To paraphrase another heartfelt plea from Gov. Paul LePage — “We can’t pay our hospitals. We can’t pay our bills . . . ” — and the proposed solution continues to be deeper cuts in services for desperately poor and disabled people and to give wealthy “job creators” larger tax breaks.

There’s no requirement that the beneficiaries actually have to create jobs, so the tax savings are a windfall for people shopping for new sailboats.

The folks at the yacht club aren’t worrying about getting by without medical insurance, or fretting about jobless people in line at food banks. The “I’ve got mine” club is enjoying record high incomes, in sharp contrast to years of stagnant wages for those lucky enough to have jobs. It isn’t hard to get along with somebody else’s trouble.

Conservative “think tanks” keep recycling old ideas that never worked before. “Trickle down” economics and “Reaganomics,” or what former President George H. W. Bush aptly labeled “voodoo economics,” keep re-emerging.

The most recent President Bush addressed a flagging economy by giving wealthy people tax breaks that continue to this day. Did that improve any average person’s finances over the past decade?

State governments mirror the federal government, with gridlock limiting accomplishment, and extremists decimating the middle ground. LePage and his minions have to be monitored carefully to prevent their faulty economics from becoming irreparable.

On our behalf, organizations such as the Maine People’s Alliance try to illuminate political dealings that are carried out in the shadows of Augusta.

Gregory Onnen, Farmington