East-west highway good or bad
Repair of our crumbling roads is delayed due to lack of funding. Yet, our government is spending $300,000 from the Maine Department of Transportation’s Highway Maintenance Fund to study whether or not to build a $2 billion private toll road running across the northern half of the state.
This private road will run within a corridor 2,000 feet wide (almost seven times wider than the I-95 corridor) with few access or crossing points. Its corridor will host pipelines carrying gas and tar sands oil from western Canada to tankers, and probably an LNG facility, on the coast.
Opponents say Mainers will see very few good jobs or businesses result and that most benefits will go to large corporations. Proponents claim the corridor will allow Maine manufacturers to ship their goods more efficiently, and so bring businesses here.
The cost of this corridor to Mainers will be in the form of air, noise, land, and water pollution, loss of property (53,000 acres) to eminent domain, and a partitioning of our half of the state by a half-mile wide swath of fenced-off private property. Some in state government support business at any cost to Maine’s traditional way of life. Before deciding whether this thing is good or bad, please cogitate on what opponents have to say as well.
Bob Lodato
Charleston
Social insecurity
On May 14, the Bangor Daily News reprinted an Editorial from the The Messenger of Fort Dodge, Iowa ( “Social Security Action Needed”) noting that Social Security trustees recently reported that the program can pay full benefits until 2033. The Messenger opined that the longer Congress waits to act, the harder the problem will be to solve.
AARP agrees. It’s past time for Washington politicians to listen to their constituents about Social Security. The Trustees’ report is a call to action. The longer Washington waits to address the challenges ahead for Social Security, the more difficult it becomes for workers trying to plan their futures.
That’s why AARP has launched You’ve Earned a Say, a national conversation focused on strengthening health and retirement security so today’s seniors and future generations receive the benefits they have earned. Over the next year AARP is hosting local town halls, debates and informational forums throughout Maine and across the nation.
Social Security is particularly vital to Maine residents. One-quarter of recipients in our state rely on Social Security for 90 percent or more of their income, while 55 percent rely on it for at least half their income.
Mainers can visit www.earnedasay.org and make their voices heard about the importance of Social Security and Medicare. Don’t let Washington decide the future of Social Security without hearing from you.
Carol Kontos
AARP Maine State President
Windham
East-west path
Until Peter Vigue began his statewide campaign for a proposed east-west highway, eminent domain was not something I spent time thinking about.
Who would have thought that I and other residents of small towns such as Dover, Monson and Sangerville would need to be concerned about such a thing? However, no one is immune from facing the possibility of property seizure.
This appears to be happening more and more in the United States.
According to a CBS news article from 2009, The Institute for Justice said there were 10,000 instances in the U.S. in the previous five years.
What recourse do innocent citizens of Maine who stand to lose their property have? At what point will Mr. Vigue realize “No means no”? These are questions I would like to see answered. How could a 2,000-foot, four-lane highway and utility corridor not have a negative effect on the environment and quality of life in the area?
The more we allow this type of exploitation, the more we pave the way in the future for other cases of eminent domain. That power has been abused by government and other special interest groups for too long. We should all be fearful of the path to the east-west highway. It’s a road leading nowhere.
Brita Holmbom Cronkite
Monson
Democrats’ plan: Punt on budget
My Democratic colleagues in the Legislature have devised a plan to close a $78 million budget gap in the Department of Health and Human Services budget — a budget that has grown out of control largely due to previous Democratic administrations.
Their plan: Get someone else to fix it.
After Republican leadership introduced a rational plan last week to finally address the problems that have led to annual DHHS shortfalls, the Democrats want to form a task force to study the problems. Instead of tackling them now, they want to punt the problems and shortfall to the next Legislature.
The MaineCare Restructuring Task Force, which now comprises the Democrats’ plan, would be made up of state bureaucrats, business representatives and others. Many represent special interest groups that lobby legislators with the primary goal of securing more money for their organizations.
Now it’s time for the elected officials to do our job. The Appropriations Committee began work on the DHHS shortfall back in December. Yet, the Democrats waited until the eleventh hour to present their plan, which amounts to doing nothing at all to fix the ongoing budget shortfalls within DHHS.
The number of Mainers receiving taxpayer-funded health care is 35 percent above the national average. The current system is unaffordable.
Republicans have proposed a budget that will address the overspending, while preserving the safety net for those most in need. There were difficult choices, but Maine voters did not send us to Augusta to form task forces and leave problems for another day.
Rep. Tyler Clark
R-Easton
LePage’s budget
I am saddened by the legislative vote to pass Gov. LePage’s budget bill.
The pain that will be caused by the reduction or elimination of programs will not be felt by either Gov. LePage or the legislators who passed the bill, but it will be real and damaging.
The fact that we are, at the same time, giving tax cuts, with the largest ones going to the wealthiest people, makes me feel ashamed of what our state has become. I applaud all the Democrats who fought to maintain our values of standing up for fairness and support of working families, education and strong communities. Thank you for your hard work.
Carolyn Bower
Surry
Rep. Tyler Clark–I am amazed that you have the audacity to call the republican plan to slash help for those among us that need it the most, and counter with tax cuts that benefit those that need it the least–“rational”! Then you accuse democrats of using special interest groups to design their legislation. Mr. Orwell would be proud of you.
Have you ever read anything written by Orwell? He was against socialism i.e. liberalism. Read his bio on Wikipedia. So, yes, Orwell would be proud.
Um, no. George Orwell was both a liberal and an ardent supporter of democratic socialism.
On a scale of zero to ten, zero being false and ten being true, your comment ranks at about a negative eight.
Yes he was. He was also against fascism and totalitarianism and politics in general and he considered democracy to be a word basically used to describe systems that are not democratic. Orwell’s grievance of choice, however, was the destruction of the english language and concomitant loss of mental acumen.
“When I talk to anyone or read the writings of anyone who has any axe to grind, I feel that intellectual honesty and balanced judgement have simply disappeared from the face of the earth. Everyone’s thought is forensic, everyone is simply putting a “case” with deliberate suppression of his opponent’s point of view, and, what is more, with complete insensitiveness to any sufferings except those of himself and his friends.”
-George Orwell- 1942
Orwell’s critique of Rep. Clark’s letter would be merciless.
Thank you AARP! While some here will continue to stick their heads in the sand and scream that social security is fine, there are a few who see the impending crunch coming.
Social Security is an easy fix with one or more of the following–extend the age of retirement to
66,67 etc. increase the income level that is taxed, now it is $110,100 why not 150 thousand or 250 thousand why not on capital gains over say $500,000 all relative easy fixes if we could get the idiots in Washington to just do it. Medicaid is a little more difficult but the same principles would apply it is just the idiots that are stopping it.
Medicaid could be fixed by removing the limitation put in by Republicans not allowing Medicare/Medicaid to negotiate lower prescription drug costs.
Exactly.
OMG, that would be like Canada!!!! We can’t interfere with free enterprise here!!!! What are you thinking?????
Funny
Strange how Americans don’t seem to consider the high price of prescription drugs and health care to be a “tax.” I certainly find it to be highly taxing.
Do not confuse the God-given right of businesses to exploit, I mean make a profit, with the devil-inspired power of the government to tax.
Why, what a socialist- communist- homosexual- liberal,-anti-american,- tax and spend- anti- wealth -producing-for-the-top-1% notion.
Heh, I love sarcasm.
You are right, I forgot about that, but wouldn’t this be called class warfare if we try to negotiate a lower price from big Pharma?
Agree with raising the cap, and definitely raising eligibility age, but then of course the government would have an even tougher time selling it as a separate “savings and investment” program rather than a pay-as-you-go tax.
But I’d be in favor of it. In fact, I think it should just be rolled into the general fund, since it is in reality anyway. The separation is only to make people think “their” money is being saved, but has the nasty side effect of being one of our more regressive taxes.
SS is an insurance program not a welfare program. Welfare programs are run out of general funding. SS has it’s own insurance account that we all contribute to.
If that account is borrowed from, it must be repaid.
Maybe it should be against the law to borrow from it.
I like that.
Ummm, could you please explain the distinction between “borrowing from it” and “purchasing government bonds”?
Hint: they’re identical
Why a cap on taxing SS/Medicare at all?We need a benefits cap instead.
….
Tell Republicans that the East-West highway will result in a Canadian-style healthcare system in the area around the “Isthmus of Canada” and the Republicans will line up to denounce it.
Ms. Kontos: I would like to see the Boomer generation, now joining your ranks, to recognize that Social Security needs reform to survive and sustain the most at-risk retirees…and means testing is a great start. In the interest of fiscal sanity, would AARP turn it’s considerable lobbying efforts toward this?
This is utter nonsense. Take the cap off the FICA tax and any future funding problem disappears. Means-testing social security screws the middle class that has helped build the one retirement system in this country that actually works.
Suuure it does.That’s why you have a million “estate planners” advising people how to cheat the system and get Medicare to pay for everything even when they’re loaded.I’ve seen it happen,having worked in geriatric care.The truly poor are the ones who get screwed but they don’t have representation like the rich do.
This is a total non sequitur. Social Security is a completely different program from Medicare.
Medicare does not pay for nursing home care beyond the first brief period after discharge from a hospital. It is not means-tested.
Medicaid (MaineCare in Maine) does pick up nursing home costs for those financially eligible. Estate planners can shield some assets, which demonstrates that means-testing benefits is a less than ideal solution. Pointing to ways that people have qualified for benefits in a way you think improper argues against means-testing those benefits. It is an argument for universal coverage.
I will agree with your last sentence.REAL universal coverage would be the answer but the profit motive cannot be done away with.Still the poor elderly get screwed.The rich elderly will get $1.1M in benefits on average which is far far more than they ever put in.
Rep. Clark, thanks for some great insight. There are so many people abusing DHHS that do not really need it, no budget could support this. That is why a few cuts need to be made. That is also why dems don’t like budgets, because nasty budgets stop unlimited spending, the only thing they know how to do.
The Social Security system won’t be in trouble: it will, in fact, still have a growing trust fund, because of the interest that the trust earns on its accumulated surplus. The only way Social Security gets in trouble is if Congress votes not to honor U.S. government bonds held by Social Security. That’s not going to happen. So legally, mechanically, 2033 has no meaning. Now it’s true that rising benefit costs will be a drag on the federal budget. So will rising Medicare costs. So will the ongoing drain from tax cuts. So will whatever wars we get into. I can’t find a story under which Social Security payments, as opposed to other things, become a crucial budgetary problem in 2033.What we really have is a looming crisis in the General Fund. Social Security, with its own dedicated tax, has been run responsibly; the rest of the government has not. So why are we talking about a Social Security crisis?
Because Wall Street wants to get it’s hands on the $3 Trillion and steal it, I mean invest it.
Yep. And politicos fear monger for many reasons.
I wouldn’t guess the AARP would “fear monger”…
They are one of the best groups at it!
Who said that they were. They are facilitating the conversation.
Um, well at least then it might be invested. In the current scheme, the trust fund is already spent and all you have is one part of the government promising to pay the other part back. Either way, we all pay more.
http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TRSUM/index.html
After 2020,
Treasury will redeem trust fund assets in amounts that exceed interest earnings until exhaustion of trust fund
reserves in 2033, three years earlier than projected last year.
Thereafter, tax income would be sufficient to pay only about three-quarters of scheduled benefits through 2086.
Very true, the bonds are a paper trail of promises. However, in the end the government has to come up with the money somehow, either through more taxes or cuts in other programs. Given the structure of the budget the only place we can cut to make a difference is in Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security itself, or defense. Happy to cut defense a bunch myself, but that alone won’t be enough.
But I have a problem with the notion of Social Security being run responsibly. In my mind, the government has perpetrated a fraud upon the taxpayer by taking more than they needed to cover Social Security and spending it (on wars and other stuff), while calling it a trust fund and promising to pay it back. Absolutely brilliant way of raising taxes without saying we’ve raised taxes.
I say we do the same with a Medicare “trust fund”. That way we can pretend we’re saving for another 30 years and foist all of this on the next generation!
They really have not taken more from the people to support SS, they have taken money from SS to pay other bills. That is the paper trail of promises.
I do not think it would be fair to raise the eligibility age for workers who perform hard labor.
I have not investigated AARP’s position, so I will not comment, but as noted elsewhere they are heavily into the insurance business.
To respond to your comment below ‘at least it would be invested’, do you really want to gamble your security or anyone else’s for that matter to the market ? That was George Bush’s idea to privatize SS.
There are many ways to deal with this issue. The point is that it is not a crisis.
And all this AARP letter says is that they are starting and facilitating a conversation on SS.
Carol Kontos, I am sure the AARP has some insurance to sell the rest of us to cover losses when this happens.
What folks in support of any of the tar sands pipelines, including Maine’s proposed “corridor,” fail to realize is that none of this refinery product is intended for the U.S. It is all scheduled for export. Oh, and jobs? A few temporary construction jobs. That’s all, folks. NO BENEFIT to these United States — only massive risk.
Republicans used to hoot and holler about “property rights”.
Now they pay special non-government interests $300,000 to study how they can seize thousands of acres of property from Maine citizens who bought that land with their own money and paid taxes on it for years.
More Bain Capitalism from the Tea Party.
Yessah
TC is nothing but a paid flack for Paulie.Hopefully his constituents will have a real representative and soon.