return to budgets beholden to the liberal special interests. >> watch american history tv every weekend on c-span3. next, maine governor paul lepage gives his final state of the state address, where he told state lawmakers he would not implement a voter-approved measure to expand medicaid without a way to pay for it. he also talked about jobs, the local economy, and energy policy among other topics. from augusta, this is an hour and a half. >> thank you so much. members of the 128th legislature, distinguished guests, my fellow citizens, i want to briefly remember paul mitchell, brother of senator mitchell who passed away this weekend. he was a dedicated public servant and a good friend. as i begin the last state of the state address of my time as governor of the great state of maine, let me be first to thank my wife. honey, please stand. [ applause ] first of all, she looks gorgeous. [ applause ] she has been unwavering as a representative from the governor to the people of the state of maine, and she's done it with grace, with dignity, and she's never said no that i can recall. she's just unbelievable. and in case i forget, happy valentine's day. [ applause ] i also want to thank our children. and tonight there are two that are here. lauren, who you've all heard and known. she's been with me since 2010. now she's on her own, trying to set her own career, and i want to tell you, before it's done, she's going to tower over what i've ever accomplished. my other daughter, lisa, who has two children i'm so proud of, and she has a son that's very active. and all i can tell you is payback's a bitch. [ applause ] because i remember when she was young. to staff sergeant robert fowler, installation squadron, thank you for your service to the state of maine and to the united states of america. you make us very proud to be the outstanding officer in 2018. and i cannot be any happier, and my wife, anne, and the first lady, is so proud to be seated next to you as she is such a dedicated person of our military. [ applause ] a little unusual. i'm going to thank a few people or recognize a few people tonight. and one is sergeant angela kowistra. and, believe me, i don't really know how to pronounce her last name. but she is head of the security detail. and in our home at the blaine house, the rule is this. if my wife's not around, angela is in charge. and the other one is holly lusk. holly lusk is my chief of staff who just took over recently. and i was approached by the press in saying, holy mackerel, you seem to be more assertive than you've ever been. well, holly has the distinction of getting me out of my shyness. [ applause ] tonight i'm here to speak to you about the future of maine. the future of this great state. we have made some progress, but there is so much more we could have done and we should have done. but as we move forward, i hope that you can get it done. in his last state of the union, ronald reagan said, if anyone expects just a proud recitation of the accomplishments of my administration, i say leave it to history. we're not finished yet. so my message tonight is very similar. put on your work boots. our job is not done. now is not the time to slow down. now is the time to work until the very last minute of my administration. the last day, as they inaugurate the new governor in 2019, i hope to take my lovely wife and i, sit back, take some rest, and get to enjoy each other's company once again. i came into office saying i would put people before politics, and i have tried to do that every single day. politics as usual puts our most vulnerable at risk. as most of you know, i'm not a big fan of status quo. today, special interests continue to hijack our ballot box, and politicians continue to kowtow to wealthy lobbyists and welfare activists. the legislature has forgotten about the mainers who mean the most, our elderly, our intellectually and physically disabled, and even our youth are being left out of the process. i vow to spend my final year as governor fighting for those mainers whose voice is not heard here in augusta. [ applause ] for the last seven years, i have heard that the left is compassiona compassionate. subsidizing solar panels for wealthy homeowners at the expense of the poorest people in maine is not compassion. raising taxes on hardworking families to expand welfare entitlements for able-bodied people is not compassionate. catering to activists in the halls of the statehouse instead of struggling family businesses on main street is not compassion. i know what it's like to need help, and i know some representatives. i see craig there, and we've talked about it recently. we know what it is to have rough times. we understand that it's not always easy. that's why every saturday i meet with constituents one-on-one. we talk about their problems. i have been accused of getting involved with people's personal lives and trying to fight for them from my office. it is all our jobs. it is our jobs as elected officials to help them. we are, after all, public servants. for the last seven years, my priority has been to make all mainers prosper, and i have been fighting both sides of the aisle because i believe that both sides of the aisle need to be working closer together. too many maine families are facing skyrocketing taxes. our elderly on fixed incomes are particularly vulnerable to these increases. yet simply we cannot tax our way to prosperity. as chief judge john marshall wrote, the power to tax is the power to destroy. school budgets are not commonly blamed but are normally blamed for tax increases. the real culprit is the tremendous amount of land and property value we've allowed to be taken off our tax rolls, leaving homeowners to pick up the tab. these landowners must contribute to our tax base. it's time for all land and real estate owners to take the burden off homeowners and pay taxes or a fee in lieu of taxes. the federal government does it. m maine's property tax people, homeowners, need a break. we -- you and i -- need to make sure that the large foundations, the natural resource council of maine who are ripping off the landowner in the state of maine need to step up to the plate. they can put all the land they want in conservation, but they have to contribute to society. [ applause ] it's going to be the same thing as last year. all those who have exercises during the course of this meeting, you're welcome to the blaine house. the rest of you, you know, you got to break a sweat sometimes. we propose allowing municipalities to collect property taxes or fees from large nonprofit entities, and we've tried to require land trusts to contribute to the tax rolls. we have been met with staunch resistance from the democrats. now, let's talk about this. let's think outside the box. tough problems need tough decisions and tough solutions. i don't walk away from tough decisions, and i think i've proven it many times, even this last weekend. and i'm not embarrassed to tell you it's the right decision. we need to be efficient and effective leaders for this state. we established an online registry for all nonprofits to report conservation landownership. the result of our property tax exem exemptions reported within municipalities exceeds $18 billion. think about that. $18 billion. the loss of that tax rev knenues shifted over $350 million to guess who? hardworking property owners in the state of maine. my office is going to be distributing to each one of you the total value of property taken off the tax rolls for each town along with the estimated increase in taxes that the annual homeowner has had to pay. it's going to be out tomorrow. you can run away, but you can't hide. the maine people need your help, and you need to stand up and be counted in this dialogue. it's not you can continue to put land on conservation, and i compliment you for that. let's save the planet, but let's pay our fair share. you need to pay your taxes. [ applause ] over 4 million acres have been conserved by the federal/state governments as well as nonprofit organizations such as land trusts. nearly 20% of this state is conserved from development. ladies and gentlemen and people of the state of maine, this area is larger than the entire state of connecticut. think about that. we have taken the state of connecticut and made it tax-exempt. in 1993, about 35,800 acres of land was owned by land trusts. that number has increased by an astonishing 1,270% since 1993. land trusts now control over one-half million acres with an estimated taxable value of $400 million. i'm all in for conservation, but they need to contribute towards the hardworking mainers in the state of maine. we cannot just turn our backs and walk away. we need and could have a state that is every bit as prosperous as the state of new hampshire. all we need to do is make sure that everybody contributes. ask your local officials how much land in your community has been taken off the tax rolls. then ask them how much tax revenue they could be contributing to help the property tax owners of maine. the desire to preserve land without benefit to the taxpayer or their input is out of control. we must restore balance. we must ensure that all property owners are required to contribute to the local tax base. everyone must pay their fair share. now, i have listened to the fair-share comment at least a thousand times in the last eight years. it's not only here in the halls of government, but it's in your communities. everyone has to pay a fair share. it's common sense. let me move on. richard and lynette sukforth are the elderly couple evicted from their home due to their inability to pay their property taxes on their fixed income. due to health reasons, mr. and mrs. sukforth were unable to attend tonight. there are two or three other couples that have gone through the same thing, and they are also elderly and weren't able to get them arranged to get here tonight. but i will tell you this. in 2015, the tone of albion forecasted on the sukforths' home and sold it. $6,500. the property was worth between $70,000 and $80,000. a compassionate neighbor offered to pay their taxes on the day the lien perfected, and the town officials refused to accept the money. folks, the town refused. i don't believe there's a person in this room, whether they're in the gallery or sitting here as elected officials, that would think that that is a proper thing to do. if somebody walks in and is willing to help these people, why couldn't they? i was told that it's one example. i'm telling you it's a lot more. as we're digging into it now, there's a lot more. a lot more than you realize. and i will tell you this, though. i will say this. we're finding out that some of the cities are far more compassionate than some of the rural towns. but it's a problem. this couple was removed from their home. mrs. sukforth was bedridden from a stroke. they lost everything, all of their equity and everything else. the abutting landowner that bought it demolished it and evicted them. i wish i had learned from the sukforths a little earlier because we could have intervened, and we tried. but it was too late to help them. i've submitted a bill to protect the elderly from tax lien foreclose going forward. i am not suggesting, and if you need to sit with me and talk about changing the language of the bill, please work with me. i am not suggesting that we cannot and will outlaw foreclosing on elderly. what i am saying is very simply this. as a mayor for eight years in the city of waterville, i never had to throw an elderly couple out of their homes because there are options. when you file a lien, it takes 18 months to perfect. a town official has 18 months to work with this family, and i urge you all to have the compassion to work with them so that we can preserve whatever little equity they have, stay in their home for as long as they can because ultimately, guess who picks up the tab? i can tell you right now that mr. and mrs. sukforth are in a nursing home. they're both very ill. and since they lost everything, we, the people, are picking up the tab. they didn't want that. they were very proud people. mrs. sukforth is a veteran. he's from the greatest generation that they don't ask for handouts. we, the public officials of this state, threw them on the street. we must fight to protect our parents and our grandparents, whose fixed income cannot keep up with the rising cost of property taxes. this common sense solution will require municipalities to put a little bit more effort and show a little bit of compassion for the people who live in their communities. and, frankly, i don't think that's too much to ask. when i was mayor, we would have folk who's had problems with their taxes. they would come in, and i see a counselor that i would share in those meetings that we never had to throw people out. and there were some really sad stories, but we always fondund way. and i think we as mainers have the fortitude to do that. and we don't have to make it very complex. it could be a couple -- a one-paragraph. do everything you can before you foreclose. that's all we ask. [ applause ] thank you. i want to thank representative epsling for sponsoring this bill, and i truly, from the bottom of my heart, urge you all to support this bill because it can be made very simple, and it can be made so that we'll all want to do the right thing. and there's many, many options available to elderly. the problem has always been they simply don't know. so i think that's a really good opportunity for this body. i want to get into the tax -- because i'm on a roll on taxes. a family of four earning $90,000 pays 29% less today than they did when we did the tax package. a family of four earning $35,000, who were paying $298 in income tax no longer pay income tax [ applause ] and despite the rhetoric that you hear from people, this is not wealthy people. this is not tax breaks for the rich. these are tax breaks for hardworking mainers. the people of the state of maine's per capita income is around $42,000. new hampshire is $74,000. the number-one highest per capita income in the united states of america, they border our state, and we haven't figured out their secret yet. we ought to try. [ applause ] the new federal tax cut and jobs act will provide more savings for families and businesses. the federal tax cut will result in an estimated economic benefit of approximately $1 billion in 2019 for mainers. more than $500 million of that will be direct income tax benefits to the maine families and to small businesses in the state of maine. however, whenever congress changes the federal tax code, maine has to make a decision whether to conform to the federal tax code or to stay on its own. we have historically and most states with an income tax have historically stayed and conformed with the federal tax code. doing it is better for maine because it simplifies the tax code. it keeps one tax system. not doing so means the state of maine has to go on to its own and hire a whole lot of people and beef up their income tax division. for that reason, i am proposing legislation to conform fully to the federal tax code. however, again, because of the hard work that's been done over the last seven years and in reducing our taxes, dealing with the exemptings and the standard deductions, which the federal government is doing now, if we conform fully, we are going to be having a tax increase. i am asking you all that this is really federal tax dollars, and i'm asking you to pass it on to the maine people. conform but pass it on because that's the right thing to do. [ applause ] and i'm asking you that if you don't, i will not use the tax cuts the federal government is trying to pass on to americans -- i will stand in the way and allow it to conform and not pass it on. i'm simply not going to. in fact, i think after seven years, you probably got the hint that i'm not big on increasing taxes. i do believe in conformity, and i do believe in medicaid expansion. medicaid expansion, while i think it's a bad public policy, when you give able-bodied people a free ride t is t, it is the l our state. i will enforce the law of the state. [ applause ] that's the good news. that is the good news. now, let me give you the bad news. medicaid expansion is the law, and i will execute the law. but funding is a legislative constitutional duty, and it is the legislature's responsibility to appropriate the funds. appropriate the money so we can implement the law sooner than later. i do not believe it's appropriate for this body to wait till after the november elections. do it now. do it now. the people of maine, if you believe in it, then fund it. i have laid out some basic principles to guide your decision on how to pay medicaid expansion. i will not jeopardize the state's long-term fiscal health. we must avoid the budget disasters of the past, and many of you were here, and you know what i'm talking about. we paid off $750 million to our hospitals. we must fund medicaid expansion in a way that is sustainable and ongoing. therefore, my principles are very, very simple. no tax increases on maine families or businesses. no use of the budget stabilization fund, which is better known as the rainy day fund. no use of other one-time funding mechanisms known as gimmicks. you all know what i'm talking about. fully fund the vulnerable mainers who are still waiting for services. [ applause ] no reductions of services or funding for nursing homes or people with disabilities. [ applause ] it would be fiscally irresponsible for the legislature to demand we implement medicaid expansion without adequate funding. it is simply not too much to ask a legislature to prioritize our truly needy over those looking for taxpayer-funded handouts. and i'm very serious when i tell you that it's important that the disabled, the elderly, and those with the intellectual disabilities are put in front of the line and not behind the line. [ applause ] dhfs cannot hire and train the additional 105 people to run expanded medicaid program without money. we cannot pay the state's share of new enrollees' medical bills without funding. democrats, hospitals, advocacy groups, and wealthy out of state interests who campaigned for this referendum claim that adding 80,000 people onto this program will save us money. and i will tell you right now, i will take you to your word. show me the money and put it in writing. [ applause ] before this election, show the maine people that what you campaigned on is the truth, and i will be the first one to admit that i was wrong. but i will tell you i have been trained in this business of finance for many, many years. and there's only two ways to fund this program. one is the way you say it could be done because there are savings, and the other one is with new revenues. and either way, you have the responsibility to make sure that the executive branch and the department of health and human services has the resources necessary to move forward. and i'm ready to do it. [ applause ] i now ask theresa daigle and josiah godfrey to please stand up. if you look back at the top, these are people you should be thinking about. theresa has shared with me the hardships she and her son have experienced while awaiting services for his physical and intellectual challenges. josiah has autism, an intellectual disability, and bipolar disorder. he qualifies for services, but he is stuck on a wait list. because his mother needs to care for him, it will be impossible for her to continue working. she has been told that she could leave josiah at st. mary's and refuse to pick him up, thus making him homeless and available for section 21. mainers, this is wrong. it's absolutely highway robbery to do that to a maine citizen who is actually a constituent of all of ours, and we need to take care of our own! [ applause ] i ask the legislature fully fund these programs so people like the daigles can get the help they desperately need and qualify for. it would be unconscionable to have to do the nuclear option and leave josiah so he can get services. we are better than that. you are better than that, and we need to take care of it now. [ applause ] now i'm going to get on my high horse. any legislators tell me they don't pass bad bills. i had a whole list, but i've decided to just cut it down to one that is current and one that i feel very, very passionate about and my family does, and my wife does in particular because she's given so much of her time for the military. i vetoed a bill that would prohibit 18-year-old adults from buying cigarettes, but the legislature overturned it. the law denies rights and responsibilities to 18-year-old adults who want to purchase a legal product. folks, this is not about cigarettes. no one should ever start smoking because it's a little difficult to quit. actually, i will say it's not that bad. i've done it seven times. it is a terrible thing to do, but this is about protecting one's personal choices from an ever-expanding nanny state. our laws must recognize one age when adulthood begins. you, the legislature, must pick that age. you know, i don't care if the age is 18, and i don't care if it's 21, but it can't be both. [ applause ] legislators have no problem letting 18-year-olds vote for them in elections or die in wars. let's think about that a moment. legislators think 18-year-olds are not adult enough to decide whether they can buy a pack of cigarettes, but they think 18-year-olds are adult enough to vote on complex referendums like the legalization of marijuana, the elimination of the tip credit, and a 3% tax surcharge that almost devastated our economy. think about that. thank god, thank god that cooler heads prevailed because economically, folks, that was an absolute financial disaster. just the period between november and the time in which we shut down government, 500 prominent, affluent people said, i'm done with the state of maine. it would have continued. young adults should be treated like young adults. if an 18-year-old can fight for our country, pay taxes, get married, divorced, make personal medical life and death decisions, then let 18-year-olds be the maturity age. let them be adults. as a parent, i will tell you i would much prefer 21 because i have a son. and when he was going through college and when i was in college, because there are very few in this room that were around when i was in college -- i mean i was abraham lincoln's roommate. but the point was it was a draft. you didn't have a choice then. and i will tell you in vietnam we lost 55,000 soldiers. 38,000, 38,000 were 18-year-olds. nearly 45,000 of the 55,000 were under 21. folks, if we're going to put a rifle on their back and send them to war, i think we owe it to them to help them have the maturity to make the decision whether they could buy a pack of cigarettes or not. so my message to you is educate, don't legislate. it's time. [ applause ] we are the oldest state in the nation, and we must attract people to maine. as a matter of fact, i would prefer attracting young people to maine. our current position requires us to get serious about growing our state. i'm going to ask you all to please join in that effort. let's talk about it. let's try to move in that direction. i put forward a bill -- i will put forward bills this session to support investment in maine and the development of our workforce. we have spent seven years fixing maine's balance sheet. now is the time to make strategic investments in our economy and for the people of the state of maine. our barn sales have not focused on commercialization. i support commercialization of bonds. maine has always supported research and development, and that is good. it's critical. it's important. and the hope has always been to create jobs. r & d is very critical, but it's not enough to bring the innovative products to market. developing a patent that sits on a shelf is not a good return on investments to the taxpayers, and that's what's happened in the past. most of our money in r & d has gone to universities. it's gone to jackson lab. it's gone for research and development and patents, and at one point earlier on in my tenure as governor, we had 37 patents on shelves collecting dust. our innovators create a vast array of the products in many industries, biotech, high tech, forest products, manufacturing, agriculture agroponics. we must invest in commercialization in addition to what we've done in research. we have to do both. let's get our products to market. let's be who we used to be, innovators, creators. here in maine, we were leaders in the boating industry. we were leaders in the forestry and the paper industry. we were there. but we've gotten dumb, fat, and happy. i had to go out and lose 75 pounds to wake up. the bottom line is this. maine needs to reinvent itself, and the time has come. we need to do it now. [ applause ] i believe a commercialization bond will go a long ways in helping companies like new page, who wants to put in a new tissue machine. it will go a long ways and some of the people i will talk about in a little bit, that there's some great things happening and some great companies that are looking at maine to come and invest. the paper companies may have left, but the 18 million acres of forest land are still here. let's reinvent ourselves. let's get into better, more high-tech products. let's get into the 21st century and move this state so we can catch new hampshire. [ applause ] but and -- it's but and. if we are to survive and succeed, we need to grow our workforce and to keep our economy growing. record numbers of baby boomers are entering retirement. employers need to replace these skilled workers. for our economy to continue to grow, we must attract and retain young workforce. not only will these young people work in our industries, but they will also buy homes. they will pay taxes, invigorate our communities, and, yes, most important for maine right now, is have children. we need to have children. our schools are losing population. we need to reinvent ourselves again and put more kids in our schools. my wife and i are done. [ applause ] we can and should invest in relieving the burden of student debt for those who want to stay in maine or choose to relocate to maine to start their professional career. no one else is doing it. [ applause ] loan payments prevent our young people from buying a house, a car, or spending their money in local businesses. many take higher-paying jobs out of state to survive. they simply cannot afford to live in maine. that is unconscionable as parents. we should do everything we can to turn that around. we cannot continue to sit by and watch employers have vacant positions that young people could fill. i will be submitting legislation, again, to create a fund -- to create funds to make strategic investment in our youth. my initiative, the maine student debt relief program, calls for a $50 million bond to fund zero-interest student loans to maine kids who attend maine schools. [ applause ] it also calls for a new low interest refinancing program to encourage graduates from other states to move to maine. and so many people that i've met in the course of the travels this last seven years will say, maine's so beautiful. love to live there, but it's so expensive. and it is. it is. and there's no question about it. and until we realize that we have to get involved in commercialization and we have to develop a training program for young people and attract young people, we are always going to be a very high-cost place to live. so in addition to just asking the legislature to simplify the opportunity maine credit and providing low-income loans and interest-free loans to our students, let's increase the credit so that employers can get involved in paying off student debt. it could be a hiring mechanism for employers. you come to maine. i'll not only pay you x, but i'll help you pay your loans off. we've already put it on the books. and yet when i was in washington, i spoke to the president and to ivanka trump, who is on the program, to take phantom income at the national level and get rid of it for phantom income for students. and i also said maine would be a great place to have a pilot. [ applause ] i'm going to ask you one other thing, to have a very serious dialogue. and i don't expect it to happen this year, but i really do believe you need to have this dialogue. good-paying jobs attract good workers. to attract manufacturing jobs, more than half the states, 28 in fact, have now passed right to work legislation. [ applause ] i'm going to talk a little bit of reality here. 28 states now have right to work, and the most recent state to become right to work was the state of kentucky in 2017. and within three months after they announced it, toyota committed. amazon committed. and another company, i think it's called bailey industries or baylor industries, committed. in 2017, the state of kentucky received commitments for $9.1 billion of capital investment, setting a new record of the previous high of being $5 billion.

Related Keywords

United States , Waterville , Maine , Connecticut , New Hampshire , Vietnam , Republic Of , Kentucky , American , Ronald Reagan , Robert Fowler , Theresa Daigle , Holly Lusk , Henry Hank Thomas , Abraham Lincoln , Statesof America ,