Tag Archives: Budget

Washington will never take debt seriously

Monday, to the apparent notice of no one, congressional leaders and the president came together and agreed to something: spending a lot more money, and putting it on the credit card. Again. The agreement, which was negotiated between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the White House led by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, forestalls any debt […]

If Gov. Mills signs a local option sales tax, she will have broken a promise to Maine

Remember when Gov. Janet Mills told you that she would not, if elected, support increased taxes? Pay close attention to what happens in Augusta in the next couple weeks, because she may very well have to choose whether she meant that promise or not. Tuesday, the Maine House narrowly voted — 73 in favor to […]

No, I don’t want to live in Massachusetts

In addition to running a public policy think tank and writing this column every week, I have also been blessed for the last three years to host the morning drive time radio program on WGAN, southern Maine’s biggest news and talk radio station. A couple weeks ago, we decided to host a conversation with lawmakers […]

LePage and House Republicans win the shutdown showdown

It is hard to argue that this government shutdown didn’t yield positive results. The last budget approved by Maine lawmakers over the governor’s veto in 2015, contained $6.7 billion in spending, which, if you recall, was a bloated “compromise” budget that spent hundreds of millions of dollars more than its predecessor. LePage’s proposal for this budget […]