Mr. LePage Says We Teach Our Kids Good

The State of Maine, like most states, has some serious financial problems. It seems every two year budget cycle that our revenue does not meet expectations so the Governor and his legislature are left to fix the budget in place and hack the coming one.

Maine with its new legislature is a reverse microcosm of what is happening in Washington. You have two sides that have little to no common ground, with a political philosophy difference so large that both groups can barely fit in the same room.

After having been silent much of the fall to try to help Republicans get elected, a strategy that clearly did not work, LePage has now emerged from his bunker and made a couple of budget proposals that are not destined to be very popular. To be fair to the Governor there may be no proposals that can make people happy at this point but anybody who thought that our Chief Executive taking a look at the makeup of the legislature would modify his positions to bring about consensus has not had that bubble burst.

Directly after Christmas the Governor proposed fixing the gaping hole in the budget that ends July 1, 2013 by slashing funds from DHS and Education. After all clearly there is money to burn in our education budget. Seriously can someone tell me why it is that each and every year our teachers are asked to spend the last six months of the year wondering if they will have a job the next year.

That however was just the warmup. Last week the Governor rebuked his own Charter School Commission. These folks are a committee of folks who approve or reject proposals for future Charter Schools. For those who do not know the Governor loves Charter Schools. If you live in the inner cities of DC or Detroit or some such place perhaps an argument could be made for a charter school. I do not think that we need them in Maine and I certainly do not think that in the budgetary environment we are in they should be draining money from public education. Four of five of the recent applicants were rejected last week and Mr. LePage accepted the decision with his usual grace and aplomb. He took to microphone and blasted the group and told them if they were going to be intimidated to approve new charters they should " quit " and " go home." In the Governor's kingdom any committee would be a rubber stamp only.

Alas Mr. LePage was still not finished and he saved the best for last. After chastising the Charter School Commission and advising that Maine teachers are paid much too little, this a month after saying that Maine schools are the worst in the nation, the Governor has brought forward proposals for the next two year budget.

These proposals include a two year moratorium on municipal revenue sharing. This was greeted with as anger at the city level, all these mandates passed down will now be the responsibility of each individual town.

The Governor also wishes to cap General Assistance funds for the next two years. I think that is a great idea. After all if too many people come to Bangor or Portland or other population centers and need help well too bad.

Best of all our esteemed Governor, lover of education that he is, plans to flat fund education for the next two years. Flat fund ladies and gentleman, schools that have been stripped to the bone will now have to dig deeper. Moreover he did not really propose flat funding as he now states that districts should pay fifty percent of the teachers pension program going forward rather than all of it being paid at the state level. Do you realize how much money this is being forced to the town level.

For anyone who does not know what this proposal means in the big picture it is this. The state does not have enough and in LePage's case, would like to renege on their existing commitments to pensioners. Beyond that towns will, as has been done all over the country, start to refuse to pay pensions they are responsible to pay, and if towns are held to paying these pensions well who can blame the Governor.

A man who claims to be all about education is nothing but a joke. I would like to know how the thirty nine percent can justify this clown. Oh I forgot a good part of those people received the tax break that he put through as his first act of business. Personally as that has been in place for two years I am surprised our economy is not booming. After all was that not the point, more dollars kept in folks pocket would certainly lead to more investment, an economic boom.

My Good Lord since 1980 Republicans have been spouting this trickle down crap and yet it continues. I would respect them more if they just said Rich folks should keep more of their money and tough on you middle class losers. The rightest thing George Bush the first ever said was on the campaign trail when he decried Reagans policies as Voodoo economics.


For those of you who do not get the reference in the title it was Bush the second who spoke with the syntax of someone educated in one of LePage's vision of a Maine public school. Perhaps soon all our children will speak gooder than kids from out of state.

I do not propose to have all the answers but I am tired of education being the first place that our Governor looks for money, it is a constant shortchanging of our future. Anyone except our pal Paul knows that. Simply put the worst politician this state has ever produced.