Gov. LePage replaces State of the State with insulting letter [View all]

[jpak]

http://thetippingpoint.bangordailynews.com/2016/02/08/state-politics/gov-lepage-replaces-state-of-the-state-with-insulting-letter/

Last month, Governor Paul LePage announced that he would not deliver Maine’s State of the State address this year, breaking with decades of tradition. In lieu of the speech, LePage today sent an letter to legislative leaders.

Unlike a normal State of the State, the missive does not announce any new policy priorities. Instead, the governor devotes the bulk of the letter rehashing past disagreements with the legislature and attacking members of the House and Senate.

LePage’s new favorite insult is apparently “socialist” and he uses a variation of the phrase 13 times in the 8-page note, blaming a “foreign socialist ideology” for everything from deaths do to heroin overdoses (an issue the legislature has actually found bipartisan consensus on) to Maine’s electricity rates (which are the lowest in New England and have fallen significantly in recent years, no thanks to LePage’s empty rhetoric).

LePage also reiterates his proposals to eliminate Maine’s income tax and implement new public assistance cuts that were rejected by the legislature last year. He does not mention that the ballot initiative he championed on those issues failed to gain the signatures required to make this year’s ballot.

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