Sound fiscal management

Thanks to free speech, everyone has the right to criticize government at any level. I believe criticism is healthy – when it is well-founded and motivated by a sincere desire to help make our state a better place to live.

The drawback to free speech is that we don’t require anyone to prove that what they say is true. This is the case with Republican Reps. David Trahan and Jonathan McKane, who have spent the last few months writing articles for papers throughout the state that serve only partisan goals by concocting misleading numbers and slick catch phrases.

Maine is moving forward, and it’s because there are men and women in the Legislature and state government who put people first, not their own egos or power trips. Facts are facts, and the sound fiscal management of the last four years has poised Maine’s economy to grow through smart investments in people, innovation and small businesses.

Since 2002, our economy has created more than 5,000 net new jobs, and we have made state government smaller and less costly. The federal government has cut Maine’s funding drastically on many important programs and services, but we have risen above these challenges to fill the gap for Maine people.

We’ve taken responsibility where the federal government has failed our seniors on Medicare Part D to ensure they can still receive life-saving medication, in spite of computer glitches, and it’s costing us hundreds of thousands of dollars each week to do it.

The feds also chose to give us less money for the Low Income Heating Assistance Program, even though the price of oil has risen dramatically since last year. We’ve dipped into our limited state coffers to help people pay for oil, set up arrangements with other countries to buy fuel more cheaply, and created a charity home heating fund, all because the federal government failed to live up to its responsibility.

Reps. Trahan and McKane usually put the Dirigo health program at the top of their hit list, an initiative that has allowed nearly 10,000 working people to have quality, affordable insurance in just its first year. It puzzles me why Reps. Trahan and McKane would not want to fight to have working people keep their insurance, and why they’d rather send them to the emergency room to receive charity care and continue to drive up rates for people who already have insurance.

Their colleague, Rep. Ken Lindell of Frankfort, has publicly blasted Dirigo, but has quietly enrolled his business and his employees in the plan. Together, they have offered few policy alternatives, and none that seek to lower actual health care costs.

They argue instead that we should cut back on the rights of Mainers – the right to health insurance coverage when you are sick, the right not to be charged more for no reason, the right not to be dropped from a plan you paid for. These ideas may save insurance companies money, but without Dirigo, there is nothing to force them to pass savings on to consumers.

Dirigo has already saved the health care system in Maine more than $44 million in its first year, but the big insurance companies, with the support of Reps. Trahan and McKane, want to keep that money as profits rather than lower your insurance rates. Instead, they’re increasing your insurance rates as usual, and blaming it on Dirigo, the only plan in the country to take action on lowering the cost of health care. Does the CEO of Anthem truly deserve a $44 million bonus when your spouse can’t afford a stress test with a family history of heart disease?

Trahan and McKane laud the McKernan and King administrations for their “fiscal conservatism.” In truth, we have spent the last four years figuring out how to pay the bills they never paid, and reduce the debt they incurred by fiscal mismanagement and wasteful spending. All the same, Trahan, McKane and 58 other Republicans voted against spending caps at all levels of government, and wanted to deny property tax relief to more than 300,000 working Mainers. Instead, they pushed for additional tax breaks for the wealthy just like they are doing in Washington.

Your leaders in Augusta have their priorities straight, and are working to protect consumers, workers, small businesses and families to build strong communities and opportunities for our future. Perhaps our best work has been in education, and with better standards to see how our students are doing in core subjects like math, we are ensuring that our future state leaders will be better at skills like addition and problem-solving than Reps. Trahan and McKane.

Assistant House Majority Leader Robert Duplessie is a Democrat from Westbrook.