I have no special insight into the private thoughts of Gov. LePage, but based entirely on observing his words and actions, his reasoning since taking office two short months ago might go something like this:

A lot of people on the political left are making a huge amount of noise over things I’ve said and done since becoming Maine’s governor, but there’s one thing they don’t seem to have figured out yet.

I don’t care.

I don’t care what they say, do or think. Never have, never will. They didn’t vote for me last November, they have no intention of supporting what I want to do in office now, and they won’t vote for me if I choose to run for re-election in 2014 — which, by the way, I have not yet made up my mind to do.

They think that because I only got 38 percent of the vote, I should listen to them. I didn’t notice that getting the same percentage slowed former Gov. Baldacci down any, and it won’t slow me down, either.

The people who express shock and anger (and for some of them, outright hatred) over what I am doing are the same ones who got this state into the deep trouble it is in now.

Or, they were strong backers of those former leaders. Either way, they have no record of success to crow about, so all they can do is criticize.

I know that everything I propose or try may not succeed, but one thing is sure to fail — doing things the same way we have been doing them for decades under what has amounted to one-party rule.

Single-party dominance leads only one place, to stagnation, and that’s where we are.

Mainers have been trapped in a prison of one economic viewpoint, one ideological pattern of government dependence and one solution to every problem: bigger, more intrusive, more controlling government power.

Which is also more expensive government, the cost of which is nearly out of control. Controlling that cost is one of my two top priorities. The second you can now read if you drive into Maine on the turnpike.

We are now formally and officially “open for business.”

Improving the state’s economy has for too long been left to bureaucrats wielding the clumsy levers of government.

Businesses by nature have to be lean and mean profit-producers. If they aren’t, the iron law of the marketplace makes them obsolete — and then, gone, just like the makers of dial phones and vacuum tubes.

There’s a reason why Maine has the worst reputation for business friendliness in the nation — it’s because Maine really has the lowest level of business friendliness in the nation.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to preserve the best of Maine’s natural beauty. I breathe the air here, too, and I drink the water, and I want to keep our “quality of place” high. Besides its intrinsic value, I know it makes people want to move here.

But environmentalism can’t be allowed to become a religion, so holy that it trumps every other valid priority and concern. Maine isn’t a nature preserve, though it should have such places and protect them.

Maine is just as much a place where people need more and better jobs, and for too long we have allowed other priorities to take precedence over that.

Making a good living, and wanting your kids to make a good living, is a human need too — and, may I say, a more important one than preserving every last one of the bazillion “vernal pools” in the state.

We have plenty of those. We don’t have plenty of jobs.

We need to restore good-paying, productive jobs to their proper place in our structure of valued priorities, and only by attracting new businesses and helping present ones grow and prosper can we do that.

That’s also the answer to our budget woes. More jobs for more people mean more money for the state to spend on infrastructure and services.

Instead of interest groups fighting over the size of their slice of a dwindling pie, we need to make the pie bigger — and bake a lot more pies.

We can do it, but not under the old philosophy. Yes, it’s natural that those who prospered from a burgeoning government want to keep their benefits and programs intact, but we can’t do that and still grow like we need to grow.

I get accused of wanting to cut taxes to “help the rich at the expense of the middle class.” Hasn’t anyone noticed that the state’s top tax rate kicks in at about $19,000 in income? Any cut will inevitably help the middle class first.

Meanwhile, my critics focus on my tendency to “shoot off my mouth.” I know I’m not your typical smooth-tongued (some would say fork-tongued) political insider. But look at where the smoothies have left us.

No, I am who I am, and I like myself that way. The moment I start calculating the political effect of what I think, I become somebody else. And I don’t like that kind of person very much.

Take that Labor Department mural. Nothing wrong with it in itself, but it says to everyone who walks in, “This department is a wholly owned subsidiary of the AFL-CIO.” Not any more, folks. Not any more.

And the media have started to report that at my public meetings, I get greeted with “numerous standing ovations.”

A lot of Mainers are tired of one-party government, guys.

Yeah, no ovations from the press, I know. But remember: I don’t care what they think. If I did, I’d start to worry about pleasing them and not doing what I think is right.

So, I will continue along my present path. I think a lot of people will like that. So far, things are working out just fine.

M.D. Harmon is an editorial writer. He can be contacted at 791-6482 or at:

mharmon@mainetoday.com

 

Copy the Story Link