Gov. John Baldacci’s newest promise is to pay Maine’s hospitals a long-overdue debt. Just in time for the election, he has decided it’s time to do what responsible Maine citizens have long urged him to do and he wants the people of Maine to believe it was his own idea.

The governor and his administration have snubbed their noses at Maine’s hospitals and the Maine citizens who need care the most, while busily establishing Maine as the most-taxed state in the country and the only state to decline economically without the aid of a devastating hurricane.

Maine’s hospital debt was allowed to grow irresponsibly, and now our governor wants us to believe he has become fiscally responsible. However, he neglects to say where the $102 million in payments will come from. Will they come from Maine’s poor, who are being added to the welfare rolls by the thousands each year? Or from those thousands of Mainers who have lost their jobs in manufacturing under this governor’s leadership? Or will it come from those Mainers struggling to make ends meet in a downward spiraling Maine economy?

It’s time for a change in leadership and direction for Maine. To continue down the path this governor has taken us will lead to Maine achieving ‘third-world nation’ status. It’s time for new leadership to turn our state around. The Taxpayer Bill of Rights will be a big step in getting our feet back on solid ground.

Judith Hayes, Paris