Hypocrisy, thy name is John Nutting.

The senator from Leeds has proposed legislation to prohibit hospitals that get funding from MaineCare from buying advertisements. “This is all paid with state money,” he told a legislative committee this week. (The committee later voted unanimously against the bill.)

His assertion was problematic for one big reason: It wasn’t true.

MaineCare and Medicare prevent medical providers from using that money for advertising. So the bill was essentially Nutting’s Complaint: “Hospitals say they’re short on money, but, hey, look at all these glossy advertisements. I think that’s wrong.”

Well, senator, you should have looked before you leaped. In objecting to hospital purchases of advertising, you’ve raised questions about yourself that need answering.

For example, in 2008 you received $21,005 in taxpayer funds through the Maine Clean Elections Act and spent $15,666.61 of it, including much of it on advertising in newspapers, according to filings at the Maine Commission of Governmental Ethics and Election Practices.

Most of your legislative colleagues do this, too. You haven’t voiced complaints about this particular expense; in fact, your praise has been effusive.

“I’m just pleased to be able to run for office without asking for any money from those I’m then going to be voting to regulate,” you said in September 2000, in State Legislatures magazine, the publication of the National Conference of State Legislatures.

You use taxpayer funds to buy ads. So why, then, is your direct use of taxpayer funds for this purpose justified, as opposed to hospitals?

Also, between 1996 and 2005, your farm – Androscoggin Holsteins Inc. – received $39,076 in federal subsidies, including $1,477 for “Milk Marketing Fees.” In the interest of equity, you should disclose how those taxpayer funds were spent.

Milk marketing sounds a lot like advertising. Is it?

For someone who crows loudly about government waste, Sen. Nutting, bills like yours are an immense waste of time and money. Not only is it factually inaccurate, but it does nothing except satisfy your concerns about appearance. It’s style, not substance.

The Legislature is not a complaint department.

What this shows, to us, is a lack of thoughtfulness about the legislator’s role, the legislative process and the purpose of governing. While we will always appreciate an agitator in Augusta, don’t get us wrong, they must be for righteous causes, not petty complaints.

You don’t like hospitals buying ads. Well, hospitals don’t like waiting so long to be paid for MaineCare. Instead of pushing a shaky moralistic agenda, devote your considerable legislative experience and prestige to resolving the core problem.

We need a senator, not a hypocrite.