Issue Position: Maine State Employees Association Questionnaire

Issue Position

I do not support the tax cuts for the wealthy in the last budget. I actually lobbied for adding another tax bracket to give the new lower tax rate to people making less than $75,000, while maintaining the (then current) rate for those making more. I also supported The Responsible Solution, a Maine proposal similar to The Buffet Tax on residents making over one million dollars a year, as well as specific, reasonable cuts.

City and state employees, including teachers, have been used as scapegoats for the state's problems. Most of those problems have external causes, like the failings in the banking industry that had repercussions in the housing industry. Some causes have roots closer to home, such as rising health care and insurance costs which have been the source of the state's largest cost increases. Recognizing this I would oppose any further cuts. We must balance our budget, and that means there must be cuts. But the cuts to our state workers have gone far enough, or even too far. I would not support further cuts.

I have personally benefited from the Affordable Care Act and believe it will continue to have significant improvements in quality of, access to, and cost reductions in health care. Maine legislators failed to implement the exchanges required in the Act, leaving Mainers without access to many of the cost savings benefits available in the act. Instead our legislators removed many protections already in place with the health insurance industry deregulation of last year which also resulted in significant price increases. Unfortunately I cannot fully answer this question until the Supreme Court makes its decision on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.

Q: What have you done or will you do to support current and future retirees in the state, county and municipal workforce, who are funded with public dollars?
A: The funds of most of our retirees' pensions are invested in the stock market. With the economic downturn caused by the banking crisis, the values of those accounts dropped precipitously in 2008. The drop in values was used as leverage to demonstrate a need for cuts. But the market has recovered most of those losses. I'm not sure that major changes are needed, certainly not to existing contracts and agreements made. I do support the "speculation tax". This tax generates revenue while promoting stock market stability. The cost would be insignificant for long term traders, but noticeable for short term traders (day traders) who cause a great deal of the volatility, in return for quick profits. See http://www.cepr.net/documents/fst-facts-myths-12-10.pdf.

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