In an interview with Susan Cover, published in today’s editions of the Kennebec Journal and the Portland Press Herald, Mr. Karass got right to the point. “It’s very important that the State of Maine right-size its government going into the future and make it affordable.”
Asked which skills he thinks Maine’s next governor needs to bring to the job, he told Ms. Cover, “You’re going to need a very experienced hand, somebody who understands how government runs and somebody who is more interested in getting the house in order rather than promoting new programs.”
Ed Karass is right, and we need to listen.
We need to muscle out of our budgets a growing wedge of savings, so that we can invest in Maine’s future. As much as possible, those savings should come from dramatic reductions in our hidden taxes — the excessive overhead and administrative costs that we pay for the delivery of public services. But make no mistake: we also are going to need to take a hard look at all of our state government programs.
We govern ourselves in Maine — and deliver public services — in ways that have not changed for decades or even centuries and that no longer serve very well either the vital needs of the people who need the services or the interests of Maine’s taxpayers. We need to be innovative, hard-headed, realistic, focused and unrelenting in a drive to make Maine government more innovative and more efficient.
It will be much harder to do that without skilled and experienced public servants like Ed Karass to help us.
Thanks for your efforts, Ed. You’re a hero.
Tags: Budget, Government, Taxes, Taxpayers