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Kicking cans…

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Vermont struggles with a lack of leadership or, at best, a confusion about what leadership is. The fundamentals of leadership are straightforward: A leader listens, elicits diverse opinions and discussion, respects and documents dissent, measures what they hear against a vision for the wellbeing of the commons as opposed to the few, derives consensus, and then has the courage and integrity to act on that consensus even as opposing voices louden or threaten.

Great leaders are both humble and empathetic in the face of conflict, differentiating noise from reality and understanding that advancing the common good outweighs politics and the accretion of further wealth and power.

I have often expressed admiration for Governor Scott’s leadership during Covid and his willingness to follow the science (would that had been true nationally.) He generally did well during the recent flooding as well. But on the critical beats that affect the daily lives of Vermonters, he’s largely AWOL, prating on about “affordability,” a general term that anyone can appreciate, as it applies to all of our life transactions, but one that does nothing to address the underlying issues that drive it.

I won’t replicate the volumes of daily reporting about the general failure of Vermont’s elected governing body to achieve much of anything. Most legislators have shown themselves to be good and committed Vermonters working hard with scant resources and compensation to make sense of the vastly complex and interwoven issues plaguing Vermonters.

Kicked Cans: To prompt discussion, here’s a draft menu for leaders, politicians, and citizens.

  1. Public education: equitable tax-based financing (income, property, sales tax) consolidating “child-care” into a single system that includes a paid six-month bonding period for one parent at birth and voluntary entrance into a public system run by early childhood development professionals, becoming mandatory at age five through 18 and extending to life-long learning with:
  • equal access (legal resolution of funding religious or private education)
  • objective quality assessment driving teacher pay-for-performance
  • integrating special ed and diverse pedagogy protocols
  • statewide options to pursue conventional education or diversify at 14 to vocational and STEM tech center curriculum
  • determine appropriate school location relative to home and community
  • ban smart-phone use during school
  1. Healthcare: sustainable infrastructure, regulatory oversight, financial transparency, monopoly reduction, ensure the sustainability of health insurance companies and nonprofit agencies, hold hospitals accountable to standards of quality, access, and affordability, and expand community-based services:
  • universal home visits
  • trauma-informed primary care
  • chronic disease management
  • local mental health counseling
  • regulate social media to criminalize bullying and sexual grooming
  • provide home-health and hospice
  • nutrition counseling
  • residential addiction treatment capacity
  • age-well resources
  • develop/deploy in-school curriculum on self-care
  • regulate private-equity acquisitions of nonprofit healthcare through the Green Mountain Care Board
  1. Criminal Justice: public safety, courts, corrections “halfway” houses, and restorative justice:
  • consolidate all policing under state, shared-community, and a single statewide special-crime investigative unit
  • restrict gun ownership and carry laws, firearms are the leading cause of U.S. pediatric deaths
  • expand the court system and the number of judges to accommodate the 6th amendment obligation to provide a speedy public trial
  • adequately fund the defender general system
  • disallow private or “concierge” prisons in Vermont and hold out-of-state contract prisons accountable to Vermont standards including healthcare
  • do not automatically reincarcerate parolees for “technical violations,” some of which are circumstantial
  • celebrate Vermont’s leadership in community restorative justice panels
  1. Social issues: loneliness, aging alone, use local libraries to expand community gathering places, push back on damaging social media trends such as:
  • replacing caring, ethical morality and the common good with “meism”
  • substituting loud and crude behavior/language for situational decency
  • flouting the rule of law
  • ignoring the need to teach kids literacy of all dimensions (written, verbal, visual, data)
  • bullying and sexual grooming
  • degrading committed human love to physical relationships
  • replacing the arts’ innate humanity with “shock and awe” noise/entertainment and “influencers”
  • redefining “excellence” as whatever is most popular with the masses
  • deploy comprehensive scam prevention education and prosecute where possible
  • encourage use of “Charity Watch” listings to discourage wasted philanthropy
  1. Social economy: redefine “affordability”:
  • bring “poverty” metrics into the real world
  • fund affordable housing construction, co-housing and communal living for older and younger working people
  • shelter homeless year-round: home-share, motels, and co-housing with services
  • along with agriculture and food systems, address hunger
  • redefine an appropriate “livable” wage rather than the “minimum” wage framework
  1. Agriculture and food systems:
  • support regenerative/local farming rather than industrial farms
  • ban all poisonous chemical and plastic soil, water and air additives
  • expand school gardens to support school meals programs and acquaint young people with raising healthy food
  • encourage gleaning to expand food supply
  • address epic food waste in our retail food stores and homes
  • enforce humane living and slaughtering standards for all farm-raised species
  • encourage responsible and sustainable hunting and fishing for hunter-gatherers
  1. Transportation: public and private partnerships:
  • support light-rail growth
  • increase van network
  • encourage ride-sharing
  • encourage EV deployment
  • walkable town and urban development
  • expand bike and walking trail path network
  1. Environmental protection and remediation:
  • ban poisonous chemical and plastic soil, water and air additives from agriculture, home garden and landscape use
  • discourage lawns and mowing in favor of natural habitat
  • develop a “Gaia” curriculum for schools that places humankind as but one of a diverse universe of flora and fauna
  • require home or community composting
  • enforce planned reductions in fossil-fuel use
  • encourage public/private investments in solar wind and light hydro
  • regulate and tax “fast-fashion” as an environmental menace
  • promote garment recycling, repair, and reuse
  • require safe return of all OTC and prescribed pharmaceuticals
  • require consumer goods companies to include packaging costs in goods to encourage consumers to buy with less packaging
  • boycott retailers that sell the majority of goods in plastic packaging.
  1. Taxation and regulation:
  • review Vermont’s tax code with an eye towards more progressivity
  • tax luxury services as well as sales and property
  • pass ethics legislation with enforcement capacity
  • set limits on legislative “lobbying” and corrupt influence-peddling
  • articulate the benefit of taxation and regulation in support of the common good
  • suspend sports betting that feeds addiction
  • tax sugar-based junk food and ultraprocessed foods
  • increase taxes on alcohol and tobacco, ban flavored vapes
  • maintain decriminalization of homegrown THC but suspend commercial growers and distribution in the face of new medical evidence that there are no standards for THC strength and that titration withdrawal can lead to psychotic events
  1. Government systems: executive, legislative, and judiciary:
  • derive a common understanding of leadership and hold executives accountable to it in elections
  • redesign the Vermont Legislature as a unicameral body with enhanced resources (Joint Fiscal and Legislative Counsel), livable compensation and common benefits linked to the average income of their statewide constituents
  • expand court system and judges to accommodate 6th amendment obligation to provide a speedy public trial

I invite you to add items to this list of challenges that need discussion and action by Vermonters.

  • Bill@Schubart.com

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