LAST WEEK, the House took the final vote to move ahead on a constitutional amendment to allow certain 17- year-olds the right to vote in presidential primaries.

This means that there will be something rare for Vermont – a statewide referendum. This is the final step required in the process to amend our state constitution.

The proposal is to permit young people who will be 18 by the time of the general election to also vote in the primary for that election even if they are still 17 at the time of the primary.

The concept is that they should be permitted to help choose the candidate, if they will be eligible to vote in the final election.

This sounds like a minor and low impact change. That may be the biggest argument against it.

Why such a major process – a constitutional amendment – over something that is clearly not about any fundamental right and changes a reasonable dividing line that has existed since the founding of our state?

What problem are we trying to solve?

Every division based upon age has to have a line that is drawn somewhere, and there will therefore always be some people who just miss an age marker by a few months, or even by a day: the start of school, for example.

The down sides include practical complications, such as the need to have a single, separate ballot for this vote alone, since this small, special age group of voters will not be eligible for other ballot items.

It also adds yet another inconsistency in where we draw those lines between youth and adulthood: different ages for driving, going to war, drinking, marrying, entering a legal contract, committing a crime, just to name a few. This would now single out the presidential primary for a slightly younger age group.

Writing so much about this small proposed change even in an update article seems disproportionate to the issue, but since there will now be statewide referendum, it creates its own importance.

The vote to move it forward was 80-56, and not strictly along party lines. I voted no.

Committee Issues

In the Human Services Committee where I serve, we took straw poll last week and voted to discontinue work on the Long Term Care Partnership bill.

A majority of the committee felt that investing more time and trying to address the consumer protection concerns of advocates would still not result in bill that they could support.

This bill would have potentially saved Medicaid funds in the future by encouraging more people to buy long term care insurance.

Any care that insurance paid (instead of Medicaid) would be an amount of assets a person could protect from the Medicaid "spend down" requirements they did eventually need to access Medicaid.

Long term care insurance is already sold in Vermont, but it does not include this advantage for purchasers, so I was disappointed that we are not moving this bill forward.

Much of the rest of our time last week was spent in discussion and testimony trying to understand and address the Agency of Human Services budget parts of the "Challenges for Change" that are supposed to produce $38 million in savings towards our $150 million general fund shortfall.

We are expected to provide our recommendations for the bill (which is now still in the Senate) by this week. pretty unanimous at this point in time in the belief that these

savings challenges" are an artificial way of deflecting some of the harsh reality of the budget situation this year.

At a time when we must make serious cuts to have a sustainable budget, I think it is important that we not be misled into thinking that we currently have a plush social services system.

A top level member of the administration testified in our committee this past week that Vermont's human services have very little "fat" and our benefits are not especially generous.

We are out of balance because we have a weak economic base, not because we are lavish in how we help struggling fellow Vermonters.

Likewise, data from the administration show that our Medicaid spending per person does not match the statement that those benefits are among the most generous in the country.

On average, we are just above the midpoint among 50 states. We are in the top third in some areas, but the bottom third in others.

We do have a lot of people on Medicaid, with higher levels of eligibility than others states. That is because of our very deliberate efforts towards health care reform, aimed at having as many people insured as possible.

We need a lot more reform, and in particular regarding how we pay for Medicaid, but the issue is not about high benefits.

The truth is that the state is going to need to make some deep and harmful cuts this year. We are caught up in the nation’s recession. We don’t have a printing press in the basement, and as taxpayers, we don’t have them in our backyards, either.

But it isn’t helpful to provide information that creates the appearance of easy targets. Painting a picture of excess costs to make the cuts sound less threatening doesn’t meet the test of political courage.

We need to make decisions based upon hard facts, with eyes wide open to the direct and indirect harm of each choice.

The public is owed the facts, for it will be the public that must judge how all of us – their public servants – deal honestly and act responsibly in a time of severe financial crisis.

Please stay in touch, give me input, and ask questions: if I don’t know the answer, I’ll try to find it. My direct email is counterp@ tds.net; phone is 485- 6431, and at the state house by message, 828-2228.