ELLSWORTH, Maine — Gov. Paul LePage told small-business leaders Friday that he and his administration would champion the needs of businesses in the face of red tape and would work to reduce the cost of doing business in Maine.
The Republican governor, during a keynote address at the first Hancock County Business Conference and Trade Show at the Ramada Inn, told hundreds of attendees that lowering energy costs, streamlining business regulations and investing in Maine’s workforce were his top priorities in Augusta.
“My role is to make it easier for you, to create the environment so that you can create jobs,” LePage said in his closing remarks. “My role is to lower the taxes, lower the burden you face on business, get rid of red tape and allow you a path to use your creativity, your innovation, your hard work and, of course, your money.”
The conference was conceived two years ago as a way to support businesses who want to operate in Hancock County, said Phyllis Young, associate director of the Ellsworth Area Chamber of Commerce and one of the conference’s organizers. Thirty businesses set up exhibitions, and hundreds of people registered for more than two-dozen workshops.
“The trade show booths sold really quickly, in just two weeks,” Young said. “We’re hearing people would really like to see this become annual.”
One of the businesses in the exhibition was Lighthouse Web Solutions, a Bangor Web development and marketing company. The company already boasts an impressive Maine client list, including many medical powerhouses such as Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, Blue Hill Memorial Hospital and Acadia Hospital in Bangor.
“We’re a Bangor company, but we came to Ellsworth because we think the Hancock region is poised to explode,” Elliott said. “The benefit for us is aligning with the business community here.”
LePage told his audience that his plan to reduce energy costs will be back on the table in the next legislative session after being defeated in the Legislature last year. He said buying less costly Canadian hydro-electricity and providing the infrastructure to distribute that power, could lower costs in Maine.
“They want to sell an awful lot of hydro to Southern New England, to the big users, and we could let it pass through Maine, collect a little fee for distributing power and further reduce the cost of energy in Maine,” he said. “But, the big ‘but,’ is the Legislature. … Fortunately, the leader of the opposition is no longer there this year, so we’re gonna try again.”
LePage also said Maine needs to prioritize vocational and job training to provide the workforce he said businesses need to succeed.
“We have taken an approach, maybe 25 years ago, that every child in Maine is going to go to college; Big mistake,” he said. “What we’ve done in Maine is we’ve pushed away the technical and vocational schools. We make that a second-class citizen and put that in the back of the room. We need to put that in the front of the room.”
The governor said he would change the funding mechanism for technical schools, allocating state money directly, rather than funneling it through school districts.
LePage touted his administration’s “Business Friendly Communities” program, which promotes towns and cities deemed to have low regulatory barriers to business, and the Department of Economic and Community Development’s “account executives,” which he said would help businesses navigate permitting processes and advocate for businesses in the face of regulation.
“I pledge to you: If someone is giving you a hard time about getting permits, you give the governor’s office a call, and you’ll see some action,” LePage said.
Follow Mario Moretto on Twitter at @riocarmine.
“LePage told his audience that his plan to reduce energy costs will be back on the table in the next legislative session after being defeated in the Legislature last year. He said buying less costly Canadian hydro-electricity and providing the infrastructure to distribute that power, could lower costs in Maine.”
Hot air would reduce electrical costs… Why can’t we “Buy American”? Sounds like a Romney plan.. offshore..
protectionism doesn’t work….never has
“If there were an Economist’s Creed, it would surely contain the affirmations ‘I understand the Principle of Comparative Advantage’ and ‘I advocate Free Trade’.” – Paul Krugman
And stealing American jobs to send to China has? What kind of government wouldn’t protect the livelihood of it’s greatest asset, the middle class workers. Businessmen don’t produce anything but full pockets for their shareholders. The chipmakers and part builders are the ones who get their hands dirty and do the real production.
A government that grovels to the highest bidder, that’s who. The top 1% has seen a huge explosion in their wealth by closing down factories in the U.S. and moving them to China. I would look for more of the same, regardless of which political lap dog ends up in the White House. As individual Americans, the only recourse we have against the wholesale destruction of the middle class by the top 1% is to buy American. Buying American will put Americans back to work and put a boot in the butts of the greedy s.o.b.s trying to sell us out by moving the jobs to China for fun and profit. I refuse to do business with any “American” company that does any of it’s manufacturing in communist China, period. We need to show a little patriotism at the cash register and take our country back, while we still have one left.
“We have taken an approach, maybe 25 years ago, that every child in Maine is going to go to college; Big mistake,” he said.
Hunh? So, we shouldn’t even try to send all our kids to college? Wow! I can totally understand why you don’t want kids learning. Then they start asking all those pesky questions you can’t answer!
Any time this incompetent poor-excuse-for-a-leader begins a sentence with, “I vow…” that’s a huge red flag to get the old _hit shield ready.
Reclaim Maine Vote Democrat 2012
Reclaim…what?…high spending low return, high tax on the middle class, job crushing energy costs
80% of Maine citizens voted against your ideology in 2010..they will solidify that in 2012..
Let’s keep with the baseball analogy.
LePage is like the Red Sox.
Overpaid.
Bloated ego.
Worse than useless.
A jerk with a mouth and the brains of a gnat.
And what have you accomplished on this earth?
Raised a family.
Helped my children through college.
Worked to earn my keep since I was 11.
Saved other people’s jobs by figuring out how to keep the company I work for viable in tough times.
Given to charity for my entire adult life.
Paid taxes.
Volunteered.
You?
Prove it…come on..cause you sound like a fool
You sound like a child.
Lepage keeps going on about taxes and regulation, but business keeps telling him that they need customers with money to buy.
You could reduce taxes to zero and eliminate all regulation tomorrow but that’s not going to put money into the pockets of customers. What it will do is what it has been doing, reducing the wages of working people so they have less to spend today and will have much less to spend in the future. Cutting taxes on the rich didn’t generate economic activity, but it did put more stress on the state budget which he’s now trying to use to go after peoples pensions and deny people basic medical care.
Meanwhile the governor can’t even get a gas pipeline built and is speaking out against bond issues that will help the states economy while fixing real problems.
The governor’s job is not to tell young people what their educational/vocational choices should be, his job is to see to it that the jobs are there when they graduate.
Maine has unique challenges because of it’s weather and geographical location. A smart governor would be looking for ways to overcome those challenges, but this guy still thinks he’s recycling junk.
It’s nice to see that LePage is taking pages out of Romney’s Jeep book. Paulie makes these constant public statement’s that he want’s Maine energy independent then turns right around and say’s he’s all for Maine buying power from Canada, and collecting a ‘fee’ (Gee, is he calling a TAX an new name that’s just come up ?) for it running thru Maine. Maine has, as much as more than a few don’t like to hear it, more than enough location’s for hydro plant’s. The windmill crowd want’s to keep crying about the nastyness of the hilltop turbine’s and their ruining the view, fine. Come up with a better option. LePage’s option is nothing less than turning Maine into a ‘power junkie’. We have all realized that oil is gonna go eventually. A great many don’t like the windmill’s and the solar is still in research & development, Solyndra included. That leaves tidal (which is being run at Eastport) and home grown hydro, the bio-coal use in Maine powerplants and boiler system’s not withstanding. If LePage is so deadset determined to get Maine energy independent then it’s time he got off his keester, signed the R&D Bond’s and get Maine back on track with locally produced, developed and renewable power. Both the business community, which needs the power, and the Legislature, which is gonna have to deal with this sooner or later, are in accord for the 1st time in a long time. That LePage want’s instead to outsource our power supply to Canada is just more example of how Big Business’s are assuming control over us. Gee, isn’t that what the GOP is running on, a platform of smaller Gov’t and more local control ? Step back folk’s and look at ALL THE OPTION’S, not just the one’s that you’re being sold.
LePage vows to go to bat for businesses? The student wage must have been a home run! lol.