ROCKLAND  Maine Governor Paul R. LePage held a town hall meeting Wednesday evening, Nov. 4, at Rockland City Hall. Despite a late start, the Governor spoke and then answered questions from the audience. 

Mayor Frank Isganitis introduced the governor, and took the opportunity to reflect on Tuesdays election results that unseated him from the city council.

“I did my best to be a good public servant, but I’m not a good politician and the results of the election reflected that and I’m OK with that,” he said.

Following the Pledge of Allegiance and taking a seat, LePage touched on four points. Reform welfare, lower the income tax, reduce energy costs and help students succeed. Later in the meeting, he took questions from the audience. To read those questions and answers, click here.

In his opening statement the Governor said his priority was to make the state of Maine prosperous.

“In the 45 years I’ve been in business,” he said, “I’ve worked with a lot of troubled companies and I’ve worked with very successful companies and it is not rocket science, nor is it a situation where certain things work and certain things don’t, but there are basic principles that we have to follow in order to move things forward.”

He said he chose lowering the income tax as his first point. He stated that the state had been able to lower the income tax from 8.5 percent to 7.15 percent.

“We are still way off the mark in order to be competitive in the United States,” he said. “Our income tax is way to high, and actually our sales tax is competitive, our corporate income tax is way out of line.”

“Of the six New England states the average income tax is 6.6 percent, however we don’t compete with New England, we compete with the globe. I just came back from China where we were working with companies, in China, in Japan. We are trying to attract them to come to Maine. We had some success, but we would have so much more if we were more competitive. And what I mean by competitive is investment capitol goes where it’s welcome and it stays where it’s appreciated.”

“I give you the New England average of 6.6. The U.S. average for all 50 states is 5.55 percent. Then if I look at just the rural states, states like Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Wyoming, North and South Dakota, states that are all about the size of Maine. The income tax is 5.16 percent, so you can agree with me, you can disagree with me, it’s fine. The issue is that we and Maine will never be a prosperous state if we are not treating our job creators better then we have been.

“The people in this room that are private business owners know exactly what I’m talking about because the people who struggle the most in Maine are small businesses. Of 44,000 businesses in Maine, there are maybe 200 that have over 100 employees. They’re all one to 10, one to 20, maybe 25, 30 or 50. I worked for Marden’s. In the rest of the country, Marden’s would be considered a small company. In Maine it’s considered a huge company. Bath Iron Works, Hannaford, the hospitals, all huge employers, but those aren’t the ones that make the economy go. The ones that make the economy go are the fishermen, the hardware store, the grocery store, the local rural communities which we have 400 and some odd communities.

“There’s only one Portland, one Lewiston/Auburn, one Bangor and after that we really downsize very, very quickly. Those are the important aspects we need to remember. I look at our income tax and there are 10 states without any. New Hampshire just happens to be one of them. They are in the top three states for prosperity. No income tax, no sales tax. Texas, South Dakota, Florida. How many of you people, know people who leave for Florida six months to the day and go to Florida. That’s what we’ve created for ourselves, so that when people have a little bit of money, they protect their assets. And if you don’t, I question that judgment. If you work all your life, and you earn a little nest egg, you want to leave it to your children and your grandchildren and your family. You don’t want it to go to government.

“We run into people every single day that go to Texas, Arizona, Florida and South Carolina. Why? A couple of reasons.  One: Income tax, two: death tax, or the estate tax. Probably a bigger sin then any tax we have in the state. It keeps more people away and we generate anywhere from $15 million to $30 million a year if it’s someone who has a lot of money. They die unexpectedly and they’re in Maine, you could have a windfall for the state, but all the money we generate doesn’t warrant all the money we lose. Because over the last 25 years we lose on average $12 million in hard assets every year. People move away and we would be better off getting rid of the estate tax and keeping those people here.

“People say: Oh, you’re going to create a sales tax. I want to go form 7.15 and I think the state can go to zero. It will take a little longer to go to zero, but four percent or five percent would make us competitive. What does that mean? It means that government has to get a little more efficient. We’ve gotten very efficient in some areas, but we need to do more. And we can do more.

“Government should not be a job creator. Government should only tax you to the extent that we can run an efficient government at the lowest possible cost; 803,000 people out of 1.4 million pay income tax. Sales tax however, we get about 40 million people who come to Maine each year. If you add a 1 percent on to your sales tax, 40 million people will be paying sales tax into the state of Maine. It’s a big windfall. We can look at certain ways to deal with that. We’ve looked at it from the stand point of giving credits to the elderly, property tax credits, sales tax credits, but we can deal with the problems that generate. Everybody thinks it’s a bad thing, but it isn’t. We studied other states that are very, very successful. There are advantages and disadvantages, but what do we want as a people.”

Energy

“If people in this room haven’t heard me talking about high electricity costs in the last five years, you haven’t been listening, because it has been my primary issue. This year we are making major progress. Prices are dropping significantly because the other New England states, four out of six New England states have joined a coalition. Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Maine have joined a coalition to bring natural gas to the northeast. The horse is out of the barn. I don’t see how it can be stopped. There are three proposals in the table; they are all being looked at very, very strongly. By the end of 2016, natural gas will be here. Not to the extent that it is at full capacity, but it will be here to significantly lower the cost of energy. Now if I can only convince legislators that hydroelectricity is going green around the world. It’s inexpensive except for Maine. We consider it brown.

“Anything over 100 megawatts in Maine is considered not renewable. In Quebec you can go up there right now and buy all of our electricity cheaper. We can buy it for six cents and right now we’re probably paying around 14-15 cents. I will say this: we have the cleanest energy in the United States. We have the highest renewable portfolio in America. We are at 64 percent. Is that good? Yes. Is 15 cents good? No. I believe that we as a people should be able to find a good balance. When I became governor, 80 percent of the homes in Maine were heated with oil. We have that down to 60 percent without any change in Legislature. We did it through hard work of getting heat pumps and pellets, things that we could do with existing regulations. We have not been successful in getting the legislature to look at hydro and natural gas.”

Welfare reform

 “We have cut into welfare reform, food stamps, TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) and Maine Care to the tune of $50 thousand in Maine Care, six thousand in TANF programs and $50 thousand in food stamps. People said, oh buy you’re hurting Maine. We have less people uninsured today then we had in 2010.

“Number 1: Today a person that is below 100 percent of poverty is automatically on Maine Care. We put in last January, $46 million to remove everybody from disability and a little less in elderly, I removed them from the wait list. Everybody was going to be covered. The Legislature took $20 million out of that and recreated the wait list and now we provide monies for people I don’t believe we should be, which are illegal aliens in the state of Maine.

“There are two or three cities that take a significant amount of money. My feeling is you should take care of your own before you take care of the person in the next town. I will take care of my children before I take care of your children. It’s just that simple. I think we should take care of Maine residents and Maine citizens before we take care of citizens from other countries that are not here legally.

“I’m not talking about not taking care of people who are here legally. I will be the first one to help them, but when you put the [il] in front of it, it really becomes an issue. Let me give you three reasons why. There are three types of refugees. There is a primary refugee, a secondary refugee and an asylum seeker.

“A primary refugee is someone who is from a foreign country who comes directly to your neighborhood. Your community. I have no problem with that, they’ve gone through a lot of paperwork, they’ve got a medical assessment, I’m fine, I’ll help them along and the federal government will help us with them up to eight or nine months.

“A secondary refugee, is someone who goes from a foreign country to let’s say another state like Georgia, but their relatives are in Maine. Their relatives say come to Maine, it’s better than Georgia, so they come to Maine. A little bit of a problem with the paperwork. The paperwork is done properly, they have a medical assessment. The problem is the federal government doesn’t help us, we have to pick up the whole tab, but I’m alright with that.

“Asylum seekers. Everybody seems to think that an asylum seeker is someone in a country that people are getting killed and they get over here and a few are going to be safe. That’s not what an asylum seeker is. An asylum seeker is someone who gets a visa to come to the United States and over-stays it. And then they want asylum. Two problems. One, we have no medical assessment. And we have to pick up 100 percent of the tab. Once they over stay they are technically illegal. And the problem I have with them is they are looking for asylum and I have no problem with that. I will help them get asylum. The problem is it takes about 18 months to two years to get clearance from the federal government. While they are here during that period of time, we all pay for it. And the sad part is that 70 percent are sent back home. Only 30 percent are allowed asylum status.

“Here is a situation I just found out. A lady just had three children over the last five years since I’ve been governor. She comes from a foreign country. Comes to Portland, signs up for Maine Care, has her baby, stays a couple of weeks and goes back home. She doesn’t like the United States; she only likes our medical system. She’s done it three times and we just caught her the third time. We refused to pay. Now, how many here believe I should relinquish and pay for that third baby? They came here and they stole from us. They didn’t ask us to come here and have the baby. She gets a visa, comes over here has the baby and goes back home. And I don’t think that’s OK because I have too many people in the state of Maine that have mental deficiencies which we are under a consent decree for 25 years and haven’t done anything about it. We have elderly that can’t get services and we have people with disabilities that can’t get services.

“I had a gentleman one day when I came out of the dentist leaning on his car and he says to me, [“Governor, you find me a leg and I’ll go to work”]. I found him a leg, he’s working. The point is, we want to help those who want to help themselves, but we do not and cannot afford to help people who do not want to help themselves. And I will say this that 95 percent of the people that need help, get help and are appreciative and become part of the system, but there are four or five percent that we cannot help because they only take.

“You can say all you want about welfare, but I’ve been there, I lived it, I know it like the back of my hand. Not everybody is honest.”

Student debt

“The final topic I want to talk about is one that is very sad for the greatest country, America and that is student debt. Our kids go to school. We get them all in tremendous debt. To go to a small Ivy League in Maine costs you $60 thousand a year, you go to a land grant school it costs you $20 thousand a year. We get them $80 to $200 thousand in debt and then we give them a menial job and tell them to pay back the debt.

“They can’t afford to buy a house, they can’t afford to buy a new car and they can’t afford to contribute to society for up to 20 years. I believe we ought to do a better job in higher education; we ought to give better opportunities to those kids. Last year I put a bill out to the Senate and the house, interest free loans to kids that go to community college and college and trade schools. You go on to higher education for a trade; we’ll give you an interest free loan. If your employer helps you pay that loan, we’ll give him tax credits off his income tax. The student has to work hard, get good grades. The state will pay the interest on the money they borrow, bonds two to three percent, and the student studies, the employer helps and they get tax credits, everybody is happy. The student has a job. The employers train an employee and builds a good relationship. After it’s paid off they can contribute to our economy much quicker with homes, furnishings and things that a young family would want and needs to have.

“We have a young couple right now, 28 years old. He is a physician’s assistant in Portland and the wife has a masters in physical therapy working in Portland. They cannot afford a house because their debt is $168 thousand between them. If we are going to lower the age of Maine, and we are the oldest state in America, if we are to lower the age in the state of Maine we have to do two things. One: Attract and keep young people. Two: Make sure we don’t lose our grandfathers and grandmothers because kids always want to be close to family.”

So ended the governor’s talk. The remainder of the time was opened up to questions from those attending. Penbaypilot will cover those questions in a related article.