Senator Peter Mills delivered this week’s Maine Senate Republican radio address.

Greetings. This is State Senator Peter Mills of Cornville. I have been asked to bring you this week’s Republican radio message.

The Legislature has been hard at work on the governor’s budget to find $438 million dollars in cuts to programs like home based health care, nursing homes and local schools and communities. In these times of trouble, when government revenue is short, people know that there are three ways to cut a budget.

The first and preferred way is to make systemic changes. Prioritize. Cut out a program or reduce its scope in a permanent way — so that the savings you impose today will be carried forward to save money in years to come.

In the recession of 1991 under Governor Jock McKernan, we saw a complete overhaul of the state’s workers compensation system and our public pensions. Those major changes have saved money every year since and will continue to save into the future for our children and grandchildren.

The second way to cut is merely to suspend a present cost and restore it when money starts to flow again. In this category are the furlough days, the wage freezes, and other temporary measures. They save money today but not for tomorrow.

The third and worst way to cut a budget is to borrow money to pay our current expenses through accounting tricks — to defer paying our bills and leave them for someone else to pay later.

This week the governor proposed the worst of these. In a deal made with public labor unions, he agreed to postpone a single payroll check into the next fiscal year The result is to borrow $8M from the next governor and from the next legislature — people who have not even been elected yet.

What do you suppose he wants to use the money for?
Will he use the money to restore his 10% cut to the nursing homes who care for our elderly? No.
Will he use the money to restore his cuts to charitable organizations that care for the mentally ill living on the streets and in the jails? No.
Will he use it to restore his cuts to foster homes that care for the developmentally disabled, those too helpless to care for themselves? No.
Will he use the money to restore his cuts to our public schools to prepare our children for the future and to relieve the burden of the property tax? No.

Will he even use the money to invest in roads or bridges or some other part of our failing infrastructure or will he use it to pay any of the debt we owe for unfunded pensions and retirement benefits? The answer is still no.

Instead, he wants to turn over most of the money as a longevity benefit to the most senior members of the public unions, to those who are leaders within those unions, to those who helped get him elected, to those who will work on Democratic campaigns in 2010. None of the younger people in the unions, those with families, will be able to share in this benefit.

While the rest of the world suffers from the deepest and longest recession since 1935, while all of Maine’s social service charities are strained to the limit to care for dependent people, while Maine taxpayers are out of work, Maine state government under this governor is poking along as though nothing has happened.

This governor has tried these irresponsible measures in years past. In 2003, he tried to permanently sell off the state’s liquor business to pay for current expenses. We Republicans stopped him.

In 2005, he tried to borrow $447M without public approval by selling off the Lottery for 14 years. We Republicans stopped him with the Don’t Mortgage ME campaign.

And now he wants to borrow money from future taxpayers and use the money to fund a side deal negotiated between the governor and the union. What does this say about the Democrats’ priorities?

People don’t want to be governed by gimmicks and accounting tricks, by borrowing to pay for current expenses, by subterfuge and camouflage. They want honesty, accountability and transparency from their elected officials. Maine people deserve nothing less.

To improve state government in these difficult times, there are many good ideas worth discussing.  It is time to begin the tough work, tough work we are capable of doing – building a better Maine for all of us, and for the future.

Thank you for listening. This is Senator Peter Mills wishing you and your family a happy and healthy week ahead.