Gov. Paul LePage presented the Legislature with $34 million in budget cuts last week, which Democrats quickly labeled as a rehash of the same cuts they recently rejected.
And they were expecting what?
That the governor would change his priorities just to please them?
The governor’s budget proposal last year proposed deeper and more destructive cuts to revenue sharing with local communities and general purpose aid to education.
Wisely, we believe, the Legislature reduced some of those cuts and, instead, increased revenue by temporarily increasing the state’s retail-sales tax and the meals-and-lodging tax.
The governor got about half of what he wanted, but he clearly was not happy about it.
LePage is a stubborn, determined man, so nobody should be surprised that he has gone right back to his original script.
rrhoades@sunjournal.com
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