Political football

Political football

To the editor:
    It is football season again; Americans across the nation are spending Sunday afternoons with wings, chips, dip, team jerseys, and tossing around the football in the backyard. It is also time for America’s other fall pastime, politics. This year, like every other, the politicians have teamed up, picked sides (mostly), and chosen their political “football” of the season; one of this year’s seems to be our state employees. 

    Instead of addressing issues of welfare fraud, politicians in Augusta decided to cut workdays to state employees. Rather than encouraging the employees or giving them the tools to do their jobs better they give already overwhelmed workers less days to do their job.
    In the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) the eligibility workers, those that screen people applying for welfare and other services, have caseloads exceeding 800 people. Employees whose goal it is to assist those on state aid to find jobs or attend school so that they can better themselves face workloads equally overwhelming. Instead of encouraging residency requirements so that people can no longer get aid after being in the state less than a week, the state legislature decided to cut pay to hard working Mainers. They have also done nothing to address problems with the system like allowing people on Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) to remain on the system for well over a decade or purchase alcohol, cigarettes, and lottery tickets with those funds.
    If the legislature wanted to save itself money on the cost of the state employees than it could have allowed interstate health insurance which would have lowered the state’s portion of health insurance cost by hundreds of thousands of dollars. That bill reached the floor of the House of Representatives last year and the Democrats in Augusta voted it down, ensuring health insurance costs to all Mainers would remain crippling high. If politicians were really worried about cutting back spending perhaps they should stop using tax dollars to fund their personal political campaigns and refuse to participate in a system that encourages corrupt politics and legal money laundering practices. This year alone the state has already spent over 4.8 million dollars on political campaigns and that total rises to over 20 million when you include the last 5 election cycles.
    Our welfare system is broken. The cost of our state employees is far higher than it should be but cutting salaries of our hard working families is not the answer in these tough times. Cutting workdays to employees that need every minute of their day to try to help people better themselves is not the answer. There are many issues that need to be addressed but using state employees as a political football is only a method to distract voters from the real issues in Augusta. Many of the real issues are created and maintained by the politicians in Augusta that have forgotten that their job is to do what is best for every Mainer not just the CEO of the big insurance companies (or company, since there is a virtual monopoly in Maine).
    If elected I will fight tirelessly to ensure that the solutions to our budget problems do not hurt hard working Maine families. I will work to address the wasteful spending and above all remember that I am elected to serve the people of Presque Isle. Lastly, it is football season and I hope everyone will join with me on game day to cheer on our favorite team, Go PATS!