A year ago, this month, Gov. Paul LePage stated that Maine’s “rainy day fund” had a balance of $272.9 million. That amount was confirmed by LePage’s finance commissioner, Alec Porteous (source, Kennebec Journal, July 31, 2018).
From that fund, $19 million would go to reducing Maine’s income tax rate — a step forward to keep retirees from moving to Florida, which has no state income tax and a much lower cost of living than Maine’s.
Today, the Legislature’s Democrats are eagerly ready to spend the surplus for free health care, free college and to cancel student debt, to name a few.
It has been said that there is never a tax that the Democrats don’t like or a dollar they couldn’t spend.
Politicians need to be better at managing the state’s surplus and keeping the state’s finances in the black, not back into the red.
Joe Voisine, North Monmouth
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