Congressman Mike Michaud is running for governor, asking the people to give him another chance after 34 years in office and insisting that he still has the best interests of the working man at heart.
I’m not buying it.
Like Michaud, I started working at the mill when I was young, spending 45 years as a millwright and member of UPIU Local 396 at Lincoln Paper and Tissue. I fought hard to stop the decline of the mills and manufacturing industry in northern Maine for much of that time.
As a member of the Pulp and Paper Workers’ Resource Council, I traveled with my coworkers at the mill to Washington, D.C., and throughout the country to try to save good union jobs and explain to political leaders that the mills were getting safer, cleaner and more environmentally friendly.
It did little to stop the liberal Democratic politicians from siding with environmental regulators and lobbyists who ignored the advances we were making in improving our mills.
It was at that point, about 16 years ago, that I became so frustrated I registered as a Republican after a lifetime spent as an independent. Many of my friends from the PPRC switched from Democrat to Republican as well.
What those liberal politicians forgot was the importance of remembering where they came from and working hard to preserve the livelihoods of those back home.
I have seen Michaud’s 34-year political career progress from the Maine Legislature to Congress, but I have never once seen him do anything to stop our mills and manufacturers from leaving. The most Michaud offered was a few words and a visit when a mill closed down.
In fact, as Maine Senate president, Michaud sponsored and passed a bill to stop Great Northern from selling its electricity back to the grid during slowdowns. Gov. Paul LePage this year came together with the Legislature to repeal Michaud’s law because the mill said it couldn’t survive with Michaud’s law on the books.
When I read the papers I see that Michaud has come a long way. Instead of looking out for people in northern Maine, he’s at a Kennebunkport garden party raising money from the Gabby Giffords gun control organization. It’s bad enough his policies took away our jobs; now he wants to take away our Second Amendment rights?
It’s sad to see that he’s one of only a handful of congressmen to insist on driving a taxpayer-funded car when he comes back home. In this case, he’s footing the people with the bill for an $800 per month hybrid SUV, which he leased from one of his campaign donors, no less.
Throughout his 12 years in Congress, Michaud has not gotten a single one of his bills signed into law, being named twice to Roll Call Magazine’s “Obscure Caucus” for his lack of accomplishment.
During his 22 years in the Maine Legislature before that, instead of saving mill jobs, he was focused on things such as taxing Social Security benefits and giving the money to state employees, creating the massive hospital debt by expanding Medicaid to able-bodied young people, and protecting his mentor, Speaker John Martin, from the consequences of his cronyism.
Just contrast what Michaud has done in 34 years as a politician to what Gov. Paul LePage has achieved in less than four years.
Gov. LePage is bringing natural gas to Maine homes and mills and working to bring inexpensive hydro power back to the state. He instituted a 5-year cap and drug testing for welfare recipients while barring illegal immigrants from getting the benefits struggling Mainers need. He saved the nursing homes by trimming welfare spending and paid off the massive hospital debt built up by Michaud and Gov. John Baldacci.
LePage cut taxes, streamlined regulations, and saved the state pension system from its looming shortfall. But he’s not finished yet.
There’s a long way to go and it will take a while to turn things around in Lincoln, but I’m starting to see progress under LePage’s leadership statewide. There are 20,000 new private sector jobs and Maine’s employment rate ranks among the top three in the nation since the Great Recession. The unemployment rate has dropped from 8.0 to 5.5 percent.
I, for one, am tired of the same old politicians who chase the benefits of fame while jobs slip away here at home. We’ve got to keep Governor LePage in office because he’s not a typical politician. He’s shaking things up in Augusta and bringing Maine’s economy the reforms that Michaud, Baldacci, and liberal politicians failed to deliver.
Rep. Jeffery Gifford, R-Lincoln, is serving his final term in the Maine House of Representatives.
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