The problem with fast-track authority for trade agreements with Chile and other nations can be seen in the pact itself. A company caught pirating intellectual property — say, compact discs — faces stiff penalties and may be closed down under the agreement. A company caught busting unions and… Read More
In voting not to open their season on Jan. 1, Monhegan lobstermen are taking a gamble to save the resource. Although the Legislature won’t convene until shortly after that, lawmakers and state officials should step up now to assure the islanders the wager of their lives will pay… Read More
Even as President Clinton wrestles with the question of how much of the recent climate change is due to manmade sources and how much to natural climatic variation, new reports about technological abilities to reduce greenhouse producing pollutants without going broke show an encouraging trend. It is the… Read More
If tragedy ever is to serve as a catalyst for change, let it be the incomprehensible tragedy of Jeffrey Curley. The 10-year-old boy is lured from the safety of his Cambridge, Mass., neighborhood into a car by two men. They kill him, smother his young… Read More
Given the wreckage that could result from collision between a powerful law and an Indian tribe that takes its sovereignty seriously, it was encouraging last week to see leaders of the two Passamaquoddy reservations and federal officials peacefully discussing the harbor porpoise hunt. The National… Read More
Harold Ickes, former deputy White House chief of staff, did Sen. Fred Thompson a large favor last week by rescuing the senator’s campaign-finance hearing from the doldrums. Mr. Ickes’ colorful testimony about President Bill Clinton’s fundraising activities directed attention back to this scandal and offered reason enough for… Read More
Ron Arnold, scourge of environmentalists, wrote a book a few years ago called “Trashing the Economy,” in which he accused those nature lovers of all sorts of terrible things, including inventing problems to advance political goals. Talk about a coincidence, Mr. Arnold appeared to do the same thing… Read More
President Clinton’s surgical use of his new line-item veto to de-pork the military construction budget bill did far more than merely save the taxpayers $287 million — it sent a message to Congress that every spending bill is not an avenue for bringing home the bacon. Read More
The final week of a 12-year dispute is a difficult moment to introduce a new version of events. Nevertheless, that is what Maine Yankee officials did when, after a long, expensive search for a low-level nuclear waste disposal site, they urged Congress this week to reject a deal… Read More
In just a few brief minutes Tuesday, the U.S. Senate disgraced itself, let the nation down and sullied the precious guarantee of free speech. But in making short work of McCain-Feingold, senators now have plenty of time for what’s truly important — raising cash for the next campaign. Read More
State lawmakers are on the road to hear what the citizenry wants to do with the unexpected revenue surplus that’s piling up month after month. The public is torn between increasing aid to education and eliminating the snack tax. Dick and Jane or Little Debbie — a tough… Read More
One could call the announcement by opponents of the Compact for Maine’s Forests that voter approval in November will lead to widespread posting of land a friendly caution, a portent of things to come, a public-service advisory. Or, one could call it was it really is — blackmail. Read More
That the National Endowment for the Arts lives for another year with only a modest cut in funding is good for two reasons: Congressional lowbrows got the whipping they deserved; and the conditions accompanying the funding could result in a better NEA. The $98 million… Read More
One legislator serves six terms then retires, citing low pay and the rising costs of being a politician, and some folks are ready to pull apart the pay structure of the Legislature. Slow down. There’s no crisis here, although there is nothing wrong with looking at how lawmakers… Read More
When the Senate gets down to voting on campaign-finance reform this week, Maine’s Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins will find themselves torn between party loyalty and cleaner elections. If they listen to the folks back home, they’ll know what to do. McCain-Feingold hangs by a… Read More
Legislators this week held public meetings throughout Maine to get a sense of what taxpayers wanted to do with last year’s state budget surplus. The question came down to whether the money should be spent on worthwhile programs or given back in the form of tax breaks. The… Read More
Maine’s Green Party, rumored to have been stomped out by the Legislature last session, is instead very much alive and today is playing host in Topsham to 19 other state Green organizations. The Maine party currently is on life-extension courtesy of a court order barring the state from… Read More
It comes as no surprise that the troubled Pleasant Point Passamaquoddy Housing Authority is under special scrutiny by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. With HUD’s own history of mismanagement, the federal agency knows it when it sees it. Despite strong evidence that… Read More
Two of the University of Maine’s missions are fairly easy to quantify. Teaching can be measured in the number of successful students; research, in the grants awarded or amount of work esteemed by peers. Measuring the third mission, public service, is more difficult. UMaine’s Department… Read More
One of the redeeming features of playing the lottery, in this and other states, is the comforting thought that public education receives a share of the wagers. Unfortunately, the thought is more comforting than accurate, and it highlights the problems with relying on the various lotteries to be… Read More
So now official Washington knows what the taxpaying public has always known — some Internal Revenue Service agents are snoopy, abusive and mad with power. And what better, or at least more predictable, way for the Beltway to respond to this shocking revelation than to… Read More
As long as voters respond positively to negative campaigning, nothing will stop politicians from engaging in it. But candidates can be shamed into backing off a bit by being reminded of a code of elections ethics that they signed when their campaign races were young and had not… Read More
For more than a century, the Maine lobster industry has survived and thrived more by respect for tradition than by reliance on law. That this natural, preferred order of things is about to be reversed in these litigious days is inevitable. That this upheaval would occur on tiny,… Read More
A summer of hearings exposed our nation’s corrupt campaign finance system for what it is — a vile goulash of buying and selling, wheeling and dealing. The table is set for reform. The public is ravenous. How utterly predictable and pathetic it is then that… Read More
Portland Rep. Michael Saxl recently pointed out at a meeting on Maine’s economy what representatives from the northern half of the state have been saying all year: this is a uniquely favorable time for Maine to act seriously toward building an east-west highway. Rep. Saxl, a former Bangor… Read More
Ethics reform that doesn’t. A pay raise that looks like it isn’t. Those who wonder just how bad Congress’s lower chamber can make itself look needn’t. Since returning from summer vacation, here’s what the national House of ill repute has accomplished on behalf of the… Read More
Bangor City Council last week had to make a decision about the direction of the City Nursing Facility — to do nothing would have been to doom it to fiscal failure. Deliberately and without foot-dragging, councilors chose a course that will help the facility remain in business for… Read More
The Bangor region is experiencing pain and anger over the cancelled nomination of Police Chief Randy Harriman as state commissioner of public safety. There is a sense of loss for everyone who was rooting for him as a police officer and a representative of this part of the… Read More
Maine congressional delegation and Gov. Angus King took an important step for veterans’ health Wednesday when they met as a group with officials from the Veterans Administration and the Togus Veterans Administration Center and Hospital. Without this coordinated effort, service to the veterans’ hospital could continue to erode. Read More
Following Sen. Fred Thompson’s Governmental Affairs Committee hearings on campaign finance abuses has been a challenge even to those of strong stomach. The stench of a political system gone to rot is overwhelming. What a relief to all then, particularly Mainers, with an interest in… Read More
A preliminary vote by a committee re-examining the way Maine’s school-funding formula distributes tax dollars to districts was an encouraging start to repairing what once was a model system. The committee of school officials, university professors and business people was appointed last session by the… Read More
Remember the old 1950s TV show, “The Millionaire”? Remember how each week the Jeevish field rep for moneybags John Beresford Tipton would give some hard-luck case a million bucks and how, nine times out of 10, the poor chump would make an even worse mess of his life?… Read More
Nothing tests a belief like experience, a chance to find out firsthand whether certainties and fears match reality. With this in mind, the Maine SpeakOut Project reasonably asks the members of local organizations to hear about the experiences of gays and lesbians before judging them. Read More
Students, faculty and administrators from the University of Maine at Augusta told university trustees Monday they strongly supported changing their name to The Maine State University and asked trustees to approve the change. Instead, they got a committee to study which name would be most appropriate for UMA… Read More
Doctors and pharmeceutical companies for the past several years have profited from a popular diet-pill regimen. Now it will be lawyers. But even as the lawsuits are filed and courtroom expressions of outrage are rehearsed, the pill-popping public is stuck with a larger question of what it had… Read More
Fresh from transporting his daughter from a private high school to a private university, President Clinton promised Sunday to veto any Republican education plan that does not include national testing in the public schools. How the younger Clinton was admitted into prestigious Stanford University without one of her… Read More
In using the scattergun approach on Passamaquoddy Tribe’s bingo parlor, the Albany Township opposition has sprayed a lot of objections around but so far has failed to shoot anything of substance — except its own foot. First, it was the pristine natural environment argument, the… Read More
The deal state attorneys general crafted with Big Tobacco this summer was a good start, but the plan President Clinton unveiled last week is better. Better because it’s tougher. The $368 billion settlement the attorneys general worked out had from the start a slightly suspect… Read More
Just about every literate person knows Santayana’s famous line about what happens to those who cannot remember the past. Sen. Olympia Snowe surely does and she’s put her education to good practical use in proposing a moratorium on supertrawlers in the East Coast herring and mackerel fisheries. Read More
It’s not surprising that Bangor-Hydro got roasted at public hearings in Bangor and Machias this week — 15.58 percent rate increases tend to inflame. Nor is it surprising, given the public’s increasing savvy regarding utilities and the rate-case process, that the 250 who turned out… Read More
Now that gay rights appears headed for a referendum, it’s time to urge both sides to keep the coming debate civil, to stick to the facts. Sadly, it already may be too late. googletag.cmd.push(function () { // Define Slot var slot_sizes = [[300,250]]; var new_slot_sizes… Read More
If common sense were the coin of the realm, the Senate wouldn’t need the Snowe Rule. It’s not, so it does. The legislation introduced by Maine’s Sen. Olympia Snowe this week doesn’t sound like much. So obvious, so logical — limit spending in emergency appropriations… Read More
Two years ago, the U.S. Department of Education made a bid to become the direct lender of student loans, to take private banks and their nasty old profits out of the picture. Congressional critics beat back the proposal, saying the huge federal agency wasn’t up to the job. Read More
Secretary of State Dan Gwadosky’s announcement last week that Maine motorists can act to make their driving records more private was welcome for people tired of exposing every detail of their lives simply because they are part of the electronic age. Signficantly absent from the federal legislation that… Read More
The Earth reversed its rotation Monday. Up became down. Evil didn’t exactly triumph, but it did bloody Good’s nose. The New York Times published (gasp) color photos. googletag.cmd.push(function () { // Define Slot var slot_sizes = [[300,250]]; var new_slot_sizes = []; var has_banner = false;… Read More
As the devastation caused by alcoholism and drug addiction mounts, as the wasted lives, ruined families and economic losses pile up, sometimes it seems as though nothing works. Actually, something does work — treatment — and that’s why September, National Treatment Works! Month is a… Read More
On the surface, it looks like the system works. A Cherryfield man nearly runs down a group of kids, one of them black. Threats and racial slurs fly. A noose is fashioned. The driver’s companions join in with more threats, some shoving. A civil suit is filed, criminal… Read More
The University of Maine at Augusta With Campuses in Bangor and Lewiston/Auburn and Live and Interactive Television Centers Statewide has a name problem. University of Maine System trustees meeting next week can solve it. UMA’s problem is that its name no longer and is unlikely… Read More
A Coast Guardsman down Bar Harbor way saves a group of terrorized school kids waiting for their bus from a rampaging German shepherd. Now, he’s in a jam with his superiors and local police for sending the beast scurrying with a warning shot. Seems he should have left… Read More
No one should be surprised that Sen. Slade Gorton of Washington is getting pilloried for a couple of riders he added to the Interior Department spending bill regarding the federal government’s relationship with Indian tribes. Public abuse is the inevitable result when bad ideas combine with questionable tactics. Read More
The saddest part of a report about fund-raising activities around Bangor’s Cascade Park is that what began with a healthy measure of community spirit ended recently with an exchange of letters between lawyers concerning questions of who owns a lemonade stand and how much ice an ice-concession might… Read More
After more than two years that produced little other than exasperation, a White House panel finally is saying out loud what many Americans long have been thinking: the Pentagon has bungled its investigation of Gulf War Syndrome. Citing the damage the Defense Department’s foot-dragging and… Read More
There are plenty of questions to ask about a plan to fix county government, there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical. But there is no question something is broken and needs fixing, and the plan, though still a work in progress, has a lot… Read More
Each of the four members of Maine’s congressional delegation appears sincerely committed to making the Togus Veterans Administration Center and Hospital healthy. But unless the delegation can maintain a focused, coordinated effort, Maine vets more and more often are going to be taking the long drive across the… Read More
Bangor may soon lose its police chief to a higher calling — the job of state commissioner of public safety. A tough but worthwhile loss. Maine would benefit significantly from the work of this bright, able administrator who has served the city expertly in a difficult job. Read More
Way back in 1937, a small group of civic-minded citizens, led by Justice of the Peace Henry J. Hart, met here and formed a charitable corporation to promote the social welfare of the region. Back then, it was called the Bangor-Brewer Community Chest. Now, it’s… Read More
Congressional friends of the tobacco industry are promising to press a fight over an amendment submitted late last week in the House and Senate that would kill a $50 billion tax credit to the industry. Tobacco’s foes should willingly continue that fight: Time and public opinion are on… Read More
The sight of former Speaker of the House Thomas Foley checking his baggage through the Senate on his way to an ambassadorship in Japan while William Weld remains on standby gives a sense of the perverse priorities in Washington. It is one more reason that the former Massachusetts… Read More
Gov. Angus King did a good thing last weekend in urging Washington County to make its case for being the location of a new state prison. Then he did something even better: he made the county’s case for it. googletag.cmd.push(function () { // Define Slot… Read More
Two points Bill Vail made recently about the Compact for Maine’s Forests are worth repeating. For those who think the defeat of the compact will mean the end of forestry legislation, other proposals await: “We can’t just wish this away and think that if the… Read More
Remember Willie Horton, the furloughed murderer/rapist Republicans chained to Michael Dukakis’s leg during the 1988 presidential campaign? Well, if Al Gore becomes the Democratic nominee in 2000, as many believe, he might find himself with a bad case of albatross envy. One recidivist career criminal… Read More
The death of Mother Teresa in a suffering world adds pain to where there once was healing. Her work with the world’s blind, crippled, aged and dying stood practically and symbolically for the possibility of human goodness in even the most destitute quarters. Albanian by… Read More
One of the federal government’s greatest responsibilities is to ensure the safety of the nation’s food supply. As the toll of illness and death mounts, it’s time for Congress to put teeth into the laws to keep tainted food off the shelves. In the wake… Read More
Owners of Maine Yankee are unlikely to agree with most of the criticisms in a report that reviews the recent management history at the nuclear power plant. But on one crucial area, at least, they should be able to agree that mistakes they made hastened the death of… Read More
Today, Princess Diana is laid to rest. A million or more will line the funeral route from Kensington Palace to Westminster Abbey to her tiny hometown of Great Brington. A billion or more will tune in to join the global outpouring of grief. Tomorrow, the… Read More
The opening of the Maine International Trade Center office in Bangor today is as important for symbolic reasons as it is for the practical. The center represents an important step forward in telling the world that this part of Maine is eager to do business. Read More
With the serious labor issues facing Americans today — downsizing, outsourcing, part-timing and all the other oppressions bearing down upon working families — there might be something sillier than the protest some state Department of Human Services employees staged the other day against a new dress code. Read More
One person’s junk food is another’s breakfast, making the snack tax the easiest of all taxes to ridicule. And while this tax is as disliked as any other on the books, there is good reason to give it low priority when looking to cut the overall tax burden. Read More
After a month vacationing in the blissful afterglow of its historic budget-balancing act, the Senate now returns to the old grind, ready to fiddle with the nuts and bolts of the 13 spending bills that will keep the government going for another year. President Clinton,… Read More
President Clinton’s attempt to resurrect his moribund national education testing plan by taking federal bureaucrats out of the picture is an improvement. Dropping the idea altogether would be even better. In his “back to school” radio address Saturday, the president promised to rewrite his long-cherished… Read More
As recent Associated Press stories pointed out, getting a passenger train to run from Boston to Maine has proved more difficult than almost anyone imagined. The seven-year delay has hurt this state economically and environmentally and could continue for years. The concept, proposed in the… Read More
The Legislature’s Taxation Committee is doing the right thing by preparing now for the onslaught of requests for the state’s budget surplus. A committee meeting this week produced a useful list of potential tax breaks that the public will have a chance to comment on this fall. Two… Read More
Canadians are such nice folks, thoughtful, polite, good hockey players to boot. So how come they can be, at least once they go into government work, such annoying neighbors? The failure of either Ottawa or Saint John to inform Washington or Augusta of the proposed… Read More
The recent Teamsters strike against United Parcel Service accomplished something significant beyond a better deal for the brown truck set — it focused the nation’s attention, just in time for Labor Day, upon the troubling state of the American workplace. The 15-day strike had an… Read More
The attention-getter in a draft report on state land acquisition is a proposal for a $45 million bond issue in 1998, but the group that wrote the report properly has looked well beyond this money in trying to find ways to preserve undeveloped land. Assembled… Read More
In the battle of the sexes regarding high school sports, the Maine Principals’ Association is correct in trying to keep girls’ field hockey in no-man’s land. Correct, but too late. Two weeks ago, the Maine Human Rights Commission ruled in favor of Portland high-schooler Jeremy… Read More
Individually, the charges against former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy look like small potatoes. Collectively, they present a disturbing pattern of favoritism in a job that has become increasingly important. A federal grand jury last week charged that Mr. Espy “solicited, received and accepted” gifts that… Read More
Speaker Newt Gingrich stopped by New Hampshire the other day — just happened to be in the neighborhood — to take a few pokes at fellow Republicans Dan Quayle and Steve Forbes, who were in New Hampshire a few weeks ago taking their pokes at Gingrich. Read More
One of the most promising new Maine industries in years seems finally ready to cross over from theory to practice, thanks to support from the University of Maine and federal grants. But even as work on wood-composite bridges expands, other university researchers are awaiting local match money for… Read More
Miss America. There they are, the brains behind this perennial parade of pulchritude once again finding a way to breathe new life into an anachronism that by rights should have been a politically incorrect corpse long ago. The pageant lives because if there’s anything a… Read More
The Bangor City Council should enthusiastically support plans for a new baseball stadium that will be home to the Bangor Blue Ox and mark the beginning of a turning point for the city. This is an opportunity that transcends the interests of a ball club, and gets to… Read More
With the success of the North American Free Trade Act far from certain, especially for states such as Maine, President Clinton is trying to force through an expanded version of the trade pact on the same fast track that NAFTA used. Congress should turn this express train into… Read More
The best thing about the revamped regional mental-health services is that they offer a simple, logical way into the system for people in crisis — at a time in people’s lives when simple and logical are extremely important. The overseeing state department and the area mental-health providers have… Read More
The General Accounting Office reported last week that the $2 billion B-2 Stealth bomber does not go well in the rain, snow, heat or cold. It must, according the investigative unit for Congress, be “exposed to only the most benign environments.” Funny how infrequently one sees the phrases… Read More
The rapid expansion of services provided under the federal Supplemental Security Income program came to a halt under the welfare reform act of 1996. Given the costs of the programs, this was probably inevitable. What was surprising, however, were the harsh and destructive regulations drafted to carry out… Read More
Article II of Maine’s Constitution, written in 1820, gave the authority to vote “to every male citizen of the United States of the age of twenty-one years and upwards, excepting paupers, persons under guardianship, and Indians not taxed, having his residence established in this state for the term… Read More
By any measure, ethanol is a $7 billion economic, environmental and energy-independence bust. Politically, however, the corn-based fuel additive is one tough piece of pork. Just a few short weeks ago, everything seemed to be in place for Congress to scrap this 18-year-old boondoggle: Robert… Read More
The goal — to redesign Maine’s antiquated and redundant prisons into an efficient system that better serves both inmates and the public — is laudable. The route to that goal — a process that’s steering the consolidation of 10 lockups into two down Southern Maine way — is… Read More
During his 1994 campaign and the early days of his administration, Gov. Angus King wisely suggested that municipalities concerned about taxes should look not just to Augusta for relief, but within as well: neighboring communities should consolidate services wherever possible, and emergency dispatching would be a good place… Read More
Though often criticized for his poll-blown policy shifts, President Clinton deserves praise for reversing his position on a voluntary international treaty to ban the use of antipersonnel land mines. It’s a change of heart that is both humanitarian and pragmatic. For more than a year,… Read More
If the lobbyists paid to strategize for Big Tobacco wanted an issue that would make their clients look arrogant and greedy simultaneously, they found it in the $50 billion corporate welfare bill that their congressional sponsors hid in the latest federal budget. This hefty piece of pork makes… Read More
Had they been killed by drug overdose or in a brawl, parents would be outraged and take to the streets demanding that the state do something. But because it is automobile crashes that are responsible for the deaths of dozens of Maine teens and young adults annually, almost… Read More
The relationship between an ounce of prevention and a pound of cure is well established. When it comes to the persistent and increasing theft of excise payments, however, what many taxpayers get from their town officials is a ton of excuses. Hardly a week goes… Read More
Fresh off charges of what a former Maine secretary of state called “massive, obvious and blatant” fraud, a tax-cap group has again submitted signatures that would largely prevent municipalities from raising property taxes more than 1 percent a year. If this latest drive proves above board, voters can… Read More
The surprising retreat of Columbia/HCA from home health care is merely the most visible sign of an industry about to undergo a major overhaul. Billions of taxpayer dollars already have been wasted through home health fraud and mismanagement; members of Congress seem to have caught on that this… Read More
Put aside for a moment the idea that Maine telephone owners could save money under in-state competition among carriers — saving money is important, but it is not the only thing. Consider what has happened in long distance service, think of the many advertisements, the beseeching phone solicitations,… Read More
The cruelty with which Timothy McVeigh closed the trial on the most heinous act of terrorism in the nation’s history was a further stab into the hearts of his victims’ friends and relatives. His words showed a man not only free of remorse but convinced of his own… Read More
The celebration on the new bridge between Brewer and Bangor barely had ended before drivers crossing to the Bangor side impressed two thoughts on city officials: the right turn is too sharp and the traffic lights are too hard to see. Right on both counts. Read More
Gov. Angus King should take pride in the simultaneous signing of petitions in eight states Thursday to require the Environmental Protection Agency to reduce pollution from out-of-state sources. The event was also a useful reminder of what can happen when states in this region cooperate. Read More
Even if Maine lawmakers last session could not agree on whether to insure the children of the working poor, they should be willing to help the federal government do it. Getting kids better preventive care when they would otherwise do without is a smart investment for the state. Read More