I thank Gov. Paul LePage for the State of the State address. He asked people to be outraged. Thanks, but let me try to be creative instead.

Could someone please help me understand why the Public Utilities Commission, after much deliberation, gave natural gas an average of $16 per month increase on users’ bills when Maine has the 12th highest energy costs in the nation? The gas company supposedly has to replace old pipes in the ground that are not safe. Another way of handling that might have been to charge the suppliers a penalty every month for not replacing the pipes year-by-year during the past 50 years.

Why do our neighbors in New Hampshire have an average income of $13,000 more per year than people in Maine? It may have to do with leadership, since our work force is at least as good as theirs.

Why don’t we finance our own wind farm within three miles of shore? I would ask the PUC what that would cost per kilowatt hour. Why isn’t that possibility being explored, as opposed to sending $1.386 billion to POB 11752 in Newark, N.J., each year for our electricity?

And health care financing is a cesspool into which Congress has been dumping since 1960. To put 65,000 more people at risk of no health coverage is not in the best interest of the state, and enables Congress to keep on trucking.

James Tierney, Auburn