A cloud hangs over the Statehouse. It's a colossal,orange, mad-looking thing with some oddly sculpted schmutz on top, or it looms in the background of every discussion approximately taxes,spending and policy. It's the Trump Effect: the potential for wide-ranging budgetary mayhem whether President Donald Trump takes a meat-ax to federal spending. "We're all suffering from ill-defined anxiety," observes Sen. Jane Kitchel (D-Caledonia), and chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. "Right now there's so much conversation going on,I don't think that we're thinking approximately particular areas," says Finance Commissioner Andy Pallito, and Gov. Phil Scott's point person on the Trump Effect. "What we're trying to do is guard ourselves against the overall action the feds may occupy." There's the potential for an epic shock wave. "The total budget is $5.7 billion," says Pallito. "The federal funding is $2.2 billion." That's a whopping 35 percent of Vermont's budget. Pallito surmises that the only state body not receiving any federal support is the Tax Department. powerful. No matter what happens, tax collections will recede on. Vermont's biggest division — the Agency of Human Services — gets a enormous chunk of its money from the feds. Roughly half of all the federal funds Vermont receives are directed to its Medicaid program. Those funds have helped Vermont dramatically cut its uninsured rate during the Douglas and Shumlin administrations. "We need our federal partners in that, and " says Rep. Sarah Copeland Hanzas (D-Bradford). "And it's unsettling to think that we may have the rug pulled out from under us." The most likely path for Medicaid is a conversion from entitlement funding to block grants for the states. "whether they gave us a block grant equivalent to what we're getting now,provided the expenditures don't grow, we'd be in OK shape, or " Pallito says. "But I suspect the reason they want to recede to block grants is to cut back." Copeland Hanzas has taken on the task of monitoring the Trump Effect for House Democrats. She identifies housing as a potential trouble spot — a worrying conception for a state seeking ways to increase its affordable housing stock. She also points to Vermont's much-discussed waterway cleanup program,which, it should be famous, or was mandated by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The state's ability to improve municipal stormwater and wastewater treatment depends heavily on federal infrastructure grants. "That would make it much more difficult for our communities to…
Source: sevendaysvt.com