 Good morning, everyone. It's not as bad as it was yesterday. That's the only thing I can really say about the weather. But I'm so glad to see you. My name's Jane Asguthar. I'm President of the Vermont Alliance for Retired Americans. And like most of us, we are very concerned about what this November election means on the Congress and on the state legislature. So that's why we were able to have George Twig, who's the Vermont director for Peter Welch, and David Suckerman, who is our lieutenant governor. And he is just re-elected, which is really great. Yes. Two gentlemen will give us, this is their impressions. This is not something set in stone, but they certainly are savvy, putting it mildly. George has been Peter Welch's Vermont director for about almost four years now. And David, of course, has a long, and they've lost his history in the state legislature versus a rep, and then as a senator, and now as lieutenant governor. And we hope someday soon, yes, that he might be in another higher position. But that is to come. And we don't even know if he wants to do that. But we're home. And if you've ever been to a rally or anything like that with David, he usually gives everybody carrots. And I want to say that they are some of the best carrots I've ever had. Thank you. Anyway, I don't want to fool around. This will be audience participation. You'll hear what they were saying. If you have questions, if you have thoughts you want to add, go right ahead. That's encouraged. What else? I didn't know she was back there. Oh, I'm sorry. And we have a representative, one of the representatives, there's going to be another one later, from the Vermont House of Representatives. Jill Krzynski, sorry Jill, is the House Majority Leader. And she's on, I forget the committee. Transportation, which is very important to seniors as well as anybody else who hasn't got a car. And that's really tricky around here. So Jill is there too. And there is one thing I want to say before we get into the real political discussion. Because a lot of people really have absolutely no idea who or what the Alliance for Retired Americans are. And what I want you to know is we are a progressive liberal group affiliated with the CIO, it's affiliated with Labor. And they have their Washington office, there are chapters in most, all the states. And we really advocate for obviously social security, Medicare, Medicaid, and all the programs that the national programs that are helping seniors and other people who are of low income, who may be physically, physically or mentally handicapped in some way, that's what we do. And obviously for the last few years in Washington that's been an uphill battle. But they also have the chapters, the state chapters we concentrate on our state. And so the Vermont ARA has been really emphasizing the program or the bill that was introduced in the state legislature for a couple of terms now called universal primary care for all. That means all Vermonters, no age differences, no anything differences, everybody. And it almost passed, I think, this past legislative session because for the first time it passed the Senate unanimously and it also passed in the House and unfortunately the session ended before they could do the resolution committee between the two bodies in the state legislature. So maybe next session is our time, we don't know. But I hopefully will hear something from David and Jill about that and maybe George too, I don't know. But that's the scoop. We would love you to join us. The more people that we have, the more impact we'll have on the legislature and on the population of Vermont. And with all that, I'm going to shut up. So George, would you like to go first? Start at the high level. Start all the money. Start with the one person who's never been elected to anything in their life. Well, good morning. I'm George Toygana, State Director for Congress from Peter Welch. And glad to be here with you this morning. And I'll just make a few remarks and then I guess hand it off to these folks and then maybe I'll take questions after that. Is that what you handed mine? Up to you. Okay. So, unless there be any doubt, the 2018 elections were a success for Democrats. On the House side, we picked up, it's going to be on the order of 40 seats or so, you know, it seemed a little bit ambiguous. I was seeing a little bit ambiguous on election night, but as the results kept coming in, especially at places like California that had late polls, I just saw an infographic this morning that showed that Orange County, California, is now completely controlled by Democrats in the House. What was the thought? Arizona, right? Arizona. And I think Susan Collins is the only member of Congress representing any New England state now in 2020. We'll see what happens with that. You know, Congressman Welch is honored to be re-elected here in Vermont. And he'll be going back to Congress primarily serving on the Energy and Commerce Committee, which is one of the four most powerful committees on the House side. It covers not only energy, but also issues related to health care in many other areas. This was the committee that the Obamacare appeal was driven through last year. So it has a broad jurisdiction. Coming back with the Democrats in the majority, we will be in a good position, hopefully to do a lot of positive pro-active things on health care, on prescription drugs, on energy, climate, and a lot of other issues. I'll talk about that a little bit more. But Peter's really excited to be back. It'll be the first time he'll have been in the majority since 2010. So it's been a little bit of a gap. So it'll be good to get back to that. And again, being active, you know, listening to Vermonters bringing their ideas down to DC and doing things that are positive and proactive as opposed to just having to find creative ways to vote no on Paul Ryan's latest bad idea. You know, right now we are in the, what's called the lame duck session, right, between the election and when the new Congress is sworn in in January. So we're not expecting a lot of drama over the next few weeks, although you never know. A lot of the federal spending bills got resolved back in the fall. So the notable exception being the appropriations related to a few agencies including most notably the Department of Homeland Security where there will be some fighting over the President Trump's request for $5 billion or more to fund the wall, which Peter does not support and most Democrats and the long Republicans honestly don't support. So there'll be some scur, there'll be some scuffling over that, but otherwise I think it'll be fairly drama-free until we get into the new Congress where obviously we'll have a much different dynamic whereas opposed to unified Republican control of all, you know, of government we will have the Democrats in control of the House so that will change things significantly. You know, in terms of the outlook for the new Congress, touch on just a few things. One is, you know, there will continue to be a lot of, I think, struggle between, you know, House Democrats and then the Senate Republicans and the President over what are the federal budget priorities going to be in terms of military spending versus domestic investment on healthcare, infrastructure, transportation, a lot of the things that we need to do to kind of keep our country strong domestically. We've actually had a fair amount of success over the past couple of years even with President Trump in terms of increasing investment domestically, so despite the President's budget proposal as to slash the EPA, slash Department of Energy, slash, you know, slash nutrition and healthcare programs, you know, Democrats in Congress and with a big, I think, thank you to Senator Leahy because of his senior role on the Senate Appropriations Committee we've actually been able to keep domestic spending priorities pretty well protected despite a lot of pressure from the President to try to push all that onto the military side. So we're hoping with even a stronger hand with Democrats in control of the House that we'll be able to continue to push those priorities in terms of what we need to do domestically in particular to take care of, you know, not only seniors but all Americans including the most vulnerable, you know, investments in infrastructure, housing, all of those things. So, you know, big picture, that's going to continue to be a priority for us and for Peter is really identifying, you know, what we need to be doing to, you know, on the domestic side to protect Americans and Vermonters. On the big picture in, you know, so-called entitlement programs, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, you know, there was a lot of, I think, concern justifiably. So in the last Congress with Speaker Ryan and his real passion for trying to undo and weaken a lot of those programs we saw that those efforts did not get a lot of traction, fortunately and now he will be out of the picture, thankfully. And so, you know, going forward I don't see a lot of major legislative action happening with those programs. You know, there'll be, I think, ongoing discussions about, you know, long-term, you know, Social Security Trust Fund and other issues but I really think that, you know, for Democrats, kind of protecting those programs, protecting the people to whom those promises were made to benefit from those programs is going to be the priority as opposed to kind of a, you know, conservative, you know, re-engineering, you know, breaking of that deal and those promises that were made and so that will be, certainly, Peter's priority going forward on that. And I think you'll see strong Democratic support for that and the way, of course, the Senate is structured, they won't be able to do anything without, you know, significant support from Democratic senators. So I think we'll be in a good place to help to protect, you know, the core part of those programs. The outside of the kind of legislative piece, the other thing that we're watching very closely will be sort of what is the Trump Administration doing with the regulatory agencies and the administrative agencies? So what is, you know, the Department of Health and Human Services doing that might potentially weaken benefits or weaken programs? You know, we've seen waivers being issued for states to impose, say, work requirements for food and nutrition benefits, which is something that we're very concerned about. You know, Arkansas just threw 12,000 people off of their nutrition roles just based on supposed non-compliance with new work requirements there and it's, you know, these, you know, online work requirements where you have to, like, get on a smartphone and click on something to certify your, you know, that you've been doing the work that you're supposedly required to do and a lot of people don't have smartphones, they don't have access to the internet and people are, like, losing their nutrition programs. You know, obviously, Congress can control what happens on the legislative side but the Trump administration, the executive branch, has a lot of authority to try to do things on the administrative side and with rulemaking. So one good thing about Democrats taking over the House is that we will now have oversight power and subpoena power over all of those activities. So whether it's adding a citizenship question to the census or any of these other rule changes to some of these programs, we'll be able to call these administration officials to committee subpoena them if we have to and force them to answer questions about what are they doing, why are they doing it, what's their legal justification and if we have to push back through lawsuits or other means to fight these as we have in a lot of cases already, we'll continue to do that. But that's sort of the biggest, I think, concern that Peter has is, again, those regulatory actions that don't necessarily require Congress's side-off, but we will have more oversight so I think that will be a good thing. The last thing I'll say beforehand enough to these folks is we are very aware of what the federal government does impacts the state on a lot of areas. So whether it's water quality funding, transportation funding, human services funding, I can't write it as like 30% plus of the state budget, which is actually federal funding pass-through. And so we're very aware that what the decisions that Peter is making have a real direct effect on the ability of Representative Kuensky and Lieutenant Governor Zuckerman to do their jobs to help to craft a budget and policies that are going to be good for Vermonters from the state government perspective. So the good news is I think we have a very close partnership. Our office talks to them constantly and vice versa to make sure that particular issues that are of concern to Vermont are on the radar for Peter and the rest of the congressional delegation so we can make sure to fight for those priorities. That's a good partnership and that's something that we will continue to do and I think we're the envy of a lot of states in that our legislative delegation and our state government partners work very closely together to try to make sure we can have as much impact as we do. So in between Congressman Welch's position, Senator Leahy, Senator Sanders, we all work very closely together with our state partners. So finally I'll say we often get a question in our office to help protect and preserve some of these issues of concern. So there's a couple of things to say. One is remain active and remain outspoken and whether that means coming to public meetings like this, going to demonstrations, calling our office or e-mailing us when an issue comes up that's of concern. Because sometimes we'll hear, well, what's the point of calling Peter Welch? We know he's going to support our issue, but it's actually really important we continue to hear from you what only people feel about an issue and that this is a thing, this is a matter that is still of concern. So it might be something that, yes, Peter's going to vote for some of these fundamental issues, absolutely, but to know the level of intensity and passion that Vermonters are bringing to this issue, it's really important and valuable for us to hear that and to know that. And it's information that Peter can bring back to his colleagues when he's fighting for these issues and they said this is how this issue would impact them. And we can use that as testimony and committee on the House floor so those stories are really important. The second thing I'd say is continue to support, whether it's organizations like this or others, we can only do so much in Congress but to have these outside organizations that bring their own pressure to bear is really valuable as well. So those are a couple of things that you can do to keep involved. Obviously the 2020 elections will be here so please keep active, keep in touch with our office and we are always glad to be of help and to hear of concerns or issues that are of interest to you. So with that, I'll hand it over. George? Okay. Yeah. So what I'm really curious about, there's been several bills over the years, mostly started by Bernie Sanders but not all, some come from the House. Where they're attempting to increase Social Security's financial situation by doing things like scrap the cap, that's the buttons that we have and everybody knows that if you are working whether it's for salary or art for yourself that there is a cap which fluctuates, goes up according to what the cost of living is that change that is that year and they've always gone nowhere. It makes so much sense because what used to be considered a really good wage is down if that, middle class and yet if you make over a hundred and what is it? Now it's up to about 128,000. Um, they, um, anybody does not have Social Security taken out of their salary or their income and that just makes no sense whatsoever. So that would be a very easy fix you would think and the other thing is the way that the COLA is calculated for seniors is wrong just plain wrong. It's based on working people, mostly white collar working people and the kinds of things they need are not the kinds of things we need because we don't buy new cars we rarely buy a new house. We would like to pay our medical bills and there hasn't been any great wonderful improvement in Medicare so do you have a crystal ball? Sure. Um, so just briefly I know on the issue of the COLA adjustment, Congressman Watson, I think the entire delegation has been supportive of legislation to change the basis on which that's calculated. Um, and I can't remember what the name of the bill is, but essentially the so called basket of goods that you should look at for calculating the cost of living the actual cost of living for a senior you know it should be, as you say not so much buying a new house or a new car or something but what's the cost of prescription drugs what's the cost of food, what's the cost of housing so that's something that we need to continue to work on and then on the cap issue that seems kind of like a no brainer and I think we saw with the tax bill last year going very much in the opposite direction in terms of asking the wealth to pay their fair share obviously the cap on social security not having people you know once you get over that $128,000 not paying any social security tax it all doesn't make a lot of sense and to the extent people are concerned about the social security trust one you know there's a pretty easy revenue source out there to look at so um you know we'll see you know I think what you'll see in terms of Cristobal will be a lot of good progressive legislation coming out of the house and then obviously there'll be a fight in the Mitch McConnell Senate and the White House you know at least we'll be able with control of the house we'll be able to at least start to have a conversation about trying to advance these and hopefully make progress in some of these priorities so do you do you want us to continue to go down the line or well I just want to know what anybody else wants to okay over here you either have to talk really loud or else come up I just wanted to follow up Jane's comments about scrap the cap I believe this wonderful phrase was invented right here among the Vermont Alliance for Retired Americans I think this is that's true I think the late Jen Briggs was the inventor of this it's so easy to remember and I think I wanted to be sure that you have a keep safe from today and we wish you all the best in helping us to help scrap the cap okay yeah we'll keep on going and then we can open it up okay stay there hi everyone I'm representative Jill Kroinski I represent the Old North End in downtown Burlington and I am also currently the house majority leader and thank you I really appreciate the invitation to come and be here with you today Jane and I go way back we've been friends for I think 15 years now at least that so it's nice to see you all I am I'm so proud to have with us a state representative Terry McCake who's here and one of our superstar candidates who didn't make it across the finish line this year but will in 2020 Dennis Lobownie in the back Dennis thank you for running so last legislative session Democrats held 83 seats out of 150 and ran a lot with a coalition with the progressives that had seven members in the house and even together we didn't quite have enough votes to override a veto of the governor if that came to be and so looking at this this past election it was really critical to us that we grow our majorities so that we can have a veto proof coalition that would bring the governor to the table time and time again throughout last throughout last biennium it was really hard to work together to get things done for Vermonters you know as Democrats we want to have Vermont that works for everyone not just a select few and policies that were really important to help Vermont families and communities thrive like paid family leave for vetoed and I think what we hope now is that starting on day one the governor will be joining us at that table to help us with these really important policies that help that help everyone get ahead and give everyone a fair shot so out of 150 seats in the house on election night we are proud to say that we grew our majority from 83 Democrats to 95 Democrats and the progressives kept seven seats so we now have a veto proof coalition of 102 members applause so we're really proud of that but I think the message that I take from that from Vermonters across the state is that they want us to work together they want Democrats and Republicans and progressives and independents to come to the table to really debate and get into the details and pass good compromising legislation that shows that you can we were just talking with Kevin about this that we can be the model across the country about good civil discourse and how we can work together so that's my mission and my thought is we move into this next legislative session right now the speaker of the house Mitzi Johnson and I are touring the state listening to all members of our caucuses to hear what are members hearing from their constituents when we were out knocking on doors this campaign cycle what were the problems that people were sharing with us and what can we do to solve those problems and even the themes that have been coming out of these conversations are people's concerns about aging in place and being able to stay in their homes being able to get around town we talked about transportation we mentioned that earlier and healthcare is another theme so I think it's interesting that these aren't new priorities that are coming to light that people are voicing the same concerns that we need to do more when thinking about healthcare making sure that it's more accessible more affordable and more transparent our themes that I'm hearing and I'm really proud of the work that the house did on the universal primary care bill the senate spent a lot of time in consideration looking at what a universal primary care system would look like and created a study for it when it came to the house we took it a step further more time to review it to say how can we get this in place without a study but actually moving forward with it and so I think there's going to be a lot more conversation about how can we look at universal primary care moving forward given the realities of our political makeup and what can we do to increase access and make it more affordable so that conversation will absolutely be continuing in terms of housing we asked a housing bond that would create over 30 million dollars more housing stock available in the state but I think one of the things that we're hearing is that people want to continue to be able to stay in their homes and how can we help make that work for them so I think that will also be a conversation that we're having at this next legislative session one of my constituents Tony Runnington is part of AARP's work group and a lot of shaking heads here so Tony and I talk a lot about how we can make downtowns and rural areas more accessible for biking and for walking and I've been in contact and conversations with AARP about what that looks like and and weatherization is another theme ensuring people have access to that funding for that and then I'll go back to paid family leave for a minute I really believe that we're making progress when we look at how we can update our laws and our rules to reflect what our families look like now now we have two parents in the workplace, not one staying at home and a lot of our laws are still living in the 60s and the 70s and it's time that we update that so we've made progress by passing paid sick days and we've made progress passing paid family leave unfortunately the governor vetoed that bill but that bill had tripartisan support tripartisan support and what it gave was new parents both parents 12 weeks off with 80% wage replacement and 4 weeks to take care of a sick parent and we heard just as many stories from Vermonters about having to take care of a new child but also trying to take care of a sick parent someone who's getting well and having that time to be able to take your parent to the hospital to get that treatment and really take care of them that's important and that's a value that I think we share of being able to take care of our families so again we will be looking at that piece of legislation as well you know one I think new addition to our priorities and something that was a bigger a bigger concern for us this session and others is how we work and respond to the federal government I think this is actually just like we have our work on what we want to be proactive of and now we have this group of priorities of what do we need to do to protect Vermonters from what's happening out of the Trump administration so we had passed legislation that last session that protected Vermonters voter information from the federal government when they were trying to reach in to get people's social security numbers very personal information we worked to protect Vermonters from that we also passed a slew of bills to protect Vermonters from the ACA roll backs that they were doing in Washington so I think George mentioned some of this we have a really great relationship I believe we have the best federal delegation in the country and we need to continue to work together to make sure that Vermonters we're protecting Vermonters from whatever harmful policies Congress might not be able to stop but it's happening through rules through the administration to ensure that we really protect us so I'll close by saying and I echo what George says that your voice matters your voice really matters in this conversation and so if there's an issue that you care about like universal primary care like paid family leave you really need to reach out and talk to your legislator give them a call send them an email go out grab coffee together your voice really makes a difference and I can't tell you how many times I'm talking to members about an upcoming vote and they will say well I heard from five of my constituents on this so I know people are listening so your voice really does make a difference and so I also just want to recognize before I pass the mic over that Representative Janet Ansel just came in to the building. Janet, welcome. Chair of the Ways and Means Committee has just done incredible work and I'm sure we'll give the microphone to her to speak a little bit about the work she did last session to help aging Vermonters so thank you very much it's great to be here and I'm looking forward to the conversation. Thank you David Zakerman, Lieutenant Governor and Lieutenant Governor-elect Thank you my two colleagues here have done a great job of laying some of the landscape so I'll try and do a little cleanup but I have to say the election results were phenomenal across the country and I know it's hard to imagine that with the down scenario of the Senate but you have to remember how the table was set and actually Democrats defended a number of U.S. Senate seats in districts and states I should say that were overwhelmingly Trump supportive two years ago so it actually was a pretty good holding back on that side as well and I want to give kudos to all of you in this room and Vermonters across state because I did hear at one point along the way that Vermonters were actually some of the most revolutionary and both financially capita as well as time helping with phone calls writing postcards to people all over the country to help get turnout up so while we were fortunate that our congressional delegation was not particularly challenged in this race, Vermonters participated and helped in other states and I know some of you did that as well so I want to thank you for that because the impact is very real taking over the U.S. House it makes a difference to Vermon as George said with respect to the ability to either stop bad legislation or start working on some of these kinds of adjustments like how the COLA affects Social Security and whether or not an idea like that can be moved forward because frankly there are seniors in every state so if some of those Republican senators don't support bills that will help seniors across the country with adjustments to COLA they will be vulnerable in the future when we take the right positions on issues we actually do put pressure on making a better and better Congress and Senate in years going forward so thank you for all your help with that I was just literally in thinking during this discussion about seniors staying in place I thought oh what about an idea like and I just want you to know whenever we throw out an idea it means investigation it means the work of committees I don't know if this is possible or not it would actually be a ways it means issue you know many seniors live in homes that are bigger than they need and my friend Kirby Dunn runs Homeshare which is a great program but is not as well known or utilized across the state but similarly what if multiple seniors were to live in a house together and we were to say ok on your property tax homestead adjustment the added income in that house wouldn't be counted if it was a third senior in the same house I don't know it's an idea but that would not only help with having more seniors living together who could assist each other with the things that you need day to day but also would then make more housing available which would help make affordable housing you know the more housing there is relative to demand the less it gets the pressure to go up as much as it has I have no idea if that would work literally thought about it while these two were talking so we'd have to do a lot of investigating how much would it cost the state or not but I think it could be a net plus I think another issue that hasn't been talked about that I think is very important and sometimes it's a secondary attachment to the issues of this room is the work on the benefits cliff those of you that don't know what the benefits cliff is it's as folks who are struggling to make a living and do get state assistance or combined state and federal assistance for childcare or food or housing there comes a point sometimes where if they take on more hours or get paid more per hour they actually lose more in benefits than they gain in their hourly wage if groups like this group understand and help push for the ability to make an adjustment there where we remove that cliff and more folks are able to move up in the economic ladder in the workforce side of things then the demand on state services will actually drop which will bring up resources that would then become available for other aspects of either state government including maybe it's a little bit more on public transportation to help seniors get around maybe it's a little bit more to make it possible to do this combine more seniors in a home together and have a little tax break for it who knows but each of these pieces I guess my main point is each of these different pieces are interrelated and sometimes we get fixated on a single issue that we care about and don't see how some of these other issues can also help us in a secondary way so part of that is a coalition scenario and I know Jill has been doing a great job building coalitions in the house and we'll continue to do that in this session moving forward with these new numbers who knows what the next creative idea is usually they come from folks like you in the room not from someone like me sitting on a panel thinking while I'm listening and then I just want to wrap because really it should be more about what's going on between the elections from you all is staying involved between the elections really does matter two years from now I happen to think that the way we had this year was actually just the beginning when you look statistically and I'm a 538.com person for those who don't know we can talk about it afterwards but it's a national statistics analytical website the number of house seats another bump in turnout during the presidential year especially we do a little better than we did two years ago that will continue to move in our direction we'll make this year look small there's sort of a tipping point because of all the gerrymandering that happened by Republicans in other states that there comes a point where they actually can't hold it back because they have gerry-rigged in their favor to a point but that sort of tips the other way if we get higher turnout staying involved for these next couple years writing letters to the editor whether they be locally here or engaging even in other states is incredibly important as well as the communication that Representative Kowinsky was talking about to your own legislator because it is true on most issues legislators hear from literally three to five constituents and on a few big issues if an email goes out from the alliance or from someone else there's a lot more but it's amazing how much voice one or three or five people can have because even in our very engaged state so few people do reach out and that will help make a difference particularly in those districts where maybe a legislator did just win reelection who maybe isn't sure they're supportive of this but they only won by 30 or 50 or 100 votes well two years from now they're going to be thinking about the fact that there's going to be another 40,000 Vermonters voting which means 400 more in their district which means they better think about these issues that you care about so do stay engaged not just with your legislators who are friendly but be friendly with your legislators who are not friendly to our issues and help them understand how it helps their district and their constituents to work progressively on these issues that we're talking about so thank you for having us and I'll give the mic back to you for questions can I get it? yeah pull it I'll slide over a little we'll need one more button by the way so good morning and I'm sorry I'm a few minutes late but I had a chance to listen to a bit of the other presenters and I want to underscore in particular what David talked about with activism and how important the letters the financial support the emails that went around all of those things how much that meant I believe nationally I had groups I live in Calis and I represent Calis Marshfield and Plainfield and those three towns were incredibly active they did postcards they did all kinds of stuff and it made a difference I believe it made a difference nationally as well and it has a lot to do with the fact that we have larger numbers in the house this coming session and I think it also made a difference in an intangible way in how people felt and they felt that they had something that they could do and they had a voice in a political world that I don't know about all of you but for me I felt sort of left on the sidelines at the end of the 2016 elections so I really encourage people to get involved in those groups if you aren't already I know that you're already activists because you're here and so I also agree that letting legislators know that important three phone calls or emails or letters really are because we don't hear from tons of people although sometimes when the mass emails get started we do hear from a whole lot those matter but it's those individual ones that when you feel moved about an issue and you are concerned about something when you reach out to us it really does make a difference the work that we did last session I'm not going to weigh in on David's ideas but David's always full of good ideas so I have to pay attention to them but I don't know whether anybody talked about the social security change that we made last year that that happened principally in my committee I chaired the Ways and Means Committee just to set the table a little bit Feds made their major tax changes at the very end of the calendar year we were left with a situation where all those changes were going to have very big impacts in the permount and this was actually unlike a number of other issues it was an issue where I think the legislature and the administration worked very cooperatively and worked well together and we were able to come up with a massive restructuring of our income tax system which my headline on it is that it was better for low and middle income taxpayers and that included seniors and the way just the two sort of most significant changes that we made for low and middle income households we didn't increase in the burned income tax credit that's not something typically that seniors get to take advantage of but it helps groups that I know we care about and then the other thing we did is that we increase the exemption on social security the administration have proposed an increase but they were going to phase it in over three years and we looked at that and we thought boy if you're doing you know if you're giving five million dollars back to seniors and you're doing it over three years that's a little over a million each year there's just too many people for that to really make a difference for people so we pushed hard to do it all in year one I was actually somebody who wanted to exempt all social security but that was going to cost about 30 million so we weren't able to pull that off but we were able to greatly increase the exemption and so I feel that that was a really positive restructuring that's not something that's going to disappear that if anything that's going to grow it's not going to go away sometimes we make changes we're going to look at them and we're going to regret them and we're going to reduce them over time but in this case I think that's not true I think we're moving in the right direction so that's just a little flavor of the kind of work that we do our committee does do all the finance and property tax work as well and we made a real effort to try to revise that move more towards income for funding education and I tend to say that I failed but I think what I did is I got close we got close we were working on it all but we didn't get it over the finish line and that doesn't mean that we won't take another attempt at it but it was a disappointment certainly for me so I will stop and see if there are questions I was just wondering Panna could you compare Vermont to other states in terms of whether Social Security is exempt from taxes by the states? We're much more like other states at this point and there are a few states that exempt at all there are of course some states that don't have an income tax so it's effectively exempt and I think there might be one or two that only left remaining that only pass through the federal exemption before we did this there is a federal exemption and that did pass through to the state so it wasn't true that we didn't exempt anything but we didn't have a state exemption so we're much more like other states at this point The response to Dave's idea is a bad idea It's a bad idea It's a good idea to have people sharing housing but rather than putting several seniors together you need a young couple getting subsidized to live with the seniors so the other people can drive them to the grocery store to other in the yard or whatever I wasn't saying in exclusion of that I wasn't saying in addition to that The question I think is okay Grover, Martin Quist and all those people they would say stars and bees so rather than starting a political fight and doing what they're doing is gunning these agencies so that nothing can be enforced so how does the federal budget restore some of what's been cut from these agencies the other question I have in terms of like gerrymandering the census in other words the census worker in Mexico he said it was an utterly corrupt process and all these jobs were patronage jobs, data was he was finding houses and streets that were put in the last census that didn't even exist so how can we somehow make this census bureau accountable in terms of actually collecting real data because I mean everybody's apportionment is based on population Right I think the democrats having control of the house is vastly more oversightability than we had before so as I said earlier whether it's the census bureau, whether it's the EPA if they're failing to hire people if they're failing to have adequate enforcement if they're failing to be competent what they're doing with an accurate census count we can haul them in I mean Peter's currently on the house oversight and government reform committee at least for this congress I'm not sure about next year but we'll be able to drag those people in now we have to face facts the executive branch has vast power to kind of interpret and carry out laws in the way that they see fit but that power's not unlimited so for instance with the census right now there is a lawsuit that's in process against the census bureau for adding the citizenship question it's pretty clear to us that there's been a lack of complete candor from the administration about why they added a citizenship question to the census for 2020 in our fears this will suppress participation in an accurate count from undocumented individuals and other communities of color so we have some more leverage there whether it's through the courts whether it's through the oversight process to push back on this I mean it's going to take a change in administration in 2020 to fundamentally address those issues we'll be doing what we can to push back on those issues and outside pressure and outside agitation from groups like this will be helpful in raising public awareness because again there's so much going on all the time right but trying to get focus on some of these issues of real concern it'll be something we'll all have to work on that's a question that I had in seeing a notice that the census was speak up Karina notice that the census was looking to hire people in this area a question that I have is would doing that job put people who are undocumented or documented but without citizenship status that would allow them to say would it put them in jeopardy if we were collecting that information and it of course was available to the administration is that a problem with working for the census as it stands would that be a problem would the census as it's currently set up with the plans that the administration currently has the questions that are currently to be asked would working for the census and asking those questions in Vermont be putting people who are here who don't have status that would enable them to not be deported would it put those people in jeopardy I think that's the understandable concern of people who might have that question posted and that's what our concern about having that question added what the department of commerce which runs the census has claimed and I think that what the law requires is that that information can't be passed through but obviously if you're a person with a status like that your concern would be understandable and so even from a perception perspective that's why I think there's a lot of concern from us we've seen that at the state level with some of the DMV data that was transferred even though they weren't supposed to so if you're someone who has that concern just because it says in law this is not supposed to be transferred it takes a oops I made a mistake by someone who is okay with that mistake happening to put your life in jeopardy and certainly your life in its current form in jeopardy that's I think the crux of that that debate right now is that we have not asked that question in the past and so we've gotten a more accurate census count and adding that question will probably lead to a lot of people not answering the questions and therefore the census is lowered and therefore the state I think George talked earlier about how 30% of our budget dollars our federal dollars those are often based on account numbers and so again how one issue can have these snowball ramifications for all of these others is absolutely true I had a question about this is on the federal level the PBGC, the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation which is kind of like the backstop and insurance program for private sector pensions is in detrol there's two components to the PBGC one insures single employer plans and the other is okay but the one for multi employer pension plans which are essentially TAC heartly plans labor management plans there are some plans which are in significant trouble particularly the Teemster Central States plan which by itself if it goes down when it goes down it's just a matter of time will bankrupt the PBGC there are other plans like a Mine Workers is in a similar situation and there are some smaller plans in that precarious situation a few congresses ago congress passed something called the MEPRA the Multi Employer Pension Reform Act which is kind of a misnomer because what it did it allowed trustees multi employer pension plans to cut the benefits of existing retirees which we think is the absolute worst way to deal with the crisis in the pension in the private sector pension plan so currently it's resulted in the push that came from that legislation there is a bipartisan bicarbonate committee that is supposed to be looking at right now a solution to the multi employer pension funding crisis and they're supposed to make recommendations for congress before the end of the year as to how to solve this problem now we shouldn't think you know the Teemster Central States is primarily in the Midwest but it has members which are retirees in Vermont across the country everywhere so this is in a sense a national problem that has to be addressed they're very concerned I can tell you I used to work in DC and we did some work trying to keep what's called composite plans which are a hybrid plan that would allow building construction trade contractors to get out what's called the dry liability I'm getting into the weeds in this but in a sense this has to be approached very carefully because the PBGC was set up some 40 years ago to make sure that if a pension plan went down the retirees would still have some type of benefit coming in and that people that contributed to this you know this is the real element you know there's three sectors to retirement security social security pension savings while we were eliminating the private sector pension in the state because that's a key component of retirement security and this has to be addressed in a real significant way that's going to fund the plans you know a lot of us think that you know 10 years ago we had a crisis we had tarped a bill out of Wall Street we tried to get that money to go to the PBGC the Obama administration of all people turned us down you know there are factors there are solutions like that that have to be addressed to make sure that the congressman understands that this is not to be taken lightly because a lot of people's lives at stake their retirement securities at stake and it has to be addressed in a way that is not playing the victim which other legislation has done. Thanks I'll try for those who didn't hear I'll try to restate that question. Just to say one more of those questions. This is really about what's congress going to do with the pension PBGC guarantee corporation which is a backstop to a lot of private pensions particularly labor pensions and there's a study committee looking into this so I'm not familiar with the work of that study committee but I'd be glad to check in on that and give you my card and follow up on that but obviously retirement security whether it's through private pensions or you know social security or other means is you know serious obviously a huge issue and so yeah financial security through these plans needs to be a priority understand your comment on making sure it's addressed thoughtfully so that current beneficiaries versus you know other employees are not sort of harmed in terms of trying to address the situation. Thanks. I just want to follow up on the issue of pensions in general you know we had the conversation about pensions was a big part of the special session in the budget negotiations that the legislature had with the governor and we were advocating to use more of the one-time funds that we were debating about for pensions and we tried really hard to get as much of that one-time money into pensions even though you know despite the governor's pushback on that and wanting to use it for something else. The issue about pensions for state employees and teachers is going to be right back front and center when we get back to the state house in January so I do want to raise that with all of you because we're going to need your help and protecting the promises that we made and making sure that we can keep those promises. I just want to say I really salute the Democrats for doing that because that is saving the money big time down the road. Jane. I'm a retired state employee so I have a personal interest in this. Okay. So the BSEA the union is really gearing up to fight because we know what the administration not the legislature but the administration is trying to do for the next session and that will be to somehow reduce pensions possibly they're trying very hard to get us into a different pension plan that would not be a defined benefit but would be a defined contribution and I won't go into all that but basically it's going to cause current employees who are not retired to have smaller pensions and there's some wonderful rhetoric that goes about how this is so wonderful and they'll wind up with a lot more money but the fact of the matter if they have to take this to loss anyway all I'm really trying to say is that's bad for workers these are municipal workers and state workers but it's bad for all workers to set a precedent of this type and I'm hoping that the legislature will be able to keep it from happening I just want to add on that in terms of letters to the editor or the discussion that's moving towards the next couple years in elections we've often heard this rhetoric that the Republican party is the party of fiscal responsibility and Democrats and progressives are tax and spend liberals I think that is part of what a constant discussion will shift over time and the only responsible thing to have done the last couple years was put money into paying down those pension obligations not for the rate which frankly at $30 for property tax bill or $50 yes that's real money but in the long run it's many times that in the pension fund growing which means fewer costs to the state in the future it means not having the revenue downgrade from Moody's that's not what happens if you're physically responsible and so making that connection for people is something that we can say a lot it usually doesn't get covered very often but that continuous letter to the editor flow and comment with friends and in discussions you have over coffee or at the senior centers or wherever you may be shifting that conversation is critical and so I asked for your help you say hopefully the legislature can do the right thing the pressure that's out there with those memes of that are inaccurate right but that does put political pressure on anybody who's in elected office to go in a direction that sometimes we don't even necessarily want to go so that's how your help changing that meme makes it easier for us to do the right thing I just want to add another element that we're talking about the kinds of issues that we're going to be looking at next year that will have an impact on all of us including all of you the proposal is kicking around to use some sales tax money to fund child care I would love to find a way to fund child care I think it would be great one of the things we did however last year is we put all the sales tax into the education fund so if we take that money out of the education fund and put it into child care it's all of us who pay property taxes who are going to have to make up the difference so just be careful when you hear this is if it's too good to be true it's probably too good to be true and be skeptical listen to us I don't know how else to say that these things are going to happen they're going to happen all over Marge well, before I louder Marge, you can't hear you before I talk about health care reform I just wanted to chime in on the pension thing I think one of the reasons that there is not as much support for funding for pensions is that not everyone has them and there is some envy of state employees and teachers and municipal employees that actually do have defined benefit plans and so I would like to suggest that the legislature start considering as I think they started last year a universal pension plan for Vermonters and that would then obviate this envy issue like why should I support them when I don't have one but now my main point which was I was very disappointed in the legislature last year particularly the senate with their treatment of the universal primary care bill because basically it was sabotaged by the leadership itself it started from a bill that did something to a bill that did less than nothing and those changes were done by the majority in the senate I would not care to see that happen again this year because it would be horrible to have to go campaigning against people who might otherwise be supported because they are opposing such a a bill that is so important to Vermonters who have no access to healthcare it's all very well today mandate everybody's can go on the the exchange but people don't and they can't afford it and even if they have insurance they can't afford to go to the doctor because of the big deductibles so we want to see that bill move forward none of this hanky-panky get it down to a one pager going backwards thanks Marge I have to say on your first point we'll start from the top it is so lovely to be able to say we did pass a plan that would create access to universal retirement in the state it's currently in the process of being set up by the state treasurer's office Beth Pierce has been doing incredible work there were listening and education tours she has been working tirelessly on this and so it's coming soon to you we did pass that so that's very exciting and so I'll just I'll touch on universal primary care and I'll hand it back over to David you know we I have to tell you for me personally access to high quality affordable care has really hit home we talk about it all the time on the campaign trail talking all the time with voters and by a couple months ago my husband's cousin was coming down with some symptoms that seemed to be like a heart attack and we were urging him to go to the doctor and every time no matter who it was in the family that was talking to him he said I can't afford to go and he said doesn't matter we're going to take you and he said no I can't I'm sorry I just can't afford it I'm going to take it easy for a couple days and if I don't feel better then I'll finally go and he died of a heart attack and so I think the barrier of cost should not should not be there it should not be there and I think that we we all agree as a community and our values that people should be able to access care when they need it and we shouldn't have these barriers and so Marge we worked really hard on that universal primary care bill in the house I believe that we made it stronger and we needed more time so I can guarantee that this conversation will be happening when we get back to Montpelier I do so I just want to make sure a couple things are clear one is that I strongly agree with you and sometimes people don't know that the lieutenant governor doesn't actually get to really vote or have much power over these things but I will tell you a little bit of the insider story which is that I had hoped to have a town meeting sponsored by the lieutenant governor's office in the state house on universal primary care and there were people in the senate in positions of power that said I'd rather you not do that here at the state house maybe over at the high school but really I'd rather you not do it at all and I will admit that in my first meeting as lieutenant governor and trying to work with a senate that I think in general is very good on the vast majority of issues I sort of had to debate is this a battle of having a town meeting that may or may not change the outcome this year worth it in the big picture of some other things but there really was pushback from leadership in the healthcare committee and let's just say in this environment there's going to be new leadership in that committee but it is but that senator has had a lot of very good work that they did on many many issues so I want to make sure people realize that each one of us is a package deal no one here is going to be perfect on every issue for each of you so I tell you that story not to throw that person under the bus because that person did a lot of really good work as well it's important that we in this new process with the new committee hopefully with a committee that's going to be better on this issue which is one of the few places I have some say it's a committee of three however and I would add that Washington County has a new senator you already have two senators I think are very good on this you have a new senator that will be I think far more engaged in this process so I would say reach out for those of you living in Washington County to your delegation also reach out to the leadership of the Senate now because this is when we make the committees and point out the importance of this issue so that the concern you have for two years from now Marge hopefully won't be one that needs to be executed because we don't want to lose good people over one issue but we do want to make sure they're better on this one issue which is so fundamental to economic justice across the board so again, I implore you to engage but also you are right the Senate was not in the front role on this in the way we would want it to be I think someone in the that's sorry you had your hand up for a while it's a very simple question does it make is it of any import to sign petitions that we get on Facebook if we get the same petition from different organizations do we sign more than once a lot of the ones I see are federal issues typically the big ones that are done by move on or daily costs or others they are typically federal so I guess I would ask George to touch on that they don't often require you to give money to sign the petition but does it help to sign it always helps it always helps to sign the petition but if you have five minutes and you're choosing the most impactful way that you can make a difference it's by calling your legislator and saying I need you I want you to vote this way should we sign it twice I'll have to say I think this is sort of what Jill was saying because we represent a district because I'm a committee chair I hear from people all over the state and it matters to me but what really matters to me are people in my district tell me so when you email somebody or sign a petition or whatever do any kind of outreach let people know where you live because it does make a difference maybe it shouldn't but it does we'll go over them have your address I'll just add on the federal side it makes a difference like for us every contact counts as long as it's someone who's from Vermont so you're going to make it clear that you're a constituent and then as far as we're concerned whether it's a Facebook petition or some other kind of petition as long as what we see is these are Vermonters and we have a name and an address that matters again Jill alluded to certainly a direct phone call or a direct email might have more impact than being one of a list of 500 or 1,000 on an online petition but as long as you're from Vermont or whatever format comes in we tally all those up we track them so it all counts thank you I just wanted to follow up on that a lot of them bring that healthcare for all in Vermont and nationally there's such interest in universal public healthcare healthcare for all and I think there's a moment in history to really pick up on that because if we don't do something the general public they're going to be discouraged and we will lose our credibility so the event is there this is the time to really boost up in Vermont and nationally even if it's part of something I know you may not get it all you know increasing the credibility of people that have said that this is a priority we need to really respect that and deal with it you know one thing we noticed from the election results is that even some very red states when they have referendum on Medicaid expansion which isn't what you're talking about but for those states it was a big step and those got a lot of support so we are really seeing I think a change a shift nationally as well as within the state so I think you're right I just want to add a couple of years ago on the verge of universal health care I heard from plenty of business people saying this is going to hurt my business or take it down and my first question was often what is your current cost as a percentage of your payroll for covering health insurance for the families of your employees for those that did that coverage and most of them didn't have that answer so it goes back to that topic we were on earlier where the meme or the rhetoric was looking at the fact and often if they got back to it they said oh well I'm already paying 10 or as much as 15% so then I would say okay so an 11 or 12% payroll tax if you can eliminate that other premium is more or less a wash and yet it's going to mean broader coverage across the state it's going to mean more money going towards health care and less towards administration which over time will lower some of those costs or at least decrease the increase and so I think you're absolutely right but they're very complicated topics and the numbers are very big and people get scared and so when folks like what you see up here talk to those issues and say we need to do that and again you see that pushback that's when we need to keep having those community discussions to make sure the facts relate to reality versus this alternate universe that's being promulgated not only for a long time but now more so by this president of course we have to keep going back to the facts sorry Marju Marju well is there a way that you can find out from companies what percentage they do pay that would you know can you say okay this is what the payroll tax would be but you're making I mean you're spending this you know you're spending 15% the payroll tax would only be that's private information for the business so it's up to them if they want to disclose that a couple of points in not all companies objective I'm the president of hunger map co-op currently and there was a petition I think that it would be very very acceptable to have to take that off the books to know exactly what you're paying two quick questions I live three and a half miles outside of Montpelier my internet sucks and every single politician that's their campaign whether it's Christine or anybody else we still don't have if I lived in Montpelier it would be a different story it's so frustrating wonderful if you live in town here we're at Chittenden County it's so difficult to move to a rural area just well I'm going to take that and tell us and we don't have internet out there any better than you do this is a cellphone channel so I agree with you completely and one of the issues that we looked at last year I don't know if you all have heard about the money that's being paid to people who do work remotely I don't know what it was it made me crazy because using that money rather than using money to get internet out to the communities it just makes no sense to me whatsoever it gets a big national splash but frankly it's a waste of money and you are absolutely right if we really want to get young families into the state if we want to support our rural areas we need to get decent internet out there and we don't have it we need to get cell service out there too quick question for the congressman does he have any interest and the republic engine makes it something about federal spending or whatever is he in favor of continuing to kick the can down the road for deficits because it's unsustainable and for seniors and everybody else we're going to be grease at some point and I would love I mean I'm serious I mean 20 21, 20 and that's without all of the entitlements it's a train wreck and it's just so frustrating so I'll answer that but I want to also answer your prior question just on the federal level one of congressman walters great hopes to actually go into the new congress is that there'll be some bipartisan support for infrastructure built this was something that was discussed two years ago and it didn't go anywhere but it's something that certainly democrats are interested in the president has claimed he's interested in it and so we'd like to try to find a way to move that forward and in his view that would also include roads bridges water wastewater infrastructure that would also include broadband because for congressman walters broadband is a part of the necessary utility infrastructure especially for rural communities that in a sort of pure marketplace perspective you know it's like rural electrification it's not going to get done with a purely market driven solution so an infrastructure bill that includes rural broadband investment is something that he's very focused on and interested in and he's a member of the rural broadband caucus which has been trying to push for this on the deficit you're absolutely right you know one of congressman walters big concerns over the tax cut discussion was in years past there might be tax cut bills but they would at least be paid for offset to some degree this was completely not paid for you know it was just we're going to you know throw a 1.5 trillion dollars you know added to the deficit and we're going to claim supply side magical thinking that will all pay for itself that we know is a proven economic fact like that does not work and we've seen that from the tax cuts in the 80s and so I mean you know he certainly was in the minority at the time but had to really raise the issue and said yeah if you're going to do this at least try to pay for it and that didn't happen and now you know we've kind of seen the predictable results with the deficits going up and congress republican saying oh look at these terrible deficits we really need to crack down on entitlements now because we need to do something about the debt security and Medicare and Medicaid so military spending kind of similarly congressman was a big supporter of having it kind of go through its first ever audit which recently got completed to look at that so we are in a difficult situation long term one thing to note in general is Peter is a member of this problem solvers caucus which is a bipartisan group of members from both sides of the aisle to try to look at you know what can we do to kind of get the some sense of fiscal responsibility back and I think for Peter certainly that means there are investments that we continue to make on the domestic side but we can't be passing tax cuts that aren't paid for we can't be spending money on military unjustified military spending that you know there is a significant amount of waste there so that's it's challenging but it is I agree like the bill is going to come do on that but I think certainly for Carson Welch coming back and looking at in particular blowing $2 trillion dollars in the budget with unpaid for tax cuts is something that we need to not be doing I think just real quick on broadband we have a couple parts of the state where community organizations have come together and they've been doing a great job particularly down to the east here and so figure out a way to replicate that or match some money you know I think it's quite clear that telephones weren't going to get to the end of the line without government involvement that the capitalist system doesn't work into the lower population areas on the cost versus return that's a terrible thing so I think looking at that and also it's still my understanding from someone at Senator Sanders office is to just put in broadband ever in the state is about a billion dollar in debt and the state is not going to come up with that kind of money but if the state can come up with some money that either we loan no interest rate that the privates pay back or that we match on a one to five ratio or something then you start to see that kind of possibility and I'm not an expert in it I know Christine knows more about utilities on a long shot than I do and many others but there's what you said and I think has been echoed here Vermont's economic future given our proximity to the populations of southern New England and the northeast megalopolis is people could work here a good living and could commute every third or fourth week to clients in those population centers with a two to four hour drive to meet for two days and yet live and work and raise their families here with our safer communities with our great schools and pay their taxes exactly so there's no doubt that I think that's a huge piece of our future the nut to crack is financing yet I happen to think we could use canvas revenue for that but that's another matter for another day a question of keeping people retiring in place as it was mentioned energy costs and home heating are huge for a person that's 70 or 80 looking at a 15 year payback is not going to help them much so if reducing was energy cost by putting up PV or whatever or insulating their homes with some of the oldest housing stock in the world at least in this country in the world but yeah a lot of the really old homes have really old people and they're not going to put up an investment that's going to take many years for recovery you know it's a really good point we mentioned weatherization earlier that's something that's out obviously we have been investing in over the years and will continue to have a priority for sure just briefly on the federal side when the House was asked to control by Democrats we passed something called the Homes Act which would have provided a major infusion of federal financial support in addition to state weatherization funds and what Efficiency Vermont and NeighborWorks and other organizations do that passed the House didn't pass the Senate but certainly I know from some of my prior work you know we have a lot of well funded programs on the electric efficiency side to help reduce you know put an efficient lighting we really need more resources so we made some progress on that at the federal level when Democrats last controlled the House and that's something we're going to look at doing in the coming Congress to supplement that and try to advance that more and one thing I heard this year of a campaign trail relating to LIHEAP was that the timing of LIHEAP funding makes it so that some heating is more expensive now I know wood heat for a lot of seniors is difficult because moving the wood around but still many do heat with wood so if you buy a green quarter wood in June it's $100 less than buying a dry quarter wood in January and so there's lots of ways where I don't know whether on the federal side or on the state side some of these timing issues can be adjusted just even to make the programs we have go farther in addition to trying to find additional resources for weatherization front savings on solar or other energy changes the Great Depression happened this country was just stricken with fear and despair and the FDR came in and basically started a public works program with the WPA they put a lot of people to work and basically got the country back on it and even killed and right now there's so much despair in some of the rural areas like Appalachia we're seeing a number of people dying from opiate overdoses and the fear is more than all the people who are killed in the appam and I consider these deaths to be a way of getting rid of surplus labor so what we need is really quick infrastructure to get you back to work where they can get some hiding themselves support their families and not just drugs as a way of dealing with their pain thank you I agree yes I'm probably one of the few people in this room I belong to this organization but I've never been a union member because of some disabilities I had over the years and that I was a stay at home mom was divorced and got no of alimony and I had to use and still I'm using money from a sale of a small home to supplement my social security when Medicare is taken out of my social security for the last three years I've gotten the same amount of social security which is $778 a month it's a little hard to live on that my house and my savings do count which is more than a lot of people have there's no one really advocating I think it's wonderful that the state did this but this is more of a federal issue they passed something a few years ago I was told that people who were at the lower end of social security wouldn't lose any money when they took more and more out for Medicare they take more and more out they say we have a cola of 2.8 well it was 2.5 last year and for three years it's $778 so I'm when they take it out so they must be keeping me from going down because I'm so low and there are a lot of folks on this level that need to be brought up why can't we have a real cola why should we be paying so much into Medicare just as much as wealthy people are and wealthy people are never paying they're a percentage wise we know that we've just got to listen to Bernie and Democrats do need to be towards socialism even though there's a big sign around about that says that the Democrats should stay away from socialism because it's a dirty word and I just hope that somebody will educate the public that socialism is not a dirty word and I wanted to ask you is Nancy Pelosi going to get in this year and go on let's talk Ray Ball just starting a broader question for us one point that I think David is going to alluded to Democrats nationally ran the selection and won talking about healthcare wasn't talking about Donald Trump they focused like a laser talking about healthcare and in my mind that includes Medicaid I think there's going to be real impetus to take action on that we talked about the cola piece earlier Nancy Pelosi I don't it's anyone's guess Peter is not committed yet one of the things that he has said is that the person he wants for a speaker he wants it to be someone who will support the House of more Democratic institution just in terms of having the committees have more power to actually influence what happens with legislation not just have it be something that the leadership cooks up and brings to the floor fully baked so that more people can take part and produce a better product that has not been the case in recent years he has a committee yet but that's been kind of his general criteria for what he's looking for I've called and I've written to the senator and I get four letters back that don't even address my question he's a congressman I mean the congressman glad to talk to you about that by your specific another question I hear I want to address a housekeeping issue there's a meeting going on in this room there's a bathroom on this side and there's a bathroom in the back but that's not why I stood up like future governor document I had an idea of this panel Vermont is one of three states that makes no state contribution to senior centers the other states are Georgia and either Mississippi or Louisiana besides besides health and high cost of prescriptions and housing and heating and the cost of fuel another major problem for senior I mean for seniors is transportation and my idea was perhaps we could take care of the transportation problems for seniors by setting aside a small amount of grant money so that the I believe we have 37 or 38 senior centers in our state could apply for funding a vehicle or a van or a car that could be used to transport seniors in their communities not only to the senior center but to do grocery shopping and to doctor's appointments and to other things that they have that's a wild idea but no wilder than asking seniors to join together to join housing I like that I'm happy to take that idea back to the House Transportation Committee we've talked a lot about different models and pilots around rideshares especially in rural areas you know could we do something that's kind of like a Vermont version of Lyft or you know any of those other apps but then you need access to self-service so there's a lot to work on there but I will definitely take that idea back to the House as far as people being able to live in their homes and healthcare in the community think I want to speak to that something that affects older people possibly potentially but also a lot of younger people including people that live in my pillar we've heard healthcare we have like a three pillar goal for healthcare affordability accessibility and transparency I think there's a fourth goal that healthcare should always include damage people's basic community civil rights we have a problem in Vermont that's been ongoing since I was a teenager and a young adult and I've experienced this and other people have experienced this more severely than I have which is that in the area of emotional and mental healthcare behavioral health which often gets put under the umbrella of psychiatric medicine through the pharmaceutical angle there are people that are often pressured or in some cases compelled and in some cases by the Vermont state government the agency of human services to accept certain forms of healthcare that are actually often very damaging to their bodies and to their brains and I'm speaking I can speak very specifically toward this there are mood stabilizers that are used anti-anxiety medications and anti-psychotics both the older versions and the atypical anti-psychotics which came into vogue and are harmful can cause metabolic problems can cause diabetes pre-diabetes can cause problems with mental functioning a study in 2008 by Nancy Andreessen who was the editor of the American Psychiatric Association Journal I think it was said that oh, it looks like some of these anti-psychotics are causing shrinkage of parts of people's brains this is not just attributable to a schizophrenic disease process and schizophrenia is often kind of just a term that's throwing at people for various symptoms diagnoses of mood disorders and schizophrenia are often not very specific not necessarily grounded in a lot of physiological information or facts or data about individual people but these theories are applied to people it's nice if you can go and choose what kind of healthcare you want and usually this is the case for people people go to the doctors to get antidepressants to get various medications, mood stabilizers anti-psychotics a lot of times people get to choose some people sometimes don't if they're behaving in a way where somebody's like oh this is a little odd there's a young woman from a pillar who is a friend of mine but I'm closer friends with her partner and I'm not going to name names here but it's been very very difficult to watch what's been going on for her for years and some people will know who I'm talking about but I'm not going to name names here from my perspective this woman has suffered immensely since adolescence I think by being put on the statin the other thing probably not very judiciously and over the past three years including the end of her pregnancy and the first months of her child's life she has been in was put into hospital care not really what she wanted or completely agreed with to my understanding was back out has an apartment in Montpelier she could be in but due to concerns about her behavior voiced by various people in the community who had encountered her or that she seemed to be looking for help people called police saying oh she's looking for some help something's going on police would connect her with washington and help washington and help would screen her she'd go into central mont medical center and or up to burlington and now she's in the state run facility in middle sex which is right near the state police barracks it's locked fence facility and I'm not finished with this yet excuse me can you tell us how this relates to what the legislature can do well I think that they can think about and see what I can do anyway I think these things need to be followed and examined carefully I'm concerned about I don't know what the latest is with the medication bills there was something going on a few years ago with the medication bill I know senator claire air was very concerned that people be able to be medicated and timely fashion and not be suffering states of psychosis and be without their medication or medication unfortunately some of these drugs are very harmful very and affect people in ways you know and to be forcibly injected with something dicey and certainly over the long term I'm proud of my friend who I understand has been choosing to not take some of the medication that doctors have prescribed to her I hope that she will be released soon and the thing that I actually the point that I wanted to get to about something that might really help is my understanding is with our local community mental health services they're responsible for a couple of different programs of services there are services for people who are designated as being developmentally disabled people who are considered to have various developmental disabilities which some of which would have been called retardation but that's language that's fallen by the wayside but you see this I'm going to get to that for a day you're going to this isn't what I do okay so there are personal services provided where people have supportive people that can help them with behavioral things like in community those are I think maybe more available when people are diagnosed with a developmental disability such as autism or down syndrome or numerous other things if those were available and funding from Medicare and Medicaid was certainly made to be available for people like my friend who then could possibly living in her apartment which she still is paying rent on instead of having to be in a locked state facility you raised so many important issues there around mental health and access to treatment and the kind of treatment people need and we put investments in our state budget this year which we're seeing getting implemented now is putting more mental health providers out in communities and out on the streets to help be the first line of defense and be there to help people who are experiencing some type of crisis but there's so much more to do counselors more social workers you know I think you raised so many great points but there's so much more to do in terms of housing and I think we've also seen access to providers I hear from my constituents a lot that the waitlist to get an appointment is a barrier to care and that shouldn't be the case so I take your points really well and we'll take them back to the state house. Are there any other questions? Jane I don't know what's the timing make sure I see people watching us. Unfortunately there is another event happening upstairs which means that we're going to have to get out of here at noon which is 15 minutes from now but what I do want to say is the middle health area is an incredible crisis I know everybody here understands that and how are we going to solve it I don't have any clue because it's been a crisis for many years but what I do think and this is not a popular thought I think Vermont is going to have to raise taxes so we get some money so we can fund the programs that really need to be funded because they've been neglected not neglected on purpose but just because there is enough money to go around I would love for you to call the governor's office you want us to raise your taxes I do want to add to that it's a perennial question and I think both issues are true one is we're the wealthiest country and the wealthiest time in history and there are resources out there that we could tap into at the state and federal level if we were to raise certain taxes at the same time it is important to look at where we're spending our dollars and where there are inefficiencies one of the topics I talked about a lot this last summer and actually I've been talking about for a few years when I was in the senate is that we provide social services to family through the agency of human services for zero through five year olds and then that cost has shifted on to the schools for when they enter the school and between those two budgets we actually have a total of about 2.4 billion and about 1.7 billion and these numbers change so I may be off by a couple hundred billion but combined that's a lot of money and one of the things that I brought to the governor a year and a half ago in the effort to say under this Trump administration why don't we show that a republican governor and a progressive democrat lieutenant governor can actually work together on some issues let's look at our education budget and talk to the secretary as well as the front line workers let's go to the human services budget and talk to the secretary as well as front line workers and look at where we're either overlapping services with duplication which means we can see and save money which could be used to expand services to others and let's create a better continuum of service so that you don't have a family or a child that's getting support in one way for the first five or six years suddenly plumped into a new environment with new counselors, new social service providers in a new environment but instead make that a continuum which would be much more stable for those families and for those children unfortunately the governor chose not to have any of his personnel call me back and look to work at that but I do think that's an arena going forward that would both potentially yield resources to expand services into the community as well as address taxes in a positive way that would either free up those resources or have a better way to use them I hope that's a helpful piece of what you were talking about for one more question Goldie you've had your hand up for a while it's a small a quick question there's an accumulation of evidence now that connects hearing lost in impairment with developing dementia and Alzheimer's which is a very costly medical problem there is a statutory mandated committee, the retired employees committee on insurance I happen to be the chair of that committee and our recommendation was to supply support for hearing aids in the state health insurance but of course that never went anywhere because we were fighting desperately to maintain our basic health benefits let alone add to it so then the next place to look would be Medicare which also doesn't cover hearing aids it's a really critical issue if you're looking to cut curtail medical cost increases for kind of one time purchase it's certainly not simply an elderly problem because there are hearing impairments that develop much younger than our ages but it's an issue that everybody just said yeah and does nothing about so I'm looking for some movement on that some way or another I'm not sure if Medicaid covers it but I know Medicare doesn't and I know the employee insurance I don't have an answer for you other than to say I think it's a really important issue I didn't know about the connection to dementia but it clearly leads to isolation and that is a very significant problem for seniors so as I finally got my husband to go and do a hearing test in January so I'll let you know the results but it's not uncommon and it's a big problem and I'm really glad you asked I don't know what the answer is and you're not inexpensive no they're expensive the test is so even people who recognize they need it still can't get it because they can't afford it and there's no support so often what may be expensive up front saves money in the long run and that goes back to many of the discussions we have in politics in general is, you know, preventive and out of prevention for the pound of cure and we can pay for it now or we can pay more for it later and in the short term, you know, give a lollipop back mentality of I would argue Republican thinking which is right now let's give ten dollars back to people versus let's make an investment in our future which I would counter is what you see up here much more of that's the debate we regularly have and this is just another really concrete example of Pennywise pound of whores just to add one thing from the federal side since you mentioned Medicare and Medicaid one thing that the congressional delegation we've all tried to do is work great closely with the state and with the state legislators but also with the agency of human AHS on waiver proposals it's actually very good to come up with creative ways to seek other you know, if there's a smarter up front investment for instance it might reduce long term costs so can't speak to this issue directly but in general one of the things that we've tried to do is, you know, when Vermont AHS or stakeholders come in and say, you know, is there a way we can get a waiver or some flexibility on this that, you know, we certainly try to go to bat for that whenever we can I think we are about thank you all