Democrats are deeply concerned about Gov. Paul LePage’s recently unveiled budget. As proposed, the budget is a tax shift that will hurt our economy and unfairly burdens our middle class, the elderly, small businesses and the poor.

A letter writer last month questioned a single paragraph of my Dec. 14 column about the total failure of a recent U.N. climate conference to replace the Kyoto accord on carbon emissions.

I write to encourage the end of compulsory education for Maine students older than 14.

Columns and letters to the editor continue to call for repeal of the Second Amendment. The two most-cited arguments are that the right to keep and bear arms applies only to militias, and that sportsmen and target shooters don’t need “assault weapons” or “high-capacity magazines.”

No incident in recent times has shocked the nation’s senses like the mindless slaughter of 20 six- and seven-year-old children and six of their unarmed adult defenders at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

Former State Sen. Ethan Strimling, D-Portland, believes that it’s “time for Maine to hold a referendum on guns.”