I am writing to comment about what appears to be our state working daily to get as many people as possible on to welfare. When is this mentality going to end?

I, in no way, am attempting to disparage anyone who truly needs society’s help. Any compassionate society takes care of those in need.

If our state officials spent half as much time finding ways to help build Maine’s economy as they do looking for ways to expand welfare on the backs of those of us left working, they would be cutting programs instead of growing them.

Every time a program is expanded, the cost to the paying public has to go up. The welfare mindset is the problem, not the answer. It seems that every day now, we read about the state squeezing another taxpaying sector of society for more concessions. Today, it’s the hospitals and the pharmacies being squeezed. In July, the business community is to be burdened with the new Dirigo tax on health insurance.

If this keeps up, the only resource we will have left is a welfare program with no one left to pay the bills. When do we stop the welfare madness?

Carl Duchette, East Poland