Who knew Gov. Peter Shumlin was so scared of cutting taxes for 73 percent of Vermonters?

Who knew the legislature’s Democratic super-majority was so scared of Shumlin that it wouldn’t dare challenge him to veto such a tax cut?

And who knew it would take just one blustery, fact-free press conference by the governor to scare House Speaker Shap Smith and Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell into submission?... Read more

Politics ain’t no game, but it comes with its fair share of winners and losers. Each Friday on Seven Days’ news and politics blog, Off Message, we try our darnedest to figure out which one’s which. We call it The Scoreboard.

It’s hardly a scientific process, but our goal each week is to provide a handy cheat sheet for those who don’t spend the day monitoring #vtpoli on Twitter or hitting the “refresh” button on our homepage. ... Read more

Vermont police report that a staggering amount of heroin is flowing into the state right now. But where are the drugs coming from?

The cops say they’re from urban areas such as New York, Philadelphia, Lowell and Holyoke, Mass., Albany, and even Chicago and Detroit. Rutland Police Chief James Baker says a bag of heroin that sells for $5 in a big city can fetch as much as $30 on the streets of his city.... Read more

When the legislature calls it quits in the coming days, most everybody in Montpelier will be ready to declare victory and go home.

None more so than Gov. Peter Shumlin, who’s spent the past four months locked in battle with fellow Democrats over how much money to raise, how to spend it and who should foot the bill. ... Read more

Like moths to a flame, nothing attracts Vermont’s corporate lobbyists to a Statehouse committee room like the threat of an industry tax hike.

So it was no surprise last week to find a standing-room-only crowd crammed into the Senate Finance Committee’s first-floor digs as the panel whittled down a list of potential new taxes in search of $10 million in revenue. ... Read more

Sen. Peter Galbraith (D-Windham) just couldn’t help himself.

Two years into his quest to rid Vermont politics of direct corporate and union contributions to candidates, the former ambassador was on the verge of victory last Wednesday. ... Read more

This month, I’ve noticed a fire sale on America’s heritage. New York City is selling its public libraries and schools — unique, historic, beloved neighborhood institutions — to private developers. They will tear them down, construct steel-and-glass luxury condos and office towers in their places, and tuck the books and kids back in on the first floors.... Read more

4/13/13: The 11th annual Can/Am Con (short for Canadian-American Contest) was held at Camels Hump Middle School in Richmond on Saturday — the first time it's been held in Vermont. Model makers from across New England, New York and Canada competed for prizes and bragging rights. ... Read more

The smell of spring is in the air — and with it, the smell of compromise in the Statehouse. Or is that just body odor from too many hours in cramped committee rooms?

Either way, legislators are ready to skedaddle out of Montpelier — perhaps as soon as May 11 — and Gov. Peter Shumlin will be happy to show them the door.

“I think we’re getting to that time of the legislative session where we need to start seeing some movement toward the finish line,” says Shumlin’s secretary of administration, Jeb Spaulding.... Read more

There are more differences than similarities between U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and Rolling Stone contributing editor Matt Taibbi: age, job title and hairstyle, to name a few, and Taibbi regularly characterizes people as “assholes” in print.

What do they have in common? Both call out corporate America’s most unscrupulous players. On Friday, they’re teaming up for a town-meeting-style meeting in Burlington that promises to be a lively and entertaining discussion about how to cut Wall Street’s big banks down to size.... Read more