AUGUSTA, Maine — The months-long fight over welfare reform — including disagreement about what “welfare reform” even means — ended Tuesday with the Legislature’s rejection of a bevy of bills, but the discussion will likely continue to dominate politics in Maine for months or years to come.
The Republican-sponsored bills failed despite continued statements by Gov. Paul LePage and many Republicans that the results of last year’s election — which extended LePage’s tenure and brought more Republicans to the House and Senate — constituted a voter mandate to overhaul the welfare system.
Democrats have argued consistently, and as of the past couple of days followed that up with their votes, that many of the proposals forwarded by Republicans were mere cuts to social service rolls disguised as reform.
Republicans have argued that Maine is too generous when it comes to programs such as General Assistance, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and food stamps, and that spending on those programs and others are crowding out spending on programs for Maine’s most needy populations, such as residents of nursing homes.
Monday and Tuesday saw Democrats in the House — where they hold a majority — block or water down several Republican-sponsored bills. Those included efforts to put lifetime caps on certain benefits, restrict what cash benefits can be spent on, include photos on electronic benefit cards and test TANF applicants and recipients for illegal drugs.
As the Senate worked into Tuesday evening, one last welfare bill, LD 1144, was pending. Sponsored by Democratic House Majority Leader Jeff McCabe, the bill sought to bar the use of TANF money for the purchase of tobacco, liquor, gambling or lotteries and provide punishments for benefits abuse. Republicans in the Senate objected to the bill because they said it would weaken penalties for the misuse of benefits.
“The penalties that were put into this bill are weaker than what is currently in statute,” said Sen. Eric Brakey, R-Auburn.
The Senate amended the bill and sent it back to the House, which had rejected it earlier in the day. The bill sat in nonconcurrence late Tuesday evening, which meant it was probably dead.
LePage and Republicans reacted angrily to Democrats’ opposition to the welfare bills. LePage suggested that Democrats were carrying out the bidding of the Maine People’s Alliance, a grassroots advocacy organization.
“Democrats, who are controlled by the welfare-activist group Maine People’s Alliance, have shown that they are not interested in change of any kind,” said LePage in a written statement. “Democratic politicians are not content with the status quo; they actually want Maine to go backward and revert to the broken welfare policies of the past. They have ignored the wishes of hard-working Mainers who see welfare fraud and abuse every day firsthand and are crying out or reform.”
A major reason for the failure of most of these bills — and hundreds of other bills this session — is that the House is controlled by Democrats and the Senate by Republicans. Senate Majority Leader Garrett Mason, R-Lisbon Falls, blamed House Democrats for scuttling the proposals.
“Many votes in the Senate on welfare reform have been bipartisan, demonstrating just how reasonable these proposals are,” said Mason. “I am dismayed that Democrats in the House refuse to vote for these reforms the people of Maine have so loudly spoken in favor of.”
Democrats countered that they have in fact supported welfare reform, including language in the biennial state budget that helps struggling parents ease off welfare programs and implements a 70 percent reimbursement rate for municipal General Assistance programs. Democrats also supported bills that restrict the use of benefits for certain products and strengthens penalties for General Assistance abuse.
“So many of the welfare changes we rejected would only put up roadblocks to independence,” said Rep. Drew Gattine, D-Westbrook, who co-chairs the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee. “There is a clear difference between positive reform and harmful changes. It makes absolutely no sense to make it harder for people to feed themselves and their families.”
