In the race for the state’s 1st Congressional District seat, the contrast between incumbent Chellie Pingree and challenger Dean Scrontras could hardly be starker.

Whatever the voters were expecting, Chellie Pingree has turned out to be one of the most liberal members of Congress. Pingree shares with President Obama the conviction that government can solve every problem, meet every need and resolve every grievance if it can spend enough and regulate enough.

She has been a zealous supporter of the Obama agenda, which represents the greatest lurch to the left in American politics since Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal policies prolonged the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Pingree was an enthusiastic supporter of Obamacare and of the $800 billion of stimulus spending that has left the unemployment rate above 9 percent.

When President Obama begins to argue that tax increases are necessary to pay for the flood of spending that has had little benefit for the private economy, Pingree will agree and vote for them in a New York second.

Dean Scontras, on the other hand, is a level-headed, experienced businessman who understands that countries can’t borrow and spend their way to prosperity, that taxpayers can’t fund everything on Pingree’s wish list, and that spending and borrowing on the Pingree-Obama scale will impoverish current and future generations.

Voters appear ready to get Maine’s house in order by sending Paul LePage to Augusta. In the same spirit we should retire Chellie Pingree and send Dean Scontras to Washington.

Martin Jones
Freeport

 

On Nov. 2, I will be voting to return Chellie Pingree to Congress, and I urge others to do so as well.

Chellie has a long history of hard-working, dedicated, honest service to her community, the state, and the nation through her work with Common Cause. She has started businesses, creating jobs in an area with much need of good jobs.

The differences between her and her opponent Dean Scontras could not be clearer. These many differences are encapsulated in an understanding of her basic philosophy of government.

She understands that “government” is not some scary external “other” that “puts its hands in our wallets to steal our hard-earned wages.”

Rather, government is the collective “we,” acting through our freely elected representatives to decide how best to spend the tax monies we levy on ourselves in order to achieve a civil society in which our children can be educated, our ill can be cared for, our environment can be protected so we all have clean air and water to sustain us, and there can be a reasonable buffer between the needs of business to make a profit and the rights of citizens not to be harmed by those efforts.

Her opponent spouts the usual mantra of lowering both taxes and the deficit with no honesty about what proposals could accomplish this, as well as promising more of the deregulation that has proved ruinous to the economy.

The choice could not be any clearer.

Ann Morrill
South Portland

 

What is Chellie Pingree running on? Could it be because she voted for cap-and-trade, higher taxes, expansion of government and of course Obamacare. None of her votes are good for us Mainers!

We want lower taxes, smaller government and to be able to determine our own health care. Chellie supports the regime of Obama and Pelosi as they chart a course toward socialism.

No thank you, Chellie, you have been corrupted by the D.C. politicians. Elect Dean Scontras.

W.C. Hobbs
Camden

 

I oppose generational theft. As a nation we have borrowed and are on the hook for $13.4 trillion. Our generation cannot and will not pay that back. So we are engaging in policies to kick the can down the road to our children and grandchildren.

If we had to go into our children’s room with a hammer, break their piggy banks and steal their dimes while we looked into their tear-filled eyes, would we make the same choices?

Since we use the government as our hammer, and our children never see their dimes stolen, it’s much easier for us to act badly.

I thought about that this month when I heard our representative to the U.S. Congress bragging about bringing home the bacon in the form of a grant to repair a bridge. She saw victory. I saw a big jar of stolen dimes.

November is coming, and I’d ask all voters who value the protection of our children’s treasure to consider a change in our representation in the 1st District.

Dean Scontras shares our values. The incumbent has demonstrated that she does not.

Andrew Avery
Gorham

 

Chellie Pingree has a television ad where she talks about her small-business background. I operated a small business employing seven people.

When business was slow and we were not making enough to cover expenses such as payroll and insurance, I had to go to my banker and present my case for a loan.

Rep. Pingree has direct access to more money than my bank has. Chellie Pingree has criticized Dean Scontras for opposing the increase in minimum wage.

Increasing it only creates a temporary good feeling in the minimum-wage-earning person.

The increased wage means the business owner has more costs of doing business, so that eventually the owner will have to increase the cost of goods or services in order to make a profit.

This will impact everyone, especially those above minimum wage. Their wages will not go as far, because goods and services will have to cost more.

Further evidence of the lack of understanding of business on Pingree’s part is in the recent report published by Forbes stating that Maine ranks 50th out of the 50 states for the cost of doing business.

This means businesses are better off going to Alaska or Hawaii than Maine.

We need to clean house both in state and federal government in order to survive.

Bill Dunton
Boothbay

 

As a Republican, I respect Dean Scontras’ ambition to run again for Congress. However, I cannot find any record of civic leadership, local or state office which would qualify him to be a congressman.

Whenever most people apply for a job, isn’t it a requirement that they have the qualification to perform the work?

Without any experience or qualifications, how could Mr. Scontras hope to accomplish anything in Washington?

One would have thought after losing the last congressional election, he would have attempted to gain some political and/or civic leadership experience to make himself more appealing this time around.

Maine needs congressmen and/or congresswomen who know how to get things done.

Patrick Eisenhart
Augusta

 

President Obama finally admitted that there was no such thing as “shovel ready jobs” that stimulus money was supposed to be spent on. Additionally, his administration has said it will run a $1.3 trillion deficit this coming year and will undoubtedly run a $1.4 trillion deficit next year. This is after running at least a $1.3 trillion deficit in the fiscal year just completed.

Wasn’t it candidate Obama who complained about the Bush-era deficits that, until 2007, were always less than $170 billion? And, after the Democrats (he among them) took control of Congress in January 2007, swelled to “just” $500 billion or so.

We have a spending problem in Washington. And it is solely a problem created by the Democrats in Congress and Obama in the White House letting Congress get away with it.

And, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, presiding over the chamber where all spending bills must, according to the Constitution, originate, is on record wanting to spend even more than the White House is asking for.

Who is responsible for all this? The Democrats! How can we solve this spending problem? taking away the checkbook!

And, we can start by voting Chellie Pingree out of office. Her only “solution” is to raise taxes on the middle class and small businesses while giving hundreds of millions to her fiance’s hedge fund company!

Dean Scontras knows how to stimulate the economy. Coming from a family which owned a small business, he knows first-hand how to create jobs. With jobs come prosperity.

Bill Chapman
Rockport

 

I have a close friend who suffered a stroke nearly three years ago. He is a World War II veteran, having served in the U.S. Navy in the Pacific.

He has been in a nursing home all this time and the stroke, which paralyzed his right side, has also left him with the inability to talk.

This is an 82-year-old man who lived 70 miles from Bangor but never failed to meet returning troops from overseas at the airport, even if it was a snowy 2 a.m.!

I contacted Togus hoping to get speech therapy for him but they said he had to come to Togus and I knew he couldn’t physically make the trip.

I was really hoping that the VA could send a speech therapist to the nursing home, but apparently not so. Anyway, I went on to Chellie Pingree’s website and it said you could write in to her about any concerns you had.

So I wrote to her about my friend, even thinking at the time that my note would be promptly discarded.

Much to my surprise, I got a call from one of her staff, asking for the nursing home phone number and telling me that the situation would be thoroughly investigated and they would get back to me with a progress report.

I haven’t heard back yet but the fact that her aide responded to my plea speaks clearly to the sincere concern she has for fellow Mainers.

So, Chellie, even if nothing comes of this effort to help my friend, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for trying to help him.

Montelle L. Small
Portland

I do not know Chellie Pingree or Dean Scontras so I’ll assume both of them are nice people, but I need to make a choice as to which one of them I want to represent me in Congress next year.

I also don’t know how Dean Scontras would have voted during the last session of Congress if he was there, so I am going to base my vote next Tuesday on Chellie Pingree’s voting record.

Even though Ms. Pingree represents herself as being independent in her voting, it’s interesting to note she voted along the Democratic Party lines 97.9 percent of the time, according to the Congressional Record.

These debt-producing “yes” votes included the health care, cap and trade and stimulus bills, hardly the record of an independent.

When the health care bill was just beginning to be discussed in the House, I contacted Ms. Pingree’s office to express my concern with it and its cost, and was told Ms. Pingree supported it and would vote for its passage.

Her decision was made before anyone even had the opportunity to read it.

Based on Ms. Pingree’s voting record, I am willing to take my chances with Dean Scontras.

How about you?

Robert J. Nee
Damariscotta