If you like your governor, you can keep him.

You might like that he is directly responsible for a homeowner property tax increase and has increased local school costs by reducing state revenue sharing and passed on to homeowners state responsibility for teacher pension funding.

If you like your governor, you also might like that he has willfully and consistently refused economic gain for the state. He refused millions in federal dollars to fully pay health care costs for some 60,000 or more people who are not currently eligible for MaineCare. Those millions in federal funds would have mostly gone into the state economy.

He refused to set up insurance exchanges so Maine people could more easily buy affordable health care insurance. He failed to accept federal grant money to fund a program to pay local workers to help sign people up for health insurance plans. His shallow thinking forces uninsured people to take their sick children to the emergency room. That cost is passed on to all those who have insurance, driving up premiums and sucking more money out of the state economy.

So if you like your governor you will like that he now plans to spend a million dollars to find new ways to reduce MaineCare by engaging a hired gun widely known for reducing funding for tens of thousands of needy children and adults in Pennsylvania and Arkansas. Those states also have myopic, penny-pinching governors. Paul LePage has already proudly and generously committed $700,000 to find $100,000 in MaineCare savings.

If you like your governor, you can be proud of the fact that he has made the state of Maine the laughingstock of the nation with his lowbrow potty mouth, outrageous radical behavior and unfounded statements.

Jim ChiddixWaterville

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