A fall bond package of $120 million is too high, even for legislative Democrats and the governor’s office, so over months of paring and trimming, they cut down this original proposal to $55 million. Republicans objected, saying that would still add too much debt, and a lot of the requested items didn’t need a special summer session and a vote in November but could be considered in winter. Get it between $30 million and $40 million, Republicans said, and Democrats will find bipartisan support.

The GOP, properly, won the argument. The bond question was cut to $40 million; the most contentious request, a bond for land purchases, was cut most of all, and what remained included funding for projects that should not wait until June ’05, the next likely time for a vote. Republicans celebrated by announcing, “There’s no deal here.”

There should be. This latest proposal cuts the land bond to $20 million; includes $9 million for transportation, of which $7.75 million would go to meet the state’s share of funding a replacement for the Waldo-Hancock Bridge; and provides $9 million for environment, including the replacement of money used to make mills ready for sale and reuse. The $40 million in state funds would leverage $78.4 million in federal matching funds.

Given the recent budget crunch it is understandable that legislators would be hesitant to send a large bond package to voters, but some issues do demand the attention of the state and lawmakers have an obligation to make certain that the public has a chance to approve this spending.

For instance, 17 projects – in Brewer, Howland, Clinton, Paris, Bangor and others – are on hold until the nearly $1.2 million taken from them to clean up hazardous waste at the mill in Lincoln and Brewer is returned. This is a commitment lawmakers made when they – Democrats and Republicans – agreed to borrow the money. Another $1 million would leverage federal cleanup money for polluted sites in Acton, Corinna, Eastport, Jay and others so that drinking water can be protected or the sites cleaned and reused. Why tell these communities to wait another year to get started on these sites?

Republican lawmakers seem irritated with the governor for meeting delays, for inviting the press to hear commissioners’ arguments for the bond money and generally for being political about politics. The bottom line is that the GOP managed to force Democrats to cut their bond package to $40 million, a level Republicans had previously said was acceptable. Rather than argue about it, all that’s left to do is pass it.