Today, in a Bangor Daily News column, Drew Gattine, Chair of the Maine Democratic Party, rebutted recent claims made by Maine GOP Chair Demi Kouzounas. Kouzounas had criticized Maine’s economic recovery (33rd in the nation according to one metric), apparently ignoring LePage’s record on a similar measure. Under Governor LePage, Maine’s economic recovery ranked 49th following the great recession of 2008.
Gattine set the record straight by offering a clear contrast between Governor Mills and her predecessor. Just this past year, through Governor Mills’ leadership, the legislature voted to boost education funding, provide much-needed property tax relief, expand access to high speed internet, and more. LePage, by comparison, denied thousands of Mainers access to health care and gutted Maine’s public health infrastructure, weakening our pandemic response.
Bangor Daily News (Opinion): If Republicans don’t like how Janet Mills is handling Maine’s economy, they should really hate Paul LePage’s record
By Drew Gattine, Maine Democratic Party Chair
December 22, 2021
Key Points:
- Not only is Mills performing better in relative terms on job recovery than her predecessor, she has done so while overcoming the substantial headwinds he created.
- Between 2011 and 2017, LePage left nearly a billion dollars of federal money on the table -- money that could have gone to help under-resourced Maine families and communities.
- In fact, during the first three years of LePage’s tenure, Maine’s rural communities experienced negative growth.
- LePage’s economic policies put Maine further behind relative to other states and his tax policies jeopardized needed investment in Maine’s schools and communities.
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