Seven Days: Democratic Gubernatorial Candidates Woo Labor Leaders

By Shay Totten

[...]But, it was Racine who caught fire during this question. The usually quiet Racine, who is often criticized for being too cautious, offered a reason why the unemployment fund is in such dire straits.

For the last six or seven years, the reserves in the unemployment trust fund were allowed to dwindle. If Jim Douglas were the head of an insurance company, he’d be fired,” said Racine. “I think it was a cynical move on their part — and this is pure speculation on my part — but now we’re in this crisis and now we have to find a balanced approach. I think they’ve allowed this to develop to make this argument to cut benefits.”

Racine added, “I’ll be damned if we’re going to cut benefits for unemployed Vermonters.”

On single-payer health care, Racine and Shumlin were the only ones to unequivocally say “yes” when asked if they supported one of the two bills in the legislature that would create a single-payer system in Vermont. The other three candidates all expressed support for universal health care; Markowitz talked up the idea of Vermont self-insuring to cover everyone; Dunne talked about health care as a human right, and Bartlett stressed the need to include global budgeting for health care providers as a long-term solution to keeping costs down.[...]

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