I behoove the Legislature to kill Gov. Paul LePage’s incompetent, morally corrupt effort to close the reported $221 million shortfall in the Department of Health and Human Services budget.

The figure is undocumented, and this must be corrected. It is an outrage to force the most vulnerable — the poor, the sick, the disabled, the elderly — to bear the burden of incompetent budget management.

The people of Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Montana and now Indiana are fighting back against extreme tea party governors and legislatures who are going too far in taking away the rights of the workers and the middle class.

Here in Maine, our governor has gone after our workers, and now he is going after the little people, who, without legislative intervention, will suffer drastically, as will the entire state.

Republicans do not compromise; they do not negotiate. I ask Democratic legislators to stay firm and demand that the governor show the documented shortfall figures, and, in combination with making use of cost economies, cutting administrative bloat, rescind those planned tax cuts for the more wealthy in our state.

The tapping of this vein of resourceful revenue could cough up $550 million, more than enough to close the budget gap.

Our Legislature should not even think about raiding MaineCare and other services for those who desperately need it. It should do the right thing and do not let the governor steamroll over it, so he and his fellow tea party extremists can continue to prosper politically and economically at the expense of the most vulnerable souls in our state.

We the electorate, in the fact the whole nation, are watching.

Wil Tibby

Mount Vernon

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