 and welcome to Mount Piliers Civic Forum. It's another in a series of civic forums we're going to be holding, actually we have held, before election for you guys to sit and get yourself up to speed on who the candidates are and what the issues are. All of them are really interesting and well worth watching. We hope you do watch them all. All of the candidates for the House and all of the candidates for the Senate and Bill Fraser coming in speaking of the parking garage bond and speaking of the sewer bond. And tonight we have a candidate for State Senate. We have Andrew Purchlich and I'm pleased to have you. Well thanks for having me, this is great. It's a good service for the community. Would you tell people who is Andrew Purchlich? What part of the community do you live in? I live on Franklin Street here in Montpelier, kind of behind the middle school, but I've only lived there for about a year and even part of that year kind of off and on as we were transitioning. I've lived in Marshfield, Vermont for 20 years prior to that. And I lived in Orange County and when I first moved to Vermont I lived in Addison County. When did you first move to Vermont? It was 95, 1995. I finished the Peace Corps in Panama and the woman I wanted to get married with was living here and she was the Vista leader of a fuel assistance program out of Rutland County but there was an opening for Addison County so she said come out here I can get you a job as a Vista volunteer and I wanted to do energy stuff. I always wanted to do renewable energy stuff and this was at Fuel Assistance but it was close enough and I got to be with her so I moved out with her to Huberton, Vermont which is in Addison County and I worked on a program just focused on Addison County on Fuel Assistance which was a good experience for me. I'd been spent some time in Vermont in the past. I'm from Colorado originally but I'd come out here to do an internship with an environmental group one summer and that's where I had met my wife originally. And I had done the outdoor recreation and things that are very popular for young people that come to Vermont but I hadn't really met a lot of real Vermonters so that summer or that year that I was a Vista volunteer met a lot of folks that were struggling to make ends meet and that found winter kind of a scary time. It wasn't a time that they were gonna go skiing, it was a time that they worried whether they're gonna be able to pay their fuel bill or their fuel, or their feed bill, you know, are they gonna get food and other things that they need and so that was a great experience. And I've stayed in the energy world basically the whole time since. What is the energy world? We're all in the energy world. Yeah, we all use energy but I've been working in different types of clean energy in Vermont since, or just shortly after that job when I moved to this part of the state. But I've taken, so I've even been working on renewable energy and developing the renewable energy industry in the state. Now what is the renewable energy industry beyond solar? So it's all the renewable energy technologies, solar, wind, hydro, biomass, which has different parts to it. Some people would include energy efficiency in there. I haven't really worked on that as much but I've been part of that world when I've worked for the state. But I've always carried what I've learned in that in Addison County about people's difficulties on paying their energy bills and that's important when we're promoting renewable energy that we don't forget that there's some people that are having a very difficult time to pay their energy bills. And I think one of the good things about renewable energy is that you do pay more upfront, at least that's traditionally the way it's been. The costs are coming down to where they're even more competitive. But over the long term, they're very stable and I think they will be lower and better for the Vermont economy than importing fossil fuels. Do you see hydro playing a bigger role or what is the future role of hydro? I don't see it playing a bigger role. We already have basically developed all the rivers that are kind of developable if you want to think. There are some small examples. There'll be maybe some small projects built here or there. There was a new project built in Bennington a few years ago. So we might find some small projects here or there, run a river type projects. And we might buy a little or a little less or a little more from Hydro-Quebec but I don't see a big change because we don't want to get too much from one source just because you want a diversified portfolio of energy. So I don't see a lot of gain in Hydro but we could do some efficiencies of the existing plants. Were you involved in the rich line discussion? Oh yeah, definitely. How is that played out in the state house compared to how you would like to have seen it play out in the state house? I mean, I don't think it played out. I mean. It's still playing out. Yeah, and it did really play out too much in the state house. I mean, it was definitely an issue around the local control. And there was some discussion in the state house but I mean, I don't think it was a real fruitful discussion the way it played out in the state house a couple years ago. Well, we didn't really get anywhere. I mean, we had this new system where the towns have to do energy planning and it's a difficult lift for some of the towns and regions and it isn't really clear on the kind of the value of that and the support for the towns to do all that kind of energy planning. I mean, I think it's a good effort. And doing planning is helpful. But as far as kind of the overall value of trying to get each town and each region to kind of think of the whole comprehensive energy plan and get all those to mesh with the state energy plan is a huge lift. And I mean, maybe we'll work it out and it'll figure out. But I think there was just some clear people that didn't want wind visible or up on our ridgelines. And I think it should be a more, there should be a discussion about like, well, what do we want for our energy future and where could wind be? And what are the real issues? And is our permitting, if it's a problem about the environmental impacts of wind, what is it about our permitting system that isn't protecting that environment? And I think that was lost in the discussion. It was either like, wind is bad and we don't want it or it's good. And I think there could be a more detailed discussion about what the benefits are and how we can build wind projects in the state that have local support and support the local economy and support our energy goals and these other things. But it got to be to where people didn't want to have a discussion about it. It became a very binary yes, no discussion. Was there somewhere lurking in the background the question of external companies, big wind companies coming into the states versus local companies? That was often the way it was portrayed is like, oh, we don't want big international companies to own these. But I think that was more of a rhetorical point to make it less palatable. I mean, we have large corporations doing a lot of other things that you don't hear that complaint about those things. Well, don't we hear that in the solar? Yeah, and you do hear that there are external major companies coming in. Right, and you hear about it's because Vermonters, luckily, and I support this, we want local things. We want local agriculture. We don't want factory farming and big agricultural companies moving here in the cannabis legalization debate. A lot of people say like, we don't want large companies here to control the cannabis market. And it's like you had mentioned before, we were live about not having McDonald's or Starbucks or Walmart in Montpelier. People like that. But the problem that we had with wind power is like, well, if you don't have a large company to do it, if you want to do local, small owned wind power, it's going to be a lot more expensive. And for many, many years, us that were advocating for wind energy, saying like, this is a good thing for the long term. We should invest in renewable energy. But people said, well, it's too expensive. We're not going to do it's work because it's going to cost too much and it's going to raise rates. Well, we figured out how to make it cheaper than new natural gas and fossil fuel energy. But now it's like, well, no, it's not that it's too expensive. Now that it's cost effective, it's that we don't want large corporations to own it. So you're saying the goalposts keep moving? Yeah, a little bit. Now, when you're talking about land use in terms of planning and the like, you walk into Act 250. And Act 250 is our long suffering land use policy. Does Act 250 work in your field? I think so. I mean, I wouldn't say it's suffering. Would you tweak with it? Well, I wouldn't say it's suffering. I think it's been a successful law. I know there's people that want to tweak it. I haven't really spent the time to like study what those tweaks are and to determine whether they're good or bad. But I think it's been successful. Is the process too lengthy? It can be. And I think it's the same with like wind projects. When you do something that's controversial, it can be even be a parking lot or it can be a parking garage. If people don't like it but you want to have participation of locals, then it can be like. Is that the price you're paying for local participation? Yeah, so I'm sure there's projects you can point to and say, look how much trouble this developer had to develop this. And so the whole system needs to be changed. But there are probably other examples where they sailed through in the minimal amount of time and everybody was happy with the project. So it really depends on more of the project than I think the process. But if there's fixes to be made, I'm supportive of looking at those. Well, let's continue on local inputs. Schools, consolidation. That was a major issue in the last legislature. We'll continue to be an issue. How do you stand on that? Because that's another one of those questions of local versus state good. Yeah, and I support local control. I think that communities should be the ultimate deciders of their schools. But I understand that we have a statewide budget system for the schools. And even though it's not completely disconnected, though, voting on local schools has some impact. I think a community needs to have ultimate control over the schools. And there have been communities that have shut down their schools on their own. They've decided this isn't really good for our kids. There's only four kids in the class. Does that really make sense? And I think they're smart enough. The local people in these towns are smart enough to decide when the school is too small. And they could vote to shut it down. And they have in some instances. Well, what if they don't? Do you favor forced consolidation? I don't. Which is what Act 46 was really about. Yeah, although they kind of say it's not, but they want to save the money. And I think I agreed with the consolidation of the supervisory unions, because that, I think, just made sense. And it saved some money and maybe some bureaucratic effort. But when the supervisory unions merge, and then that forces some towns just not to have the control, that's their lays in the problem. And they'll say, well, we're not combining the supervisory unions so that we can close these schools. But that might be the result. And how do you mesh with that? And I haven't really figured that out. Like a lot of people, can you do both? And I am hopeful that there is a way. Well, in Maine, you have one supervisory district per county. Would 14 supervisory districts be totally out of the pale for you? No, I haven't heard the argument. But just on the face of it, it doesn't. I don't see the only problem that I would see is, well, does that further dilute local control? I guess it depends on what. Well, what? Obviously. I mean, so if the supervisory unions can just decide which schools are closed and which schools stay open, then that's an issue. But as far as the just day-to-day administration of schools and providing education, I don't have a problem with consolidating all that into county supervisory unions, for example. I don't see a problem there. But I see a problem with taking away control from some communities that have their own kind of alternative regulation method. They have a plan to change their school over time. They're very involved. The community and the volunteers and working on the school, well, you could maybe save a little bit money for the taxpayers. But maybe that's short-term savings. Maybe there's other costs. I think it should be a more democratic decision of the people in those communities. Isn't an argument to be made that economies of scale, when you have more students clustered in a classroom, you have a greater opportunity to offer advanced placement to do different kinds of scheduling options that really become difficult as you end up with microclasses. And I think that should be a decision of those communities, because some people like small classes. Some people don't think it's more beneficial for their children or their children in the community to have to travel the distance, for the parents to have to travel to go to any extracurricular activities, for the child to be able to take advantage of some of the advantages, because they have to get home and they live 45 minutes away or something like that. You've lived in Addison. You've lived in Marshfield. You've lived out there in the outers, so to speak. Right, and it might not seem that far, but it's like 45 minutes on the beginning and end of every day. And for elementary schools, how much time is an appropriate time to put a six-year-old on a school bus? And if communities can talk about that, I think it's better for the local community. So I agree with you. There are economies of scale for cost, but it's cost the only metric that we're looking at. But there's also economies of scale for instruction as well that you can offer many different class offerings if you have more students. Right, but is there a counter argument that? There always is. And so I like that decision being made more locally. And I think one of the things I support is the shifting of school education to the income tax. Rather than the property tax. Rather than the property tax. So the reason is that it's a fair, can be fair system. Even though we have the income sensitivity, still there's a disparity on the percentage of income that people pay towards education. Some people might only be paying 1% and other people maybe 3% or more of their income based on that. And I think another reason, because we have a good progressive income tax, it will kind of reduce some of these issues of where the money's coming from, from each community and their property tax. And the property tax bill being so high. We've done that already with the state pool, the state education pool. So those people in the N-E-K, where the prices are very low, are basically pitching in the same as the people in Stowe. And that's been a bone of contention in Stowe and Killington for years. And other towns that are supporting that. And I don't know if there's a way to get away with that and still have the equity that I think we want. And if we want to have rural economic development, we need to have schools in these rural economic areas. And those schools will be more expensive on a per pupil. But I don't think just expense should be the only metric that we're looking at when we're looking at the well-being of our children. The unified teachers contract for health benefits that was discussed and hashed out last year. What's your feeling on that? Taking local control over the health care costs and getting it clustered into a statewide pool? Yeah, I mean, I don't know a lot about it, but I definitely heard from teachers and families that saying that they didn't like it, but they felt like it was something that was doable and they kind of feel like it's gonna be a death of 1,000 cuts of reduction of benefits. I'm not one of those people that think teachers get paid too much or anything like that. I think we need to support them as much as we can and providing good health coverage is essential to that. And that should be for all workers. I mean, ideally we'd get away from health care being connected to employment. I mean, I didn't like the way it was kind of proposed by the governor at the end of that last session and things like that. It seems like after they changed how it was gonna be implemented, then the teachers were more supportive of the transition. There was some savings, if I understand correctly, so that's, you can't argue against savings, but it was a deduction of the benefit for the teachers which is not something that I would try to do. And it was also taking away a bargaining control on a local level from those boards. Yeah, but I understand that they were, they got to the point of okay with that because the way the state system was set up so that they still had a fair representation on the statewide level. Let's stay at the end of the session in education. There was one more factor that came in right at the end when they were talking about, I think it was a 50s, oh, it was $34 million surplus. And the teacher's retirement came up. That's sitting beneath the surface of a balanced budget every year. And growing worse and worse and getting pushed and kicked down the road. What's your feeling on that? Well, I don't know if it's getting worse, but it maybe is. Well, you have more teachers retiring. Right, but I don't know as far as the- The actuarial sense? Yeah, is it keeping up or are we losing ground? I know we have a deficit as far as what the actuaries say we need to have in that fund to pay it. How would you propose closing that deficit? I mean, I will, I agreed with the legislature and with the treasurer Pierce that we needed to put that money in there and that that'll pay off, that'll save us interest costs over the long term that more is like, I can't remember the numbers, but I think the treasurer is saying something. We put $34 million in this year, it's gonna save us $134 million over time. We still have that obligation down the road with infrastructure sitting as another one. You're not going to get more federal funds for bridges and roads. Right, but we should. We should, but sitting and waiting for that is possibly waiting for a moment that just won't come. How do we finance our infrastructure here? Do we raise our gas tax again? Do we just let it go? Yeah, definitely infrastructure is the kind of investment that I want to see government make. I think that's the role of government making investments in these things that take a long term to pay off. Same with like human capital or investing in our small children. That's an investment that'll pay off in 20 years when these two year olds become 22 year old workers that are productive members of the society. The same with our infrastructure. If we like improve our wastewater and our roads and everything now, that's gonna pay off over the long term. I don't have a magical answer about where the additional funds will come from, but I'm somebody that is willing to roll my sleeves and work across the aisle and work different people that have different ideas and come up with the best solution that raises the prosperity of all Vermonters but also tries to meet the needs that we have and makes the tough choices of prioritizing it. We might not be able to do every single thing that we wanna do. I mean, as a candidate, you go around and you hear a lot of things about what we want changed. And it's usually things that are gonna take more money. And how you prioritize those things is a key issue of the legislature and of the people and making those decisions. You're uniquely positioned to explain to the listeners what the so-called carbon tax is. Can you explain to people what the so-called carbon tax is? Well, there isn't a one answer. Or the one that you understand. Well, it could be anything. You could do something just like you said, add a certain amount of tax to gasoline because gasoline has a lot of carbon in it. It has a lot of greenhouse gas emissions. So by raising the price of that, you'll have revenue that you could use to reduce greenhouse gases. And because it's more expensive, that sends a market signal to not use it. But basically, it's an idea that we should tax things that are bad like pollution and things that cause greenhouse gas climate change and we should promote goods. And there was an effort years ago about this kind of tax shifting where you would tax fossil fuels or carbon and you would take that money and you'd support things like employment. So you'd reduce the employment tax, the payroll tax. That never was able to really gain enough traction to get going. I mean, I definitely support efforts to lower our greenhouse gases and increase our renewable energy economy in the state. And I think there's ways that we can do it that isn't just like a blunt tax on fossil fuels that is regressive. The lower income people, like I said, when I lived in Addison County and worked with folks that had trouble paying their fuel bills, just a flat tax on heating fuel is gonna hurt them more than wealthier folks. So there's ways that we can do that that where we can grow the economy and focus the efforts on local, like you've talked about with the wind energy, what kind of local renewable energy projects can we have that are gonna lower our greenhouse gas emissions and support the local economy but not be a burden on the low income and those folks that are having trouble meeting their heating bills or their electric bills. And we have some programs in place for these things, but they're like the weatherization program is underfunded. We're not meeting our goals there. How would you fund it more? Is there a revenue source that you could see that would target towards weatherization? Yeah, well, right now it's, there is a tax on fuel oil or heating fuels that goes to weatherization. And I think we could definitely look at that and how that tax is structured and can more money be there? And we get some federal money too. And like I said, we don't wanna wait till we get more federal money, but I think as far as a federal budgeting thing that should be a higher priority. But yeah, that's the way it's taxed now. Could that be changed to where there's more money for weatherization? Could it be taxed on the carbon content to where it's, so if you're heating with wood, you're not gonna pay the tax. And I think there's these ways that we should transition to renewable fuels that aren't hurting our current infrastructure and our current employees. So there's fuel dealers that sell fossil fuel today and they might be opposed to something that raises the price of fossil fuels. But if you can give them incentives and give their customers incentive to advance wood heating, which is local fuel, then they could be supportive of that. And that's a win-win. Right now, even though the local fuel dealer gets paid, 80 cents of every dollar we spend on heating fuel leaves the state. But if you're buying wood heat, whether it be chips, pallets, cordwood, 80 cents of that stays in the state and helps our whole forest product industry and our whole effort to keep forests as forests. So those are the things I'm more interested in doing. And some things might be an increase of a fee or a tax. I'm not dogmatic like the governor saying just absolutely no revenue increase. I think we're gonna have to look at creative ways of raising some revenue to do some of these programs. But spending some of that revenue on making sure that the lowest income folks are not bribing the front of it. The governor talks about no new revenue, no new fees. He also talks about cuts. Is there anything where you can see grabbing more efficiency in state governments so that you can use those already existed dollars and shift them over? I don't have a quick answer for that. But I'm willing to look and investigate ideas for people that have proposals. So here's a way that we can move things over. Here's an idea that we could do. I know I read the auditor's report on their economic development programs and I kind of agree with him that sometimes we're doing economic development, what I call just economic development for the sake of economic development without being targeted. So I don't know if I would just grab that money and put it towards something else but maybe it could be used better and maybe there are parts of that. But I think anything that would be there would be small. It's like moving $3 million here to there and a lot of the problems that we have like Lake Champlain clean up are really. It's good to get there. That was passed by the legislature and had no funding. Yeah, and a lot of people will say and that they really wanna see the money go to make the lakes cleaner. It's an economic development issue. It's an environmental health issue. We need to have our waterways safe and clean and it's the same with education and healthcare and childcare. We wanna see it happen but it's gonna take X millions of dollars a year and where is that money gonna come from? And bringing our prisoners back from Mississippi. Right, so do we need to build a new prison or can we find a way to have other savings? I know the hallquist as a candidate has talked about it but I remember I think Howard Dean was talking about it too. He was like, how can we reduce our current budget and corrections so that we can save money to move into other priorities? Because nobody says that's a priority. I see Jim Douglas was actually talking about it as well. Right, yeah, so Dean Douglas, like I think it's every new administration sees the large corrections budget because like can't there be money movement? Yes. During Dean, during Scott there's been some movement to rejigger the laws so that nonviolent offenders are not going into prisons. Right, and we've made some success with marijuana decriminalization and things like that. What's next step in that? Last legislature was decriminalized, partially legalized. Where do you see the next step? I'm assuming we're gonna- As Kay Beck now offers marijuana. Right, and all of Canada. Yeah, and Massachusetts and Maine and I don't know. You would think New Hampshire has lived free and died would get there but they wanna live free unless it involves buying marijuana, I guess. But I think marijuana is gonna be a tax and regulated system. I would vote for a tax and regulate system. Would have to get into the details about how it's regulated in tax. I think one of my main issues is I agree with those people that say that we gotta be careful about it. We don't wanna have a system where we're relying on the funding of other programs to encourage people to buy more marijuana and use more marijuana so that we could fund other programs. It's the same with like cigarette taxes or alcohol taxes. There are health issues that we have to be aware of and so I think that we need to be careful as we're getting into this that the money first goes to education and health issues around the use of these drugs. To make sure that that's adequately dealt with and we're not taking money away to put towards our corrections budgets for example which should be used for those things first but then it could be that there is gonna be other money available and that could go to other priorities whether it be anything, childcare, healthcare, what it could be. What about the prescription drug problem, opioids in Vermont? Is that being addressed correctly in your view? Is there something the state could do that they're not doing that you would advocate? I think it's just another funding question. I mean from what I see is from the law enforcement side I think from like the prosecutors and things they're trying to figure it out. They don't wanna just throw people in jail that just have a medical issue of being addicted to these things and there's drug courts and other things that I think are successful. I think sometimes it's just a funding issue and we don't have enough funding for mental healthcare. When I went door to door talking to people it was probably the number one story that people would tell me about their connection to state government. They didn't know who was running, they didn't know that there was an election but they knew they had a nephew or a cousin or a brother-in-law that had either a mental health issue separate from drugs or a drug addiction slash mental issue that they couldn't get help for. That their loved one would go and ask for help would go to the state and say I need help and they'd say okay we can give you an appointment in four months or six months or that they knew somebody that was addicted and they just couldn't get help. There wasn't enough slots for them in the programs that we have. So I think the state's idea of here are these good programs we have good programs but there's just not enough staff funding to bring in as much need. And one thing that I'm interested in looking at is is there a way to go after the pharmaceutical companies that profited from recklessly marketing these opioids. Can attorney general get money out of them so that we can put money towards the treatment that's needed? Cause they profited it from it and it was clear on a national basis. I don't know if there's examples in Vermont but on a national basis there's really clear examples of them knowing that they were sending drugs that were just going on to the street and they were continuing doing so cause it was a very profitable. Let's stay on health. The bill that allows Vermont with federal permission to buy and import drugs, prescription drugs from Canada. Good idea? Yeah, I think so. I mean if you can, when you first brought a prescription drug problem I thought you were gonna say the problem is that the price of prescription drugs that people pay which is a big problem. So anything that we can do to try to lower those costs and if the same company is selling that drug in Canada for a fraction of the cost that we pay here why wouldn't we do it that way? In terms of the cost of drugs the so-called skinny health plans that are starting soon in some states that allow a person to buy, go back to the days of a very stripped down low cost per month high deductible plan that doesn't include mental health, doesn't include maternity care, doesn't include a number of the benefits that Vermonters already in law have but is much more affordable for people on that monthly. Would you favor skinny insurance? Well, skinny insurance is better than no insurance but I don't say that wouldn't be the goal. You don't wanna get to this like be, if everybody had skinny insurance is like oh well let's all declare victory and go home that shouldn't be our goal. Well it also strip our actuarial pool of the healthier people and leave it with the less healthy and the elderly. Right, I mean, I favor a universal healthcare system, a single payer, Medicare for all, whatever you wanna call it. I think it's difficult for Vermon, I think we tried and it's gonna be difficult for us to get there on our own. Maybe we could do it as a Northeastern region or something like that. So we need to find ways that we can just improve access and affordability of the healthcare system that we have and I think there are groups and people and physicians that kind of have ideas on how we can get there and I'm willing to work with them on figuring that out. I don't really wanna try to reinvent the effort that we tried under the Schumann administration just to do our own universal healthcare system but I think it was worth trying and I'd like it. In the state house, you had spoken process-wise. You had spoken about being cautious about marijuana and walking that in a cautious manner. Death with dignity took two sessions to pass. Civil unions took several sessions even after the Supreme Court had ruled on it. Gay marriage took two sessions and a veto over to pass. What is your feeling on the gun group of groups around the state who say why the rush in the spring? Right. Was that a question of rushing something through our legislature without real due process and without taking time to consider the consequences? I haven't heard that argument so I haven't looked at it. I wasn't involved in the debate. I didn't follow it, you know, I support it. But had you been in the state Senate, you would have been in the state. Yeah, I would have had an answer for you because I don't know if due process wasn't served. I don't know if they weren't heard. Well, they would say that due process. They would say in rushing it through, they really weren't heard. Right, was it rushed through? I mean, I don't know. It went through very quickly compared to gay marriage, compared to civil unions, compared to marijuana. Yeah, but I guess the question is, is it at that same level? Like it, and they would say it was. They'd say it's, you know, It's a basic fundamental right. Right, it's like we're changing the constitution where like this should be. And they're in court right now saying that the Remind Constitution was. Right, and the courts will tell us if they were right or not and whether it was unconstitutional and will abide by the core rulings. I mean, I think so often times, you know, my time in the state house, people will either use that either way. They'll say it's being rushed and we gotta slow down. Or it's being slow locked. Right, or it's being slow locked just depending on whether they like it or not. And I, you know, I don't know if they were doing one or the other, but I understand why if you don't like the bill, that's definitely gonna be a criticism. Let's put you in the state house and you and I are speaking six months. And you and I are speaking six months hence. We're speaking in June. Other than energy, what would you have been focusing in on in those first six months? What's another policy interest? Yeah, my top priority interest because I think on energy, we have a good energy plan. We have a good renewable energy standard. That's on track. It's gonna slowly ramp up. So we have good things on electricity. I don't think we really need to do much or anything on electricity other than just make sure we stay on track. There's stuff we need to do on transportation and on heating fuels, but that's a little different. But I think one of my, or my top effort is around childcare crisis that we have in the state and really supporting that all of our children and family. So family leave needs to pass and either- How was it paid for? Well, it was paid for by the bill that didn't, the Gavita that passed was through a payroll from them, basically the employees paying a little bit in each fund to kind of create a fund. So that family leave, that's both for children and families, increasing childcare, financial assistance, how's it paid for? There's a lot of things that I'm not gonna be able to tell you now how we're gonna end up paying for them in six months because- It's a legislature with a lot of voices. Yeah, I mean, I would like to find those creative ways to find little things like, for example, I noticed, we're pretty sure that candy is not taxed, sales tax, if it's sold in grocery stores, if it's sold in the convenience store as tax, like could we just add the sales tax to candy and have that money to go help support children's health? You know, we have- As one side destroys children's health, one side- Right, it seems- It could be there's a connection there at least in my mind. I don't know how much money that would be raised. It's the sugar tax, not the carbon tax. Yeah, and you know, so I would like to say in six months, we say like we really made some progress on support for our children and families in the state. And I think it's not only just because the human capital investment, but support for children today is gonna be beneficial for a whole society in 20 years, but it's an economic development issue. If we wanna have young families move to Vermont, the $10,000 to move here to work remotely, it was a publicity stunt, what maybe had value in that regard, but it wasn't an actual economic development plan. But really saying, hey, come to Vermont, we have family leave. We will really have full care for your families and your children's and you're gonna find quality, affordable childcare. If we have people having to quit work that they love because they can't find affordable, quality childcare, they're not gonna wanna stick around or they're not gonna have other kids. I have- I talk to families that either this is their story, either, hey, I'm paying 40% of my income on childcare. And that's with two parents. If you're a single family person, it's gonna be more than that. And it's just, it's kind of untenable. So they have to leave the workforce and then go into other- We're directly into the $15 per hour wage, minimum wage. Well, maybe- It's a trade-off between small businesses and people who are really skidding along. Yeah. What do you stand on that one? On the $15. I mean, I think the one of the issues that I've learned in campaigning, because definitely I was somebody that said like, we need to, I support raising the minimum wage. Two things that I learned that are just interesting points on that is I talked to childcare centers or like the family child centers. It's like, if we had to pay $15, we couldn't survive. And like you, the state can't tell us we were going to not, we're gonna level fund you. They've been level funded for the past 10 years, even though costs have gone up and demand has gone up, but they haven't got any more money. So the state at one point said like, we're not giving you any money. We're actually giving you less money, a lot, you need to pay your workers more. So we need to be able to, when we move to a $15 minimum wage, how do we deal with those kind of folks? Like if we can't also increase their state funding, how do we deal with that? It's the trade off that we've been talking about during these 40 minutes. Yeah. Let me ask one final question. You're a Democrat. Are you a Democrat progressive or progressive Democrat? How are you on the ballot? Yeah, I'm a Democrat slash progressive. What does that mean? It means I, well, just technically, it means I got the nomination from both the Democratic Party and the Progressive Party. I ran in the Democratic primary and got the most votes in that. So I'm now one of the three Democratic candidates. But then the Progressive Party didn't have anybody in their primary, so the party could endorse candidates. So they endorsed me and Anthony. I don't think there's a third one. And Anthony is a progressive Democrat, and I'm a Democrat. That's exactly what I'm going to add. And most people don't know if there's a difference or don't care if there's a difference. Is there a difference in your mind between those two parties? Not really. I mean, between the parties of the lineage. I mean, I think there's a difference in the parties in that they're different parties. And I believe in a benefit of a multi-party democracy. And I believe that the Democrats would benefit from having a stronger Progressive Party. And I think they're slowly coming around to that. I think in the past, when the Progressive Party was starting to rise, the Democrats saw it as a threat. But I think they see it now as how they could work together for common goals and that the Democrats would rather work together with the Progressives than with the Republicans. But I'm also supportive of a third, fourth party on the conservative side. I mean, we have a Libertarian Party in the state. We should be supporting all parties. And that's partly the reason that I'm both a Democrat and a Progressive because I believe in a multi-party democracy. 40 minutes are done. Wow, that went fast. Thank you so very much for being here. And thank you for watching it. I hope that, as I say at the end of all of these, I hope you'll get out and vote on Election Day. Urge your family, urge your neighbors to get out and vote because it's really important. And watch the other series in these. Watch the House, watch the Senate, watch Bill. They're all good shows. Thank you for watching.