Dear Editor:

When a governor presents a budget not designed with the character of his state in mind, he has already betrayed himself and all of Maine. The budget process begins with expected expenses based on goals and objectives of each department as well as risk and uncertainty that lies ahead.

When it comes in odd bundles - where one group is treated differently than another - he lines up veterans in the room to imply his plan applies to all veterans. They are a favored group to “benefit” from no income tax. Is this the same governor that ignored 3,000 veterans who lost their medical access and the same one not concerned about homeless veterans? There are two veteran pensions. One for veterans with low incomes that is not taxable and one for wealthier veterans that is taxable. The governor’s primary plan is to remove Maine’s primary source of revenue beginning with the wealthier citizen. He expects and wants us to fight each other. At the same time we agree to not taxing wealthier veterans, we have sided with him in choosing the wealthy over the poor. Divide and conquer is an old tactic used in politics, war and street fights.

The governor’s budget favors wealthier cities, and rural towns are out because we are not competitive. The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) ranks states based on corporate competitive concepts. Each state was once considered unique. That is no longer valued. We are turning into competitive, cookie cutter corporations where people are subservient to corporations. Is this what we want for our country? Is this what we want for Maine?

In this manner, ALEC works through the Kansas governor as they work through Maine’s governor, knowing they will lose something, but if they engender animosity among citizens, they win their war-like divide and conquer game. In the first four years under LePage, Forbes ranked Maine at 50 out of 50 states. Forbes bumped Maine to #49, not because we are doing better, but because Connecticut dropped in their expectations. Do we march to corporate competitive tunes, or the tunes of humanity? Is that still our choice?

Jarryl Larson

Edgecomb