Smaller cut, please
Please help concerned parents of disabled adults in Down East Maine who are threatened by the governor’s proposed supplemental budget cuts of 10 percent to DHHS to achieve a savings of $3 million.
The Maine Association of Community Support Providers has studied the numbers and has found a cut of only 4 percent will achieve the governor’s initial goal. A cut of 10 percent is overkill and absolutely unnecessary. Such an action would devastate Maine’s most vulnerable citizens. Please help us help the governor and our Legislature see reason with your letters and calls.
I am the mom of a young man who is a resident in a home run by Downeast Horizons in Ellsworth. The proposed cuts would absolutely devastate that small agency. A 10 percent cut would eliminate $258,000 from Downeast Horizons and a 4 percent cut would mean a loss of $103,200.
Please Mainers, fight for our most vulnerable citizens and urge either the elimination of the proposed cuts altogether or advocate a reduction in the proposed cuts, from 10 percent to 4 percent. Yes, we all need to tighten our belts in these times, but we also need to maintain our humanity and sanity as a people.
Alexandra Noyes
Sorrento
Nixon, Reagan and the stars
When a spokesman for the “Call to Prayer” group commented (on Maine Public Radio) that the founders of this great nation often appealed for aid from Almighty God, I remembered that President Nixon consulted with the astrologer Jeane Dixon, and even asked her for advice about foreign policy and concerns about terrorism.
President Reagan was often given “guidance” by his wife’s astrologer.
If these two important presidents relied on astrologers for divine guidance, then shouldn’t the Maine lawmakers and the governor convene a similar “caucus” to express their appreciation for the benefits derived from astrology?
For some strange reason, my crystal ball does not show this happening. I think that’s grossly unfair and an insult to the fame of two great American presidents.
Jerry Metz
Addison
From a rib
This year, instead of the same old resolution of giving up smoking or losing weight, why not make a resolution to become a better husband and father, better wife and mother? Your marriage will become stronger and your children will benefit.
Men, women, boys and girls, pay close attention to these words: The women came out of a man’s rib: Not from his feet to be walked on, not from his head to be superior, but from the side to be equal. She came from under the arm to be protected and next to the heart to be loved.
This kind of thinking will cut back on domestic violence.
Joseph Riitano Sr.
Sangerville
Postal privacy invasion
I have maintained a post office box in Hulls Cove for the past 17 years.
I was recently informed by the post office that they will not renew my box rental unless I provide them with personal information, including my drivers license number and phone number. I have no desire to see this information go into a post office computer, and the post office has no need for it in order to deliver the mail.
I urge all my friends and neighbors who utilize the services of the U.S. Postal Service to resist this invasion of their privacy and refuse to give their personal information to the post office.
Victor Hand
Hulls Cove
Kids have responsibility
I read three different articles in the past two weeks about parents talking about children they have lost; those parents are now trying to change the rules for new drivers.
The rules for new drivers are already too strict. First-year drivers aren’t the only ones who exceed the speed limit and they definitely aren’t the only drivers who make mistakes on the road.
I have been in a vehicle with adults considerably older than I am who drive more irresponsibly than I do. Talking on the phone isn’t distracting enough to ban it from people, and other people in your car is only distracting if you as a driver make it distracting. You don’t need to turn your radio up louder when you have people in the car, and you don’t need to turn around or look at them to communicate, so I don’t see how it is a huge issue.
As a young adult, the rules that I had to go by were a nuisance and didn’t do anything to help me. At most they cost me and my friends more money when we had to have a five-car caravan heading to the movies when we could have all fit in one car.
Don’t just think of the bad things that have happened. I believe that kids need to take responsibility for themselves, and if parents held their kids to a certain level of responsibility then maybe kids wouldn’t find themselves in situations they don’t want to be in.
Everyone has the right to say no.
Kristin Masessa
Waterville
Hear the voiceless
The quote by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent
about things that matter,” has challenged me to respond to what is currently taking place in the state of Maine concerning the voiceless — Maine’s most vulnerable residents. The voiceless in Maine are real human beings — they could even be your family member or neighbor.
Many service providers are disturbed by the proposed budget cuts currently being reviewed by the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee to close an estimated $221 million gap in the DHHS budget. Included in this proposal’s supplemental budget is MaineCare, the state’s version of the federal Medicaid program, which provides health insurance for 65,000 of Maine’s poor.
It would be devastating if the Legislature decided to cut the 2002 waiver that expanded
MaineCare eligibility for childless adults, a “noncategorical” group of enrollees who do not
fit into a usual MaineCare group. Failing to meet individual health care needs, particularly
those below the poverty level who have no means to pay for health care themselves, will take an incalculable human toll. The need for health care does not go away, even when the funds for coverage do, and their health conditions will worsen.
I hope the Appropriations Committee will seriously consider the ramifications that their
decisions will have on our most defenseless, voiceless members.
Sister Lucille MacDonald
Director, Emmaus Homeless Shelter
Ellsworth
Sister Lucille, as the director of a homeless shelter, probably knows better than you and probably has done more than you. Pipe down, buddy.
Joseph Riitano Sr. – Great letter. But, sad that it had to be written in the first place. Women should be held up as equals and protected at all times. Anything less is just wrong.
So when do we make them sign up for Selective Service? If women are equal and all, why does the government not realize that?
Get over it.
Under the guise of protection many laws have been passed making women unequal.
“Equal” means women get to make decisions without the interference from the church or the state.
I agree with you, again.
EJP, we can agree on something on occasion. Cheers.
I am tired of making New Year’s resolutions only to fail at achieving them. So, this year I resolve to : gain weight, smoke more, drink more beer, and avoid exercise. I feel that I will be able to be successful in achieving these resolutions thus giving me a boost in my self esteem.
Works for me.
Relevance to these letters?
“Your heart is in the right place, but your mind has been abducted by the liberal fringe”
What type of deranged mind does it take to make statements like this about a woman who has dedicated her life to helping others?
If that’s just a portion of what he wrote, no wonder his note was flagged.
Actually, what he wrote was not worthy of flagging.
“………. from the side to be equal ……. ” Fine!!! Pass the Equal Rights Amendment.
Women have been waiting a rather long time for equality under the law.
I’m guessing men using the Bible to define their relationship to women, in reality, are not enthusiastic about equality for women.
Men and women are not equal. Men as women have certain strength and weaknesses. Men are better at some things and women are better at others. Should they have equal rights? Yes.
However, when I lived in NYC, woman demanded equality and wanted to become “firemen”. When they couldn’t carry the hoses or a body up and down a ladder, they simply lowered the standards for woman. That’s the opposite of equality.
That’s a slippery slope, in some cases lowering standards is not the best move. That is a perfect example. But there are also women out there who are firemen that can perform at the same standards as the guys too.
Everybody understands the difference between men and women. In general women have a greater ability to nurture and less physical strength. Men have greater strength and fewer skills in nurturing. Despite this lack they have been welcomed into the field of nursing for their strengths, without being required to attain the same level of nurturing that most women nurses possess.
Men and women should be valued for the skills they contribute. If men can seamlessly enter female dominated professions with out the identical skills women in that profession have why can’t women enter male dominated professions with the skills they can contribute. That’s the job equality women seek. (The standard lowering you are referring to is an ongoing organizational mess and interdepartmental fight in the Los Angles Fire Department. Almost all other fights over standards are racially based, which is saying something very unfortunate)
Men and women are entitled to an equal opportunity. The law demands that a standard for any position have a reasonable relation to the actual job to be performed. Artificially high lifting standards were lowered, not eliminated.
The refusal to pass the Equal Rights Amendment is the only real example of “Sharia Law” in this country. The hard right does not wish to see women become fully equal, much like their hard right counterparts in Saudi Arabia.
Too many men fall back on their interpretations of Biblical pronouncements written for a formerly nomadic people who were planted in a country with similar mores. As for the New Testament pronouncements, it’s now apparent that the Letters of Paul (the Timothys, etc.) were not written by Paul but by followers trying to fit in with Roman culture to tone down the persectution. No one owns anyone else, but too many, men espceially, think they do and (mis)behave (and worse) accordingly.
The letter writer used excellent metaphor to tell it like it is, or at least should be.
Kristin Masessa, I probably have more miles driving backwards than you have going forward and I hate answering or trying to operate a cell phone. I know how you feel because I felt the same way you did 50+ years ago. Life experience will change your thinking in a few years. If you survive.
Yes Jerry, picking on Ronnie Raygun and Tricky Dick Nixon is treading on thin ice with conservatives. Both men were dim wits, but they are the conservative’s dim wits.
Nixon expanded Johnson’s liberal “War on Poverty” and was considered by most economic conservatives of the time as a liberal.
Reagan was a liberal by today’s standard. He was also a Democrat and union organizer in the motion picture industry earlier in his life. A fact Newtie never mentions when he invokes his name like a tribute to deity every fifteen minutes. Nixon was just one big ulterior motive from the time his boots hit the boards until his head hit the pillow. Neither man was very bright to begin with. In my humble opinion. Now here comes Oven Mitt. The savior of the working man!
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Sister Lucille,
Why is it not the responsibility of the 65000 to improve themselves to get off my dime. Why is the answer always to take someone’s elses legally earned money instead of putting these people on a program to achieve self sufficiency?
Most people with a debilitating lack of intellectual ability have sense enough to keep their comments to themselves.
…then why are you constantly on here?
So you applaud the intellectual and moral dishonesty of Flat’s statement?
There must be SOMETHING in life that you’re good at. Try to discover and pursue that.
I’m guessing I’m very good at writing comments that irritate you LOL
keeping up Sally, ride Sally ride! LMAO
Do you always limit your comments to unwarranted personal attacks or just most of the time?
Because a long time ago, we the people of the United States of America, decided that wholesale poverty, ignorance and baron-ism were not traits that were part of the vision of the future we had for this country. We saw a great nation with a populous that was not part of the great American dream, but were the underpinnings of that dream fulfilled by a few. We fought world wars to prevent depots and tyrants from destroying a free society that had risen up out of the ignorance of mankind’s history.
We had leadership that understood that in order to have the society we wanted for our future, we had to ensure that all peoples had the chance to truly succeed and flourish, but that in order to have that nation, we had an obligation to help those that could not help themselves and to educate all, for the good of all. That we had to have laws passed to ensure reasonable work hours and fair wages. We decided that in order to become the great nation we envisioned, we needed to invest in ourselves and slowly, but surely elevate the living standards of all Americans…. and to weed out ignorance, bigotry and hatred we passed civil rights legislation.. but it takes more than laws to change a country.. it takes the public will and the public intolerance for those things we hold as destroyers of society… we cannot legislate the bigotry and hatred out of mankind… we cannot legislate away the ignorance that breeds the other two.
We did all these things, not because it was a religious imperative, but because it was a human imperative… something that should be done for the benefit of mankind.
Regretfully we have lost track of these noble goals and our financial status as a country and as a group of individuals, reflect that we have in fact slipped back to a time period wherein the wealthy are getting more wealthy and everyone else is slowly slipping lower and lower on the economic scale. Greed has become the reason this country exists. The USA exists to feed corporations with more money and power. Period. People are no longer important to the mix. They, the corporations have consolidated their power to the point where, we the people, can hardly get a word in edge wise.
Worse yet, good Americans have been convinced that their neighbors are now their own worst enemy. Our political system has successfully turned us on each other, while they slowly tighten the stranglehold…
Right now I see the democrats being the lesser of these two evils… and the GOP as being totally off the rails of sane thinking….
(edited for spelling and additional content)
flat,, I hope you never end up in a wheel chair if you do I hope you have Cadillac insurance coverage.. It’s sad and bad karma dude adding yellow fluid to an invalids bowl of cheerios IMHO that is :-/
….
There is no beneficence when you reach into to someone’s pocket and force them to contribute.
How would you react if the Catholic Church forced a “contribution” (tax) on you to serve their purposes and advance their charities?
….
So you think that sick and disabled Mainers should be left in the cold and our tax money should not help them?
People who need help should receive it. But I never hear anyone on the left offering anything remotley close to a solution to truly help these people. The only solution is redistribution, how and when are you people on the left going to teach these folks how to fish?
So when do you implement your great ideas. Full business plan, please, since we know it’s going to cost us–big time–and we need good data (if it exists) if we’re going to make that kind of investement.
As for your investment in this country and its peoples, you are a voting citizen, aren’t you? With that goes responsibility.
Like I have always said, and your post illustrates it once again; the Left must perpetuate poverty otherwise they would have little or no constituency.
It is sad that you believe this to be true.
Many of us see it as a world where corporate masters work tirelessly to make as many poor people as possible, to keep them down and not allow them to rise up and live at decent wage, under decent conditions and to have an expectation of a life that is more than greasing the wheels of industry so fat cats can become fatter cats.
And conversely you are saying the if the GOP didn’t have rich folks they would also not have a party…
Interesting.. so it really IS class warfare then and we are back to the beginning of last century fighting the same battle of “Baronism Vs The People”.
I do not choose to exist to be the support system for large greedy corporations and their minions….. you in your blindness fall right in lock step to the sound of their march.
Occupy nonsense. Its always someone’s elses fault. We are victims. Get off your butts and build something vs. tearing something else down. You don’t like capitalism then what’s your answer to making everyone equal?
Alexandra Noyes
Administrative costs for private vendors are WAY too high. Duplication of services is also a problem. Non-painful cuts can and must be made. but the hysteria about people falling through the cracks is a theme I’ve heard all through my adult life. In point of fact, consumers of services fared no worse under McKernan than they did under Brennan, and consumers of services will not notice a difference under LaPage.
Jerry Metz
A fringe issue to which you offer a fiinge argument….. Very good!
Joseph Riitano Sr.
What?
Victor Hand
Gross invasion of privacy. I agree. The post office will not get this information from me.
Kristin Masessa
I agree to a point. Schools should begin teaching Driver’s education in the 7th grade. Children should drive with parents or guardians for at least a year before obtaining their licenses. Road tests to obtain a license should last at least 1 hour and include tests of skill driving on wet pavement, and winter conditions. Students should have to pass a school based driver’s education course before they are premitted to apply for a full driver’s license. If we are going to continue to rely on private for profit driving schools, trainers should be certified to teach at the middle school level. Statistics should be maintained by the State and driving schools who graduate students with higher than average accident rates should be warned and subsequently de-certified. There is absolutely no link between being an honor student and being a good driver. Insurance breaks should be reserved for young drivers who have demonstrated an ability to use good judgement while driving.
Progressive insurance has a program called “snapshot” which allows the insurance company to randomly check on driving habits, maybe the State should mandate the snapshot program for all young drivers?
Sister Lucille MacDonaldI beg to differ with you on at least one important point. People without “Mainecare” can walk into any Hill-Burton hospital emergency room, and be treated (by law) for free. That includes both E.M.M.C. and St. Joseph’s. Anytime budgets are cut, someone screams. The “voiceless are not totally “voiceless” as they have you.
Welcome back, HHS. You were missed.
But he didn’t agree with you accross the board …
He doesn’t have to agree with me at all. He a decent, respectful debater. Much like you, for the most part.
I agree with you 100%… But I don’t agree with the Progressive snapshot deal only because it is an invasion of privacy. If i am going to purchase my own vehicle, gas, and insurance… I am not going to allow someone to be plugged into my car and see what I am doing and where I go. Gaining respect in the insurance department is obtained by years of experience. But I agree with the rest of what you said.
I own a small business had 23 employees 4 years ago none at present. FYI my business is an accredited vendor of the state which provides vocationally related services. I have been in the business for twenty years and have only seen one increase in pay about 12 years ago. Every administration has cut as far back as I can remember always
the same people for the same reasons. Will not be many providers left soon as most are operating on budgets from the eighties. Be careful what you wish for. I make as much clamming on a good day as president of a Maine S Corp., GOD HELP YOU REPUBLICANS YOUR GONNA NEED HER.
Half the vendors in Machias would still be too many.
Alexandra Noyes, Jerry Metz, Joseph Riitano, Sister MacDonald: good letters.