The headline “Governor: Welfare penalty to cost state” on the front page April 18, while accurate, is likely the only part of the article most people will ever see.

The article goes on to report: “Gov. Paul LePage said Thursday that the federal government will penalize the state $7 million because its welfare cash assistance program doesn’t meet federal work-participation standards.”

In the first place, the two issues that were supposedly a problem were in 2011!

The headline and the quote are patently misleading. In reality, the state’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Familes program is currently in compliance with one of the categories and will avoid significant penalties if it continues to file corrective plans, as it has been.

I don’t think this qualifies for the salacious headline “Welfare penalty to cost state”! You’re feeding the political rhetoric of Paul LePage and building talking points for his campaign.

The article itself was well-written and balanced, but it didn’t say that Maine is in danger of having to pay a multimillion-dollar penalty, as the headline indicates.

I hope selling newspapers is not so important to you that you stoop to the level of creating headlines that mislead your readers.

Rick Wakeland

Kennebunkport