Dear Editor,
In his recent commentary in The Mountain Times, “Something to Write Home About,” Windsor County state senator Dick McCormack opines about “respecting the education fund.” He claims that he would never raid the education fund for other purposes, due to his strong support for Act 60.
Contrary to his present-day promise, McCormack fully supported then Governor Shumlin’s $27 million raid of the education fund in 2011 — a move that the Democrats claimed needed to happen to balance general fund overspending. The senator admitted as much at the 2012 Cavendish legislative candidate forum. He states “I did support a bill that included shorting the education fund after Governor Shumlin very cleverly realized we could short the fund and use federal money to cover that loss.” Here is a link to the video: https://lpctv.org/legislative-candidate-forum-cavendish-0).
As usual, everyday Vermonters suffered at the hands of Montpelier’s reckless spending and the hypocrisy of our supposed representatives. In the town of Cavendish alone, McCormack’s raid drove up our education property taxes by 11 percent even though the school board level-funded the budget that year.
If I had a dollar for every time that I’ve heard the false accusation, “Republicans are anti-education,” I would very likely be a millionaire today. Perhaps, I would have even accumulated enough to replace the $27 million stolen by the Democrats from the education fund and the Vermont taxpayer in 2011.
Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” I would like to ask Windsor County voters – why do you choose McCormack given his proven record of duplicity?
Stu Lindberg, Cavendish, Vt.
