Tag Archives: Paul LePage

The government spending spree continues

There are good times, and there are bad times. One thing in this life is certain: if you are currently living through one of those, the other will come eventually. If an economic boom is happening, there will be an eventual slowdown and recession. If you are in the middle of economic calamity, there will […]

20 bold predictions for 2020

I will begin this annual tradition of mine by acknowledging a failure of my final prediction of 2019. You see, in last year’s column, I told you that this year I would simply do a top 10 list of my predictions, as the number of required predictions each year was getting unwieldy. Alas, there is […]

Elections have consequences

In this column, I’ve been writing an awful lot about what the new administration of Gov. Janet Mills and her allies in the Legislature have been doing. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the foolish financial decisions being made in Augusta, highlighting the fact that those decisions will likely cause tax increases, and at the […]

Mainers are finding out they voted for tax and spend

Spend spend spend. Tax tax tax. You heard a lot of flowery talk about responsibly leading Maine. You heard about discipline and “investments” that would make the state better. “No, we won’t raise your taxes,” they said, “we’ll just re-prioritize state government and we’ll use money we already have to do a few things responsibly.” […]

Congratulations Gov. Mills, now lower taxes

Dear Gov. Mills, By the time you read this, the word “elect” will have been dropped from your title, and you will be our new governor. I say “our” new governor, because too many politicians of both parties forget that they have been elected to represent everyone, including those who love them and voted for […]

The 2018 Conifer Awards

I don’t think there is anything better than Christmas traditions. Christmas mass. Gift giving. Music. Family. Dinner. Taking six hours to put together over-engineered and insanely designed larger items for the kids, forcing you to go to bed at 3:30 in the morning. The usual. Along with my yearly predictions, I have also traditionally given […]

Please, I beg you, ignore the polls

Unless you were completely oblivious, you saw what happened with political polling in the 2016 election. In a word, it was an unmitigated disaster. In evaluating the polls in the run up to the election, various organizations analyzed the results, and in so doing made bullish predictions about the likelihood that Hillary Clinton would be […]

Maine’s pleasantly quiet race for governor

Here’s a fun fact. I live in Maine’s First Congressional District, yet I have not seen a single television ad for the campaigns of Chellie Pingree, Marty Grohman, or Mark Holbrook, the three aspirants to the southern Maine congressional seat. In contrast, I have seen what I can only assume is several thousand ads for […]

In campaigns, it’s not all about the money

Last July, I wrote a column that implored you to ignore fundraising reports and polls in the gubernatorial contest. Today is your first test to see whether you listened or not. The end of year filing deadline has come and gone, and the January 2018 reports are now public. We now know who has raised […]