March 14

What kind of a voter looks back at you from mirror?

Letter to the Editor

I wonder how many people look into their bathroom mirror and see the reflection of a reasonably intelligent voting person. I ask because of the pitiful politicians we've elected into the State House.

Gov. Paul LePage is trying to pay millions of dollars owed Maine hospitals for years, at a time when the federal government would pay its highest percentage of the debt, and Democrats in control of the Legislature balk at the plan. They favor use of liquor revenues for new social programs. Shades of déjà vu; former Gov. John Baldacci's exact doings.

In my first Senate term, with Republicans in command, we capped the income tax, abolished the "hospital sick tax," so called, and the 7 percent gross receipts tax on nursing homes, only to see all of it ash-canned when Democrats regained legislative control the next term. Speak to us Yogi; bearer of true tidings!

Please answer me this: Why do seemingly responsible Maine citizens who pay their own household budgets before taking on new spending, continually elect politicians who refuse to pay long-standing state bills, favoring new spending programs instead?

When looking into a mirror, the hardest thing to see is someone else to blame.

John Benoit

Manchester

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