King’s speech makes few waves

AUGUSTA – Lawmakers already focused on an immediate challenge said Tuesday night they found little to add to their contemplation in Gov. Angus King’s State of the State address.

“With the number one issue we’re now facing being the budget, he didn’t really address it,” said Assistant House Minority Leader William Schneider, R-Durham.

“It’s a pretty generic speech,” said Schneider’s senior partner at the head of the GOP House caucus, Minority Leader Joe Bruno of Raymond. “He lays out what he thinks he did.”

King spoke to a joint convention of the House and Senate at the end of a day given over to opening public testimony on his plan for covering a General Fund revenue gap of nearly $250 million.

The first day of legislative hearings on the package drew an audience of critics that packed the Appropriations Committee room at the State House and spilled over into an annex room one floor below.

The opening discussions concerned some of more than $50 million in Medicaid cutbacks that King has proposed. Still to come are reviews of other controversial items, including $11 million in delays of expected tax reductions.

“I’m trying to figure out where he got some of his numbers from,” Bruno said, questioning a gubernatorial assertion during the summing-up portion of the speech that the tax burden in Maine has declined by 9 percent in the last three years.

Weighing its detail, Bruno suggested in that regard he found the speech wanting. At the same time, he predicted it would be generally well received.

“There’s not a lot,” he said, adding, “It’s a nice speech.”

In a fleeting budget reference, King noted he had crafted a plan to cope with the revenue shortfall without resorting to proposed cuts in aid to public school systems.

“My budget maintains our commitment to education and I believe that we’re united on this issue,” King declared.

Democratic Senate President Pro Tem Michael Michaud, D-East Millinocket, said he was “very pleased” with the governor’s stance on general purpose aid to local schools.

Michaud, who is running for the Democratic congressional nomination in Maine’s 2nd District, said he understood moving school aid off the list of potential cutback targets likely means “some cuts in the health care area.”

Looking toward the coming debate within the Legislature and negotiations involving King, Michaud added: “The question is, where can we make those cuts that are not severe cuts?”

Assessing King’s role in the upcoming budget deliberations, Michaud said he believed the independent governor, whose second term ends early next year and whose State of the State speech on Tuesday night was his last, remains a wholly relevant political force in the partisan divides of the Legislature.

“Oh, absolutely,” Michaud said, “clearly, the governor has the veto power.”

Moreover, Michaud suggested that the chief executive’s position could be strengthened by a lack of consensus on budget alternatives within the Legislature.

“I can’t see that there’s going to be overwhelming support for any budget that comes out,” Michaud said.