3/11/99
Maine legislators usually get silly about this time of year. Who can blame them with 3,000 bills to consider and marathon public hearings and such nonsense as hearings on 145 bills in the first three days of March. Realistic public access to state government and its legislative procedures has become a joke.
Whether legislators will settle into more silliness or become focused on reality remains to be seen. One year they spent three weeks discussing whether or not to license cats. Another year it was to have an official name for Maine dirt. The unanimous ought-to-pass name was - mud. But both dried up before adjournment.
One of the more controversial partisan issues at present whether the state needs an additional nickel a gallon tax on gas and diesel fuels.
This was clearly a proposal by Gov. Angus King, Jr. However, in a press conference of selected media, King said, "Hey folks, I really don't consider the gas tax my proposal."
So who's proposal was it - the fuel fairy?
Of course it was the governor who wants to jack up the gas tax. Figuring that you can't cripple an already lame duck, King sent the gas tax increase bill of nearly $70 million biennially to the legislation table with a condescending nod from the Democrats. If passed, the Maine fuel tax of 24 cents a gallon would be the fourth highest non-adjusted state gas tax in the country.
Then, after King's no-brainer that he wasn't the author, the fuel issue hit the backfire. The D's, DOT, appropriation mavens and the like wanted to know if King was easing out the nickel back door.
Look, King said to another group of selected media, that AP reporter [Francis X. Quinn] got the perception ( presumably of King's direct quote) all wrong. "What I'm for is good roads," King said adding the good roads fairy to the National Flag and Macintosh apple pie.
King previously named several reasons for raising the gas price. One is that gas prices are low. So what? What King and all the King's men, like DOT Comm. John Melrose, aren't telling folks is that folks like you are driving more on lower gas prices sending more federal gas tax revenue to Washington and Washington sending back an additional $20 million to Maine this year because of it.
King's rock 'n' roller chief flack Dennis "All Menace" Bailey, recovering from his $800 tax-paid sojourn to Las Vegas, tries to place his boss's wiggle outing blame on the AP reporter which stands by his story. Bailey said, however, that perhaps King was "not artful" in his remarks. Bailey now admits what most folks know - that King is an artful dodger.
King has an annoying habit of sending his mouthpiece Bailey out to make a fool of himself instead of personally facing an issue when he artfully dodges statements that gets him in trouble. Of course, Bailey can say anything he wants because people don't believe anything he says. anyway. Except, of course, a few State House reporters who need access to King and his self-serving propaganda for something to write about.
State government spending is bizarre and out of control.What's another $70 million in taxes? The King Administration in four years has raised the state budget one billion dollars!
A review of the past decade of state spending shows unbridled opulence. From 1990 to 2001 state spending will have increased by 51 percent! In 1990, state spending was $1,520,285,074. The projected spending for the year 2001 is $2,295,208,007.
The only way that this spending binge can continue is to continually increase taxes which is being done successfully by majority legislators in Augusta assisted by Angus King who is the biggest spender in state's history. The Billion Dollar Governor.
An still Maine people wanted another four-year tax ride f King and all the King's men - a tax posse that Maine voters said they could not live without.
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