BRATTLEBORO-Fear, worry, anger, and confusion over the recent actions by the federal government and the intentions of President Donald J. Trump were the emotions expressed in full force at a Town Hall meeting held by state Treasurer Michael Pieciak on March 15.
Pieciak, a Brattleboro native who still has deep roots in the community, chose the town for his first Town Hall meeting on the topic of Trump's apparent attempt to destroy the federal government and what it might mean for Vermonters.
The most important way to fight back? Join in community, Pieciak told around 100 people, including most of Windham County's legislators at the morning meeting at the Brattleboro Area Middle School, which lasted for almost two hours.
Afterwards, Pieciak headed north to hold a second Town Hall in South Burlington.
Vermont is a "blue state" that voted for Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, in the last election, giving the former vice president almost 64% of the vote to Trump's just over 32%. Even Republican Gov. Phil Scott said he voted for Harris.
Those speaking expressed deep concern over the recent chaos and cruelty coming out of Washington, D.C.
Facing up to fear
Speaking extemporaneously, Pieciak told the attendees that "we have a lot to talk about in terms of impact and in terms of dollars and cents. We're thinking about that at the Treasurer's office, and our legislators are thinking about that in Montpelier."
First, he said, it is important to acknowledge "the emotion of the moment that we're living in."
"I've been hearing from my family and friends about how people are feeling fear and anger and anxiety," Pieciak said. "Those are powerful emotions. I wonder how many people in this room have felt more fear, anger, and anxiety in the last two months than they have in most of their lives."
He asked for a show of hands, and almost everyone in the room raised theirs.
These emotions can keep people up at night, cloud their judgement, or cause harmful physical reactions, Pieciak said.
"But I think, more importantly, sometimes they make us into a state of paralysis," he added. "They make us stop taking action."
Sometimes people want to "wait for things to get a little bit more certain" before taking action, he said, or they might get disillusioned at "how we perceive it to be broken and maybe unfixable." Or maybe they're overwhelmed by anxiety.
"Those emotions can really make us stand back in a moment when we all need to really stand up, both for each other and for our communities," added Pieciak, who said that community is the key - "the antidote to isolation, to fear, to loneliness, to anxiety."
"When we get together in community like this, we realize, as by a show of hands, that we all have the same fears," he said.
"When we come together and say we are angry, let's put that anger to a productive purpose, rather than feeling like the world is beyond repair," Pieciak said. "Community can turn helplessness into action. It can turn despair into hope. We must find ways to build relationships within our neighborhoods and on our streets. We must find ways to take action, big and small. And most importantly, we must do it together."
A relationship on the rocks
Pieciak's office focuses on the economy, so he knows how much the state depends on funding from the federal government: 36%.
"It funds important programs like the work done at the Department of Education and the work done at the Department of Health," Pieciak said.
Most importantly, "in terms of the sheer size and the sheer scope of the critical health care programs, with Medicaid," he added. Medicaid funds low-cost or free health care for adults and the Dr. Dynasaur program for children and teens, as well as those who are pregnant. It also funds programs for long-term care, for prescription assistance, and for support of care for those with special needs.
"So when the federal government is talking about freezing funds, that is a big impact to the state of Vermont," Pieciak said.
Another important concern, he said, is the United States' relationship with Canada - Vermont's largest trading partner - which accounts for 76% of the state's imports.
Trump has imposed and reversed and imposed, again, tariffs on Canada. He has talked about an actual takeover of the nation to make it "the 51st state."
These talks have soured Canadians' feelings toward Vermont, affecting the state's bottom line. Companies in Vermont which buy goods from Canada or sell goods to Canada have both reported drops in sales.
"From a business standpoint, tariffs have damaged that real relationship in terms of our trade with Canada," Pieciak said. "They've also damaged that in terms of tourism, which is important to our economy as well, because $150 million of economic activity happens from Canadians visiting Vermont every year."
According to a publication from the Canadian government's Office of the Consulate General in Boston, Vermont imports $2.6 billion of goods each year, including electricity and natural gas, fuel oil, cocoa and chocolate, animal feed, engines and turbines, and wood. Just over half of the economic activity- 52% - is from energy.
Vermont's $680 million of exports to Canada include paper, jewelry, wood, foods, "optical, medical, and precision instruments," and fiber and woven goods. Equipment and machinery accounts for 22% of those exports.
Canada has always been an ally of the United States and a friend to Vermont, Pieciak said.
"Particularly when you live in northern Vermont, our communities are intertwined," he said. "It's as if, in some ways, we have more kinship with Québec than we do with New Hampshire."
Nonprofits feel a chill
Another area of great concern is the possibility of the federal government cutting funding for the nonprofit world. According to Pieciak, 1 in 5 workers in Vermont are employed by a nonprofit that "may be at risk of having its federal funding cut in some way, or altogether."
These nonprofits "do great work in our communities, but they also do great work to our economy, contributing billions of dollars to the Vermont economy," he said.
Finally, Vermont is dependent on help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) when natural disasters occur.
"In Vermont, we don't think of ourselves sometimes as having these big numbers in terms of natural disasters happening to the state," Pieciak said, "We think of Florida, Louisiana."
But in terms of population, Vermont ranks fifth in the country in terms of FEMA reimbursement and FEMA support over the last 15 years, he told the audience.
And in terms of the number of emergency declarations that have been issued due to natural disasters over the last 15 years, the state comes in at No. 7.
"So we depend heavily on the federal government to be there when a natural disaster strikes," Pieciak said.
For all these reasons, he said, "I think it's really important for us to be in a proactive mindset throughout this entire period of great upheaval and transition."
Sharing their stories
Audience members were invited to share their own experiences.
One woman, a scientist, talked about the federal funding that was cut for her and her research colleagues.
Another woman was worried about colleges remaining open because she had children who are ready to apply for admission.
Another woman was upset because funding for the farm-to-school food programs had been stopped.
Many people said they were afraid of cuts to Medicaid and Medicare.
One person said, to applause, that she was concerned about the safety of the immigrants who have settled in Windham County. She also said she was angry that the Democrats did not seem to have effective leadership to try to stop this attempt to defund, shut down, or privatize the federal government. She mentioned Sen. Bernie Sanders' recent Town Hall meetings in places like Arizona and Colorado as an example of leadership - also to applause.
One woman spoke with disgust about the rampant corruption of the Trump administration. "They are stealing in front of our eyes," she said, again to applause.
A man talked about his fear of artificial intelligence and the lack of personal data privacy and protection.
Elizabeth Bridgewater, the executive director of the Windham & Windsor Housing Trust, said she was fearful that housing funds might be cut just when her organization was ready to build badly needed housing in the area.
A woman worried about protecting the LGBTQIA+ community when so much unwarranted anger is being directed towards this vulnerable population. A man talked about government staffing cuts that make it almost impossible for workers at federal agencies - like the Social Security Administration - to help solve Vermonters' problems.
One woman said she was dismayed that the U.S. has turned its back on Ukraine. She was also worried about the possibility of unchecked violence here.
"Would the U.S. military protect us, or are we in danger?" she asked, also to applause.
This led to several people wondering whether U.S. citizens still live under the rule of law.
When Pieciak asked if people saw opportunities in the current situation, several people raised their hands.
Among the suggestions: The country needs to start taxing the wealthy; people should stop buying online and spend their dollars locally. Vermont should seek advice from professional therapists who know how to deal with narcissists. And people might want to consider not paying federal taxes this year - but they should definitely pay their Vermont taxes.
One woman suggested supporting the postal workers because the government wants to privatize the U.S. Postal Service. Another suggested we learn how to support people who are being bullied and intimidated by Trump - even other Republicans, she said, mentioning Marco Rubio, the secretary of state.
A woman wondered where Scott stands on these issues and if the governor, as a Republican, can provide protection and leadership.
A local doctor said that people should be kind to each other "and continue to keep meeting."
The view from the Statehouse
Four Democratic state legislators - Sens. Nader Hashim and Wendy Harrison, and Reps. Emilie Kornheiser and Mike Mrowicki, formed a panel to speak about what the Legislature can do to help.
Hashim, a Dummerston attorney and the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the fear about losing the rule of law was "something that kept me up at night as well."
"Lawsuits are how we resolve conflict," Hashim said. "When those rules start being disregarded by one side or the other, then why do we have court rules? Why do we have lawsuits if it doesn't matter? That's the thing that concerns me the most."
Hashim then talked about self-reliance and the concept of "hypernormalization." He said it happened during the collapse of the Soviet Union.
"In the months and the years preceding that, a lot of people were just in a place where they didn't know what was coming next," Hashim said. "The status quo kept on moving forward. People had a feeling that something was off, but they just couldn't quite put their finger on it. So they were kind of paralyzed in terms of what decisions they were making."
He described hypernormalization, a concept described by Russian historian Alexei Yurchak, as "something I keep in the back of my mind when I think about the utter chaos that is coming from the federal government."
Hashim said that he and his colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee had just passed a bill to increase protection for immigrants.
"So right now, without this law, if the federal government issued a state of emergency, a local police department could circumvent the executive branch and the attorney general and enter into an agreement with ICE or customs," Hashim said.
The bill "closes that loophole," he said.
"It requires that if a state of emergency is issued, they will still have to go through the process of getting any agreements authorized by the executive," Hashim said.
He also said that the Legislature has already taken many steps to protect data, including "protecting information related to reproductive health and gender-affirming care" for people who come to Vermont for medical services.
Kornheiser, who represents Brattleboro's District 7 and is chair of the House Ways & Means Committee, suggested, to applause, the idea of Vermont seceding from the United States and joining Canada.
"Vermont has a long history of resistance," Kornheiser said, then became emotional when she told the audience, "You're not going to see headlines, but we did work over the last six years here in Vermont, and so we do have a lot of protection."
Kornheiser said it was "very moving to hear from all of you and to hear my fears, from two o'clock in the morning, from six o'clock in the morning, from five o'clock p.m., echoed by all of you."
"I'm glad to be in community with all of you today," she said.
Vermont cannot afford to cover all the costs of Medicare and Medicaid if federal funding is cut, Kornheiser warned.
"If we lose all of the money that comes in through Medicaid, we're going to need to really rewrite the entire state budget to make sure that we are keeping people alive," she said.
She named "keeping people fed" and "keeping the basic bones of government going" as two of "the kinds of decisions that we're preparing to be able to make strategically over the next year or two, in partnership with the Treasurer's office."
"And we want to be aware of all those changes that are happening as we're making those decisions, because some of them might be very big," she said.
Federal money always comes with strings, Kornheiser said. She gave as an example Vermont being forced to raise its drinking age to 21 in 1986 because "we were threatened with the loss of federal highway funds."
Every new administration has new strings, and the Legislature works with them, Kornheiser said.
During the last legislative session, Kornheiser tried to create a tax-the-rich law. It was passed by the House but failed in the Senate. She said that if it had passed, it would have raised only $70 million.
"That is not going to make even a drop in an ocean of the scale of federal money that we would be losing if we lost all federal money in the state," Kornheiser said.
Harrison talked about the need to change zoning laws and build new housing.
Mrowicki talked about the governor's education plan, and how "it seems like it came from the White House and not the Statehouse. Then he put out a climate plan. It also seems like it came from the White House and not the Statehouse. He wants to stop our actions on climate, and I don't think we should let him get away with it."
He said the country's economy is "one of have-nots and have yachts," and the Legislature's job is to address income disparity.
"In Vermont, we have one of the most progressive taxation systems in the country," Mrowicki said. "We will continue to do that and be progressive about what we're doing. But the reality is we get a lot more money from Washington than we put back."
Mrowicki urged people to let Scott know what they think about his proposals, as well as keeping in touch with Vermont's representatives in Washington. He also suggested letting the White House know what they think.
"If they keep hearing from more and more people, I think we can change things," Mrowicki said.
A call to action
In his closing remarks, Pieciak urged the audience to action. "Any action is important," he said.
"If you're providing somebody a meal or giving somebody a ride to a doctor's appointment, or spending some time with them when they're lonely, that's not a small act to them," he said. "That's a big act to them."
And, "whether you're thinking about volunteering at a community organization or thinking about donating to local organizations instead of maybe some national organizations or thinking about buying locally, those are actions that add up," Pieciak said. "And when all of us take those small actions, they add up to significant, significant progress forward."
Pieciak said he loves Brattleboro and loves the people who came to the meeting and spoke up about their concerns.
"You're serving the community," he said. "You're being leaders in our community already. So thank you."
The treasurer concluded the Town Hall with an appeal to "think about how you can take action, whether it's today, whether it's this weekend, whether it's this week."
"You've already taken the action of showing up here and being with us," he added, calling it "really, really powerful and significant."
"But think about how you can now go out into the world and take an action to help improve the situation of your community and your neighbors," Pieciak said.
Stream this meeting on BCTV: bit.ly/807-pieciak.
This News item by Joyce Marcel was written for The Commons.