Maine’s Governor Won’t Take His Own Medicine

March 16, 2011

For Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R), it’s ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’

LePage says he wants to help balance his state’s budget by forcing public service workers and teachers to ante up 2 percent more into their pensions – from 7.65 percent of their salary to 9.65 percent.

What about his own pension? He also contributes 7.65 percent of his salary towards his retirement. Unlike the hard-working, middle-class workers who help clean his city’s streets, protect its citizens and teach its children, LePage won’t contribute a single extra penny more. He’s exempted himself from his own plan!

LePage makes $70,000 annually as governor. You’d think it would hardly matter to him if he contributed an extra $5,880 toward his pension until his current term ends in 2014. That would demonstrate he is not above making the same sacrifice that he asks the state’s public service workers and teachers to make.  

Not only will he not make that sacrifice, he also won’t share in the other sacrifices he insists those other employees make: a raise in the retirement age, a cost-of-living adjustment freeze for current retirees, and a 2 percent cap on cost of living hikes.

The governor let his spokesman explain his apparent contradiction in principle. Dan Demeritt told the Sun Journal, “We try to solve problems. We don’t spend a lot of time trying to cover a political angle.”

They do, however, spend a lot of time trying to undermine hardworking, middle-class workers who have already sacrificed much. Enough with this hypocrisy! For good insight into this story, read this opinion piece by progressive activist Mike Tipping in the Kennebec Journal/Waterville Sentinel.