vermont Residents (9/24/12)
(Steve Wisloski, deputy state treasurer) "Fundamentally the answer is the administrative cost of doing a directly administered program from the state would be quite high. Going through the institutional broker-dealer market is pretty efficient for us. The mark-up on the bonds is about $3.25 on each $1,000 of bonds and that’s a pretty low sales commission."
Welch Introduces Bill To Curb College Tuition (9/24/12)
(Congressman Peter Welch) "And just last year, even though inflation is very tame, college costs at four-year public institutions went up by 8.3 percent. So this is simply not sustainable."
Shumlin Says Veterans Home Will Keep Federal Funding (9/26/12)
(Secretary of Administration Jeb Spaulding) "I think that the board and the management and the staff should be congratulated that they rose to the challenge, and CMS has determined that they are not going to pull the federal funding for the residents at the Veterans Home that are eligible for Medicaid and Medicare."
Jay Peak Leader Announces Plan To Create Jobs In Vermont’s NEK (9/27/12)
(Senator Patrick Leahy) "It’s created thousands of jobs in the Northeast Kingdom alone. But the most important thing is that it didn’t cost the taxpayers one penny."