My best years

My best years, the last twenty-seven, have been living in Wardsboro, married to Chérie, step father to Emi and Eri, and sharing our home with a number of Cairn Terriers. From my arrival in town, on advice from my late father-in-law Tim Keeler, I’ve been involved in various community activities: health officer, Fourth of July Parade, select board, school board and four terms as our state representative to the Vermont House. Looking out for our town and our district has always been my reason for public  service, and so actions by the state legislature over the last two years have caused me  concern.
My eight years in Montpelier protecting community control of eduction, small schools and choice have been jeopardized by Act 46. Instead of lowering property taxes which was the clear call from voters in the last election, the legislature diverted attention to governance, addressing problems that did not exist, while adding complications and confusion to the work of our dedicated school boards.
The results of the March presidential primaries demonstrate voter dissatisfaction  with present economic conditions, and while the legislature continues a quest for elusive good paying jobs, it overlooks the challenges of the current, underpaid creators of our district economy, the housekeepers, ski lift operators and service and retail employees.
To look out for our own, hard working families and students in our town and district, to fight for a livable wage for all and community centered education, and to continue my commitment to work with you at home and for you in Montpelier, I am running to retake the Windham-Bennington House seat. I ask for your support in the primary in August and the general election in November.
Thank you, John Moran, Wardsboro.

Bucketville News — July, 2106

$15 Minimum Wage

Rights and Democracy
Press Conference
March 9, 2016
Cedar Creek Room

Every town in Vermont voted for Senator Sanders in the recent Democratic primary.

Like Bernie, people are angry.
Oppressed by a rigged economy.
Working harder, longer hours for less pay.

Especially those in the retail, tourism and service industries.
The salesman, the waitress, the handy man, the chambermaid, the house keeper, the nursing assistant, the home care provider.
The creators of our economy and providers of our human services.
By use of head, heart and hand every one of them already earns a livable wage.
They're just not paid that.
Through wage theft, they are relegated to servitude.

No business that does not pay a livable wage, according to FDR, has a right to exist.
And I say that no business is entitled to tax considerations in Vermont that does not create jobs that at least pay a livable wage..

In a country where twenty individuals possess as much wealth as one hundred, sixty-five million Americans, it is safe to say that our economic system is not working.

It is time to join Rights and Democracy and Senator Bernie Sanders in a call for economic/social justice and environmental sanity.

And let us start with a livable wage of at least fifteen dollars an hour for all Vermonters.

Vermont Revolution

Now is the time for Vermont to join Bernie Sanders’ political revolution: To go from the 1776 guaranteeing life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, through the New Deal creating the middle class, to today’s delivering the American Promise to all. According to our Declaration of Independence, government is instituted to secure our unalienable rights, and in a democracy, government is guided by our cultural, social, ethical, political and economic values. Although no value is superior, at the expense of the others, a robust economy is essential to our Vermont revolution.
During the Eisenhower years, by intentional actions, we came close to a just economy: A shrinking gap between the upper and the middle class, decent paying jobs, strong unions, thirty-year mortgages toward home ownership, secure retirements, and a better future for our children. Many in the nineteen fifties, however, were left out, including minorities, the poor, and the disenfranchised. And now, from the seventies, through Ronald Reagan to today, an ever widening income and wealth gap leaves most of us out. Restoring the middle class will not complete the American Promise. As long as we acknowledge an upper and a middle class, we acquiesce to an abandoned lower class.
Capitalism is the servant of democracy, not her master. Arguments for free markets and limited governance contradict the active role our independence declaration assigns to government. An unregulated system, that institutionalizes unemployment, inequality, and poverty, or that sustains itself (particularly in the service and retail sectors) by under paying its workers, is ethically unacceptable, and demands corrective acton. Our economic system does not determine our destiny; we, the people, do.
Consequently, in the first phase of our revolution, we will advance toward a prosperous Vermont with focus on three interrelated areas:
Fair working conditions: No business has a right to exist, according to FDR, that does not pay its workers a livable wage, nor does any industry that reduces its employees to servitude. Given that 70% of our economy comes form domestic spending, mandating a livable wage for all Vermonters not only does right by our workers but also creates a cash flow crucial to business success. Added worker protections, health care, paid sick leave, and other benefits give the true creators of our economy (waitstaff, home health providers, domestic help, ski lift operators) the resources necessary for full and productive lives.
Job creation through infrastructure expansion: Arguably the greatest public works project in our history (the Eisenhower Highway System), did not come from a trickle-down, limited-government minded president. This bold, nation-wide infrastructure program, which contributed to the post World War II prosperity, can serve as a model to boost Vermont’s economy by employing prevailing wage workers to enhance our transportation, energy, and telecommunications infrastructure, that will in turn attract businesses with good paying jobs to our state.
Progressive taxation: To promote the American Promise we must provide public safety, social services and cultural opportunities available to all Vermonters through equitable, progressive taxation. Income, whether from labor or investment will be assessed equally, tax exemptions will be based on the common good, and business incentives will go only to employers who create sufficient, livable  wage jobs.
In these times of severe economic inequality, it is time for our revolution to make the promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness real for all Vermonters.

Acceptance Talk
Murphy Labor Award on September 3, 2015
John Moran

Once upon a time

Labor and the Democratic Party walked together in a grand journey for all Americans. When Woodrow Wilson pushed for the right to vote for women, he turned for help to labor. When FDR wanted support for the New Deal, he turned to the unions. When LBJ wanted civil rights legislation, he turned to Walter Reuther and other labor leaders.
Along the road we have posted landmarks for the good life: the forty hour work week, eight hour workday, overtime pay, workers compensation, unemployment insurance, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, family and medical leave, occupational safety, collective bargaining, the minimum wage and child labor laws.
In post World War II, it seemed that we were arriving at our destination of the American Promise: strong union membership, secure employment, a thirty year mortgage on a home to raise our children who would have lives better than ours.

Then side paths and road blocks separated us.

Many who achieved the American Promise went off on social and environmental paths, and those denied that promise charted independent courses.
But our real challenge has come from right wing roadblocks: Reagan firing the air traffic controllers, unionized industries moving to antiunion locations, the growth of nonunion service and tourism jobs, austerity and budget cutting, and the systematic hostility, not only to labor, but to all of us with denial of climate change, refusal to fund reproductive rights, thwarting voter registration, opposing campaign finance reform and doing everything possible to increase income and wealth inequality.

Time for us to regroup.

Perhaps we should be thankful to the right wing for spewing forth positions that unite all of us in opposition.
We will march for publicly financed universal healthcare, labor’s right to organize, the honoring of collectively bargain agreements, environmental protection, a woman’s right to equal pay and reproductive choices, a teacher’s right to strike, care for the ill and disabled, and livable wage jobs available to all Vermonters.
In solidarity, we will be the voices for economic, racial, gender, social and environmental justice.
My gratitude to the Democratic Party for this John Murphy Memorial Labor Award, and to all of you for letting me be part of this journey for all Vermonters to achieve the American Promise.

Common Benefit Budget

     “Putting together a budget is never an easy task,” according to the governor in a recent letter, as he likens the state to families deciding between “groceries and medicine,” so to “live within their means.”
  Vermont statutes state: The budget should “be instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people...and recognize every person's need for health, housing, dignified work, education, food, social security, and a healthy environment.”
  Continuing a seven year downward spiral, the budget bill reduces funding for home fuel assistance and weatherizing, mental health and substance abuse treatment, libraries, pre-K, community high school, Reach Up, VT Legal Aid, health care, public health, autism and geriatric programs, state employees, developmental disabilities, and adult day care. House Republicans go further, wanting to cut or get rid of property tax rebates; health insurance assistance; pharmacy payments for elders; labor negotiated health care plans; childcare subsidies; state college funding; substance abuse recovery centers; psychiatric and substance abuse designated agencies; and, grants to the Vermont Humanities Council, the Vermont Council on the Arts, the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, and the Vermont Women’s Commission. They would also privatize the state psychiatric hospital and the Vermont Veterans’ Home.
  The task before us, to live within our means, may be easier than the governor suggests. Numerous proposals, alone or combined, from the Public Assets Institute, state employees, the Workers’ Center and others offer structural fiscal changes to reverse seven years of negative budgeting, turn state deficits into surpluses and lighten the tax burden on working Vermont families.
  Raising the minimum wage to a livable level translates immediately to increased consumer spending (two-thirds of our domestic economy), enhanced income tax revenues and decreased public assistance spending.
     Expanding workforce training supports higher worker pay and expanded economic development, which increases state revenue and decreases expenditures.
     Eliminating tax credits to businesses that do not create substantial, good paying jobs, redirects state resources to more productive uses.
     Returning state spending to the benchmark of gross state product (sum of all the goods and services produced and sold in Vermont), which is dramatically increasing, more than offsets current and future budget deficits.
     Broadening the sales tax to include services lowers the rate on goods and enhances state revenues.
     Reconfiguring the progressive income tax brackets based on actual ability to contribute lowers taxes for middle and lower income Vermonters while adding to available state revenues.
     Publicly financing universal health care eliminates insurance companies and greatly reduces costs to the state and all Vermonters.
     Taxing capital gains at the same rate as labor income values the contribution of working Vermonters and moves in the direction of economic equality.
     Placing a cap on deductions a taxpayer can claim limits losses to state revenues.
     And, finally, instituting a wealth-based assessment with an increase in the inheritance tax returns capital to the common good and reduces inequality.
  Besides complying with law, the state budget is a moral document, defining who we are and how we provide for all of us. No Vermonter should have to choose between groceries and medicine.

Taking Care of Our Own

       A 90 year-old Florida man risks 60 days in jail and a $500 fine for feeding the homeless. “Drop that plate right now," the arresting police officer orders Arnold Abbott of Love Thy Neighbor as he hands food to a hungry person.
“Wherever this flag’s flown,” sings Bruce Springsteen, “we take care of our own.”
The purpose of government, whether state or national, is to protect and empower.
In Vermont, we protect and empower through our motto, freedom and unity.
        For freedom from insecurity, we protect with police and fire departments, environmental and fiscal regulations, and monetary safety nets. For freedom to prosper, we empower with infrastructure, economic and workforce development, and cultural activities. Through unity in our budget, we must determine the needs of all Vermonters, and then, equitably, raise necessary revenues.
Our budget is a moral document. It states who we are; instead of arresting a ninety-year-old for feeding the homeless, we take care of our own.

WOMEN, WORK and the FAMILY

When President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act in 1963, it was a different world than it is now. Work and family responsibilities were more gender determined, with men making up more than two-thirds of the workforce, and women predominately being responsible for the family. Today, women comprise half of the workforce, are still the primary family caretakers, and continue to be paid less than men for the same work. With today’s growing economic inequality, women also are more likely than men to be single parents in minimum wage jobs. Negative consequences for women are immediate in their struggle to provide for their children, and long term in their decreased social security benefits, seventy-five per cent of what men receive.  The fundamentals of human existence center on work and family, each interrelated and dependent on the other. Just as our state needs to be business and worker friendly, Vermont needs to balance the needs of earning a living and raising a family. To ensure gender equity, the General, Housing and Military Affairs Committee of the Vermont House, of which I am vice chair, continues to put forth legislation that creates a fair work environment for all Vermonters. The Equal Pay Act calls for the same pay for men and women performing jobs with similar responsibilities, experiences and training. It encourages salary transparency and prohibits retaliation against employees who oppose any unlawful employment practices. The law also requires employers to consider reasonable employee requests for flexible working arrangements. The Nursing Mothers in the Workplace Act requires an employer to provide an employee, who is a nursing mother, appropriate private time and space to express breast milk. The Earned Paid Sick Time bill, which will come up again for consideration in 2015, calls for earned accumulated paid time off to be used when an employee or family member becomes ill. This legislation is important because a great number of the sixty-thousand Vermonters who don’t have this protection are single mothers in low paying jobs. When illness strikes the wage earner or her child, the mother has a choice: Go to work ill or send the ill child to school, or stay home and lose a day’s pay. For public health and financial reasons, none of these outcome is acceptable.  Raising the minimum wage and permitting the forming of unions by direct care and day care providers particularly benefit women who predominate in these low paying jobs.  In a national setting where Congress and the Supreme Court appear to have more respect for the personhood of corporations than women, it is with satisfaction that I can be part of our moving forward in Vermont to create a just balance between work and family, and fairness in employment for men and women alike.  For anyone with questions or comments, please be in touch by mail at 58 Hi-Hopes Road, Wardsboro, VT 05355, by phone at 802-896-9408, by Email at jmoran@leg.state.vt.us or by website at johnmoranvt.com.  Thank you,State Representative John MoranDover, Readsboro, Searsburg, Somerset, Stamford, Wardsboro and Whitingham