“Paul LePage is aiming a torpedo at his own ship,” Cutler says. Cutler says that LePage’s list of tax cuts and increased spending include big ticket items, like eliminating the tax on pensions, reducing the auto excise tax by 25 percent and other promises that would actually grow the projected $800 million budget gap to $1.4 billion over the next two years.

“You can’t keep going the way we’ve been going,” Cutler says. “You can’t make these kinds of promises — growing the deficit to almost three times what it is today before you even start trying to reduce spending. The first job the governor’s going to have when he takes office, or she takes office in January is to prepare a budget, and that budget’s going to have to be balanced, and Paul LePage has built himself a hole that he’s not going to be able to dig himself out of.”

You can read the full article here.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD A PDF OF “DIGGING THE HOLE DEEPER.”

PORTLAND, Maine – Independent candidate for governor Eliot Cutler said that promises Republican Paul LePage has made so far in the campaign will nearly triple the size of the $800 million dollar budget shortfall that already is awaiting Maine’s next governor.

“Paul LePage is no fiscal conservative. He’s just another pandering partisan politician,” Cutler said. “Maine is already facing a huge budget hole, and Paul LePage is digging it deeper. We all want lower taxes, but right now, more than anything else, Maine people deserve honesty and straight talk.”

Cutler presented a list of tax cuts and increased spending that LePage has proposed or promised to various groups, including lowering the income tax, removing all taxes on pension income, regardless of their size, eliminating the estate tax, and reducing sin taxes by 25%. When added together, LePage’s promises total nearly $1.4 billion on top of the estimated $800 million shortfall for the next biennium (see list below).

“Libby Mitchell and the Democrats got us into this mess through decades of reckless spending and higher and higher taxes, and Paul LePage will just make things worse,” Cutler said. “Both clearly have been schooled in the ‘promise ‘em anything’ politics of the two political parties. If you’re a true fiscal conservative like me, there is no difference in promising new programs or new tax cuts when you have a billion dollar shortfall. We can’t afford either one until we get spending under control.”

Cutler said that all of the candidates for governor have been besieged with questionnaires from interest groups looking for commitments for increased state appropriations or new tax breaks. “I have said the same thing to every single group,” Cutler said. “I want to lower taxes as much as anyone, but the next governor is going to be confronted with massive budget shortfalls, and under those circumstances I have not made – and will not make – any commitments to any special interests. We need to get our financial house in order.”

Cutler said that LePage is making promises that he will only be able to keep by cutting the next biennium budget by almost 40% from current levels, and that Maine people have a right to know how he plans to accomplish that.

“I am offering Maine people the only responsible choice this year when it comes to fiscal responsibility,” Cutler said, “I have said that we will implement zero-based budgeting across the entire state government – all spending and all tax expenditures. Maine’s tax structure needs a complete overhaul, but before we pursue that we have to demonstrate to Maine people that we have spending under control.”

Cutler, who served as associate director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said that serious change – real budget and spending reform – is hard work. “Paul LePage talks the talk, but I’ve walked the walk. I’ve cut back massive government spending programs. He increased spending on municipal services Waterville by 22%, while using millions of dollars from state taxpayers to balance the books,” Cutler said. “When you’re governor, there’s no one left to bail you out.”

SOURCES

STATE BUDGET GAP: $800,000,000

“2012-2013 Shortfall Preliminary Estimates,” Office of Fiscal and Program Review, 7/27/10

DIF&W FUNDING PROMISE: $12,000,000

“Candidates Offer More Opinions on Outdoor Activities,” Downeast Magazine, 9/28/10
Data: www.downeast.com/georges-outdoor-news/2010/september/gubernatorial-candidates

NO ESTATE TAXES: $63,600,000

“Roundtable — Five Candidates,” Maine Ahead, September Issue
www.maineahead.com/roundtable-five-gubernatorial-candidates-talk-business/
Data: http://www.maine.gov/legis/ofpr/compendium/09compend/2009compendium.htm#EstateTax

REDUCING SIN TAXES BY 25%: $66,000,000

http://lepageforme.com/issues/ [REMOVED BY LEPAGE CAMPAIGN AFTER WGME DEBATE]
Data: http://www.maine.gov/legis/ofpr/compendium/09compend/2009compendium.htm#EstateTax

REDUCTION OF AUTO EXCISE TAX BY 25%: $100,000,000

http://lepageforme.com/issues/ [REMOVED BY LEPAGE CAMPAIGN AFTER WGME DEBATE]
Data: Email from Maine Revenue Services

NO TAXES ON PUBLIC OR PRIVATE PENSION INCOME: $109,386,000

“Roundtable — Five Candidates,” Maine Ahead, September Issue
www.maineahead.com/roundtable-five-gubernatorial-candidates-talk-business/
Data: LD 319: “An Act to Exempt Retirement and Pension Income from the State Income Tax”

5% FLAT TAX — CORPORATE & FAMILY: $1,018,000,000

www.lepage2010.com/issues/taxes/
Data: Email from Maine Revenue Services

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD A PDF OF DIGGING THE HOLE DEEPER.

In fact, the creative economy is not just about the production and consumption of visual and performing arts, it is about the unique and innovative ideas, technologies and output of virtually every sector of our economy, and it is the key to our future success. Why have we so long failed to put this engine to work in generating prosperity? It’s not for lack of good ideas; we have no need to reinvent the wheel, but only to act on what we already know. It is my intention to provide the leadership to make that happen.

THE CONTEXT

Over the last decade, a multitude of studies and papers generated by both public and private institutions have explored the creative economy in Maine with the aim of understanding the nature, impact and growth potential for arts, entertainment, recreation and technology, and how to foster them through education. Our current understanding of “creative economy” encompasses much more than the traditional mix of the visual and performing arts. It underpins virtually all we produce in Maine, where our unique quality of place rests on our culture of historic towns and their preservation; our unparalleled natural beauty and its conservation; and, our unique products—whether artistic, agricultural, aquatic or technological – and the creative workforce that it takes to produce them.

At the State level, the Maine Arts Commission has done excellent work that has been nationally recognized. The office of the governor initiated a Creative Economy Council, later supplanted by what is now the Quality of Place Council, on which sit representatives of various private and public sectors of our State economy. The Council’s aim is integrating the arts and the creative perspective into all approaches to community and commercial development. This approach has been explored and developed in at least three statewide conferences over the last few years, including Juice 2.0: Powering the Creative Economy (2009), building on the earlier 2007 conference of the same name, convened by Midcoast Magnet, in collaboration with the Maine Arts Commission. Yet another conference is scheduled to take place in 2012.

Many good ideas and “creative juices” have been stimulated by these Commissions and Councils, think pieces and conferences, but what has become of all these good ideas? The fact remains that our economy today—creative or otherwise, however we characterize or label it—is stagnant. We are providing neither the necessary impetus to grow more of what we have, nor the incentives to attract new investment. And this is just as true of our largest industry, tourism, as it is of our farming, fishing, lumber, paper and textile industries. When the new Administration takes office in January 2011, we will face a budget deficit of over a billion dollars. In lean times, the arts have traditionally suffered, perceived as an unaffordable frill. What will the future of our creative economy be?

THE OBJECTIVES AND TOOLS

The creative lens gives us an important perspective on Maine’s economic future, and a creative vision should drive our efforts in all areas. We will work to leverage Maine’s most valuable competitive assets–our unique people, our pristine natural environment and our creative and educational infrastructures–to help make Maine the comeback state of the decade. These are some of the strategies that we will pursue:

1. BRANDING THE MAINE PRODUCT: Whether it is our lobster, our blueberries, our native raised and spun wool and wool products, our Maine-built boats or our Maine-inspired and produced art, music and literature, we will aggressively build and promote a single unified Maine brand and strategically seek markets—an audience–for our unique and sustainable products across the globe.
2. PROMOTING YEAR-ROUND TOURISM: We will promote not only the year-round beauty and excitement of our natural environment and the traditional recreational and eco-tourism activities it offers –hiking, biking, boating, fishing, hunting, skiing, snowmobiling, sledding, golf, leaf-peeping, maple-sugaring, apple picking, whale watching—to name but a sample, but also will draw cultural tourists from January through December to our outstanding museums, galleries and places of historical interest, to our destination arts and food venues, to our local farms and farmers’ markets, and to our festivals and fairs.
3. PUBLIC SUPPORT OF THE ARTS: We will actively foster the creative communities and living conditions that attract and sustain artists and creative entrepreneurs by: a) establishing visible arts districts throughout the state; b) protecting affordable work spaces and housing; c) making available affordable individual healthcare coverage ; and, d) working with private partners, such as banks, credit unions and foundations, to assure favorable financing options for creative endeavors, including the bricks and mortar needed to house them.
4. EDUCATION AT BOTH THE HIGH SCHOOL AND POST-SECONDARY LEVEL: We will ensure that education powers the creative economy engine by providing an education in the arts, from pre-K through high school, and an education for the arts that produces the creative entrepreneurs—artists, performers, writers, designers, architects, boat builders, chefs, artisanal food producers, vintners, and the many other creative small business entrepreneurs who make Maine a magnet for year-round tourism, who create the products for our global markets, and whose rising tide will help lift the Maine-built boats of us all. Toward these ends, I will propose the creation of an arts magnet high school to do for the creative arts what the magnet school in Limestone is doing for science and technology education with such remarkable success. We will foster and encourage both public and private institutions of higher learning—the colleges and universities, but also the non-traditional schools such as, for example, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts—in their missions both to promote creative endeavor for its own sake, and to mobilize Maine’s arts, culture, creative entrepreneurs and institutions in service of economic development, without which none of us will prosper and thrive.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FULL PLAN [PDF].

“What a way to mark Labor Day.”

First, he would eliminate the Board of Environmental Protection, which oversees the state Department of Environmental Protection but that also unnecessarily holds up economic development, according to Cutler.

“The board is redundant, costly, confusing and one of the reasons why people don’t want to invest in Maine anymore,” he said.

Second, Cutler said he would take the permitting and licensing functions away from the Land Use Regulation Commission and turn them over to the DEP. He would then create a Court of Appellate Review to oversee decisions made by the DEP.

He referenced the Plum Creek development in Piscataquis County as the perfect example of development being hamstrung by bureaucratic processes.

“It may have ended up with the right result,” he said of Plum Creek. “But it was a train wreck that didn’t need to happen.”

You can read the full article here.

************
Regina Wilson: What is your vision for way down East Maine WASHINGTON COUNTY??? this is where the real help is needed, Past Governors can’t see past Ellsworth and Bangor. I am talking about the Eastport and Calais area’s where there is no work.
************

Dear Regina,

Thank you for writing and for your question. My apologies for the belated response.
My grandfather came to this country at the age of 12. He had no money, spoke no English and had no family here. For the first eight years of his life he was a peddler, walking what is now the Airline between Bangor and Calais.

This state and this country provided to my grandfather’s family – including my mother and her two sisters and then to my brothers and me – opportunities that he could only dream of as a 12 year-old immigrant. That is why I am so committed to bringing jobs, incomes and opportunities back to Maine and especially to places like Downeast Maine, a part of state that is very special to me. My overall goals for Washington County will be to rebuild the region’s economy while keeping intact the region’s coastal and interior communities.

I intend to do this in several important ways:

I. Develop and export products from the region’s natural resources and increase development of the Port of Eastport as one of Maine’s three principal seaports:

A) Lower the cost of living and doing business in Downeast Maine by lowering the cost of electricity and health care. (Please see my proposals for an energy finance authority and a Maine Wellness plan on www.cutler2010.com). Doing so will make Downeast Maine a more attractive location for investment in facilities to process and add value to the region’s natural resources, including lobsters, blueberries and wood fiber.

B) Develop export markets for these natural resources products. In particular, we need a focused effort to develop Chinese and other Asian markets for the export of lobsters and blueberries.

C) Establish a profitable aquaculture industry in Downeast Maine.

D) Vigorously look for opportunities to increase activity at the Port of Eastport, particularly by improving railroad links into Easport.

II. Develop the region’s energy resources in a responsible manner:

A) Establish an LNG terminal in Washington County if it meets tough safety and environmental standards.

B) Support accelerated research and development of cost-effective technologies for the generation of electricity from tidal energy.

C) Investigate opportunities for additional cooperation between the Maine Indian Tribes and private sector developers on the development of wind energy projects on both surplus federal lands and other lands controlled by the Tribes.

D) Create the Maine Energy Finance Authority, so that we can bring down energy and electricity prices in Maine, so that we can keep open plants like the Domtar mill in Baileyville, and so that we can develop in Maine processing plants for fish, lobsters, blueberries and other Maine products.

III. Promote Downeast Maine as a unique and welcoming area for visitors and retirees:

A) Aggressively promote the unique natural beauty and culture Downeast Maine to visitors, retirees and potential year-round residents.

B) Develop additional snowmobile, cross-country skiing, hiking, fishing, hunting, kayaking canoeing, and boating opportunities in Downeast Maine.

C) Investigate incentives for retirees to establish year-round residence in Downeast Maine communities.

IV. Provide equal opportunities for a quality education to all children in Maine.

V. Invest in high-speed Internet and telecommunications infrastructure across the state.

VI. Reform Maine’s tax system at levels so that communities like Eastport and Lubec are not unfairly penalized for being on the coast.

These efforts will require close cooperation among the state and every town, city, and county in Downeast Maine. I am committed to this effort and to making that happen.

Sincerely,

Eliot

Cutler has never once in the past year of campaigning called for raising broad-based taxes. He repeatedly has called for reducing state spending and comprehensive tax reform.

Webster’s attack came in response to an op-ed in last Saturday’s Bangor Daily News in which former state controller Ed Karass shattered the myths about Paul LePage’s record as mayor of Waterville. Karass is a highly respected financial expert who has served under six Maine governors,

Maine voters deserve a response from candidate LePage about Mr. Karass’ analysis of his mediocre record as Waterville’s mayor. Instead, his handlers are keeping him muzzled while unleashing partisan attack dogs like Webster

Instead of trying to defend LePage’s record, Webster is trying to spin a year-old quote from Mr. Karass about the sorry state of Maine’s finances into an accusation that Cutler supports higher taxes.

Here is what Webster quotes Karass as saying:

“We may find ourselves in a position where taxes have to be increased but no new programs are brought on board. We may have to increase taxes just to pay for what we currently have.”

Ed Karass did not call for higher taxes in that statement and neither has Eliot Cutler. Eliot agrees with the statement in that it reflects the truth that Maine has a government and a set of programs that we no longer have the money to pay for. That is not a call for higher taxes, but an honest assessment of out-of-control state spending; you either raise taxes or cut spending.

Eliot has always come down on the side of reducing spending and has put forth a bold plan to spur investment and create jobs in Maine by lowering our high costs of living and doing business. That is something that will help working Maine people far more than Paul LePage’s and Charlie Webster’s partisan rhetoric and made-up stories.

AUGUST 6, 2010
CONTACT: TED O’MEARA OR MONICA CASTELLANOS
207.699.4401
ted@cutler2010.com

PORTLAND, Maine – Ed Karass, a former state controller who served under the last six Maine governors, has endorsed Independent candidate for Governor Eliot Cutler.

“I have looked carefully at all the candidates for governor this year. In my estimation, Eliot Cutler is the only one who has the competence, experience and toughness to deal with Maine’s looming budget crisis,” Karass said, noting that Maine’s new governor will face a budget shortfall of more than $1 billion over the next two fiscal years.

Karass said that Cutler’s service as associate director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), as well his extensive experience in business, will serve him well as governor. At OMB, Cutler made decisions about how to spend, re-allocate and cut out hundreds of millions of dollars in federal spending. He went on to establish three major law offices and to help start up and turnaround several successful businesses.

“I am honored to have Ed’s support,” Cutler said. “There is no one in Maine with a better understanding of Maine’s finances and how we need to change the ways we use the tax dollars of hard working Maine people. Maine is headed for a fiscal train wreck unless we change our spending habits and make some tough decisions about what we can, and can’t, afford.”

The Office of State Controller reviews, approves and consolidates all accounting transactions for all agencies within the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of government. It also establishes and monitors State accounting policies and procedures and reviews, compiles and reports all statewide accounting information.

Karass said that neither of Cutler’s two main opponents, nor the other two Independents in the race, have the ability to responsibly address the financial challenges facing Maine.

“Maine can’t afford more of the same policies and programs that got us into this mess, and we can’t afford to turn these immense problems over to someone who has neither the experience nor the demeanor to build a new consensus around tax and spending priorities,” said Karass, who is now the CEO of Karass Financial & Accounting in Gardiner. “Eliot Cutler stands out as a leader who can make the tough decisions and develop a new way forward for Maine.”

In a commentary published in Saturday’s Bangor Daily News, Karass said that a close examination of Paul LePage’s performance as Waterville mayor “reveals more mediocrity than miracle.”

“While Maine taxpayers have been pumping money into his city, Waterville’s spending for municipal services has increased by 22 percent, and school performance is suffering. The publicly acclaimed Waterville property tax rate turns out to have fallen less than it did in comparable Maine cities that have wrestled with similar economic and financial challenges while the City of Waterville’s economy has underperformed most of those cities, and its bond rating is worse,” Karass said in his commentary.

[Cutler] believes he has some answers about how to rein in the high cost of health insurance in the state. The health care reform package passed by the U.S. Congress provides an opportunity to set up an insurance co-op for small businesses, he said. If small businesses could be bundled together and purchase insurance in a group, Cutler said, he believes costs would become more manageable.

You can read the full article here.