AUGUSTA, Maine — Maine Gov. Paul LePage has said he's frustrated by the refusal of the Legislature to take action on his proposals for tax and welfare reform, and so will take the issues directly to the people.
He has the backing of the state Republican Party, which has submitted paperwork to the secretary of state to begin collecting about 62,000 signatures needed to place the issues on next year's fall ballot.
More than any other major issue, LePage cites welfare reform as a top priority. And he made his case again during Tuesday night's town meeting event in Farmington.
"I believe in self-reliance," he says. "I'll help anybody who wants to help themselves, but I am not going to help just anybody for the sake of helping. I'm not that compassionate."
Now LePage is getting a little help from his friends at the Maine Republican Party, who have delivered a request to the secretary of state to begin gathering signatures for a single ballot question combining the two reform efforts.
It would lower the state's current top income tax rate from 7.95 percent down to 4 percent. It would also usher in numerous welfare reforms, including the elimination of state benefits for legal nonresidents and the banning of state electronic benefit cards for purchases of tobacco, tattoos or foreign wired money transmissions.
It would also require all nondisabled adults to prove they were looking for work before they could receive benefits.
All of these ideas were turned away by the state Legislature, and state GOP Party Chairman Rick Bennett says he's not surprised.
"This is clearly a place where legislators couldn't agree, and you know the legislative process is designed for failure — the framers set it up that way," Bennett says.
That's why Bennett says Republicans are taking their message directly to the people of Maine, and asking them to approve tax and welfare reform. And Bennett says once the initiative passes, the Legislature would be well advised not to try to undo the reforms.
"These are immensely popular initiatives, and I think anybody who after the people vote on this — and I think they'll vote overwhelmingly — try to go and undo them, I think they're going to suffer the slings and arrows of an unhappy voter," Bennett says.
The income tax changes would not kick in until 2018.
GOP Sen. Eric Brakey of Auburn says lawmakers failed the voters by not restricting state benefits this year.
"I think one of the clearest mandates we received as the Legislature from the 2014 election, one of the big campaign pieces that won so many elections across the state, including the re-election of Gov. LePage, was welfare reform," Brakey says.
Maine Democratic Party Chairman Phil Bartlett accused Republicans of repackaging their same failed policies in hopes of distracting Mainers' attention away from their disastrous economic record.