AUGUSTA – There’ll be plenty of parking in the State House parking lots today and extra room in the cafeteria. The halls will feel empty, void of legislators and lobbyists. Only the staff will remain.

The Legislature adjourned in the early hours Saturday after narrowly passing an amended $5.7 billion two-year budget.

Borrowing came out, program cuts and cigarette tax hikes went in. But not without hours of speeches.

Rising from her chair on the House floor, Appropriations Committee member Rep. Margaret Craven, D-Lewiston, said she attended a chamber of commerce breakfast meeting and a business trade show in Lewiston on Thursday. Hundreds of business people were there. She was expecting to take some verbal beatings for the budget recommended by her and fellow Democrats.

That didn’t happen.

“Feedback was pretty positive,” she said. “Some were enthusiastic, and others cautiously supportive. Nobody I met expressed dissatisfaction with the majority report.”

But there was ample dissatisfaction expressed by Republicans in Augusta.

A few themes emerged, including dueling numbers on how many people would really lose health care under Republican cuts. The Democrats said 40,000, Republicans said 611 people.

Another was higher cigarette taxes versus no higher cigarette taxes.

A third theme was that borrowing was coming out of the budget. This theme was different, in that both sides agreed.

“This budget relies heavily on increased taxes. Is that better than borrowing? Yeah, it probably is,” said House Republican Leader David Bowles, R-Sanford. “But is it the right thing to do in a state that already has the highest tax burden in the nation? I think we could have done something different.”

Bowles said he’s a former smoker. He quit years ago after his son was born because he didn’t want his son to grow up watching him smoke. Cigarette smoking is not good, “but should it be the policy of the state to use the tax code to punish people for indulging habits in which we would not indulge?”

House Majority Leader Glenn Cummings, D-Portland, shot back, saying state lawmakers have a responsibility to collectively help where individual citizens would otherwise be powerless.

Have a good summer

As legislators went home after working in Augusta since January, Gov. John Baldacci highlighted some of this year’s work.

That included passing a gay rights law so all Maine people enjoy civil rights; biomedical research; state spending harnessed by a new spending cap that restricts how much all government budgets can grow; and from drug disclosure to energy conservation, lawmakers “did many other things on behalf of the public,” Baldacci said. “I wish you well on a job well done, an enjoyable summer and enjoyable times with your family and friends.”

One legislator was at a gathering of family and friends Saturday night.

Another said she had 60 tomato plants on her porch that needed to go in the ground.

Unresolved issues are will there be a referendum allowing the Passamaquoddy Tribe to have slot machines in Washington County, what bonds citizens will vote on this November, and tax reform.

Quotes of the week: “If we don’t have money to pay our current bills, should we be expanding the fastest growing item of the budget, which is Medicaid? …. Our Medicaid system is a mess.” – Rep. David Trahan, R-Waldoboro.

“Why is it that when Dirigo and MaineCare expand, Republicans and the Maine Heritage Policy Center say we’ve expanded care to 78,000 people? But when they end these expansions, they’re only cutting benefits to 600 people?” – Rep. Margaret Craven, D-Lewiston

Bonnie Washuk is a Sun Journal State House reporter.