AUGUSTA – In a show of bipartisan strength Tuesday, the Maine Legislature stood up to Republican Gov. Paul LePage’s veto of a new $6.7 billion state budget that cuts the state’s income tax rate and stretches the sales tax in an attempt to shift more of the state’s costs to visitors.

The House voted 109-37 to override and the Senate joined suit shortly before noon, voting 25-10, which will make the spending package law on Wednesday.

The run-up to the override votes in the House and Senate on Tuesday morning prompted protests, including one involving a Christmas tree and some toy pigs by LePage. On Tuesday, LePage brought a broom to a rally with supporters to indicate his veto of the budget – along with more than 160 other bills this session — was an attempt to clean up state government.

But lawmakers on both sides of the aisle seemed to have had it with a governor who has a flair for the dramatic and seems nearly unwilling to compromise. Adding to their frustration with LePage has been his use of the veto pen as a means of punishing lawmakers for not advancing his agenda, including a statewide vote to repeal the state’s income tax.

On Tuesday, House Minority Leader Ken Fredette, long a staunch ally of LePage, credited the governor for elevating the discussion on the income tax cut but he also urged his colleagues to join him in voting to overturn the veto.

Fredette said the budget didn’t have everything Republicans wanted but it did have much they could be proud of and a vote to sustain LePage’s protest of the budget would risk a state government shutdown.

The budget, as it stood, provided a broad swath of both income and property tax relief to Maine’s middle-income earners, Fredette said.

Fredette said those earning up to $50,000 a year would now pay a state income tax rate of just 6.75 percent. That’s a change from current law that sees all those making more than $20,000 paying a rate of 7.95 percent.

“That is significant income tax reduction and it is focused on the middle class, many of those people that we want to have stay here in Maine . . . you’re a young family, you have young children, we want you to stay here in Maine, we are going to put money back in your pocket,” Fredette said, summarizing the message of the override vote.

Much of the budget passed into law Tuesday came from LePage’s budget proposal rolled out in January, but because it didn’t go far enough to cut taxes and failed to provide expanded funding for programs LePage favored, he took his veto pen to the measure.

Republican lawmakers in the House who stood with LePage railed against the new budget’s lack of funding for some unfortunate Mainers, including those with brain injuries and developmental disabilities and groups of the elderly.

“This is not right,” said Rep. Deb Sanderson, R-Chelsea, who repeated themes outlined in LePage’s veto message from Monday. 

Sanderson urged her colleagues to oppose the bill and said that the threat of a government shutdown was a false choice because there was a bill available to temporarily fund state government.

State Rep. Richard Pickett, R-East Dixfield, said he was voting against the budget because it didn’t include enough funding to help Maine’s nursing homes and the elderly. 

“Here’s the bottom line to all of this — I believe our responsibility to our elderly Maine people is a sacred trust,” Pickett said. “Our mothers, our fathers, our aunts and our uncles were among the builders of Maine. I refuse to compromise with people until they realize that our grandmothers and our grandfathers come first. These people paid their dues, they raised their families and received no welfare from the state. Welfare as it is now passed out today did not exist.”

But Rep. Gina Melaragno, D-Auburn, said House Republicans were leaving out an important part of the budget story as they complained of there not being enough funding in the budget for the disabled and elderly.

“There were certain folks in this room that fought hard to reduce the taxes of the wealthiest in this state – they fought hard and they got a lot of that,” Melaragno said. “Let’s remember when we talk about the neediest people in our state that there were certain people that fought really hard to get the tax breaks for the wealthiest in our state, while talking out of the other side of their mouth saying they care for needy people, so let’s keep that in mind as well.”

At one point in Melaragno’s speech, Rep. Bruce Bickford, R-Auburn, asked if she was questioning the integrity of her colleagues when a member of the public in the balcony shouted – “I am!”

Other Democrats and Fredette, as well, rebutted that, saying the Legislature had run out of time and the budget they had before them was the only clear way to keep the state open for business.

Fredette echoed a theme that has been repeated by both House Speaker Mark Eves, D-North Berwick, and Senate President Mike Thibodeau, R-Winterport.

He said the budget was not without flaws in his estimation but he was supporting the override vote just the same.

“It is what it is,” Fredette said. “Ladies and folks we have divided government, we have a Democratic House, we have a Republican Senate and a Republican governor. This is divided government folks. You don’t get everything that you want.”

The Senate voted to overturn the veto with no floor debate.

sthistle@sunjournal.com

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