LePage’s good deeds

To the Editor;

I agree many of the comments our governor has made should never have been made. That said I don’t think we can forget about all the good this man has done for the state he loves.

I just finished reading a report about how Maine roads have improved from 18th in the nation to fifth. I served eight years on the Legislature’s Transportation Committee, and I can remember the deplorable condition our roads were in when LePage took office. Roads were bad and on course to get worse with no money in the paving budget. LePage got us back on track and roads have improved every year since with no tax increase. In fact, we repealed the automatic gas tax increase.

We can thank LePage for paying off a hospital debt of $700 million without raising taxes.

One of this governor’s biggest accomplishments gets no notice at all. When he took office we owed the state retirement system $4.5 billion. In 1996, we passed a referendum requiring that debt be paid off by 2026. Budget writers had been kicking the can down the road by reducing the current payment, and increasing it in the out years knowing we would never be able to make payments of $600 million or $700 million a year. LePage has reduced that debt to $2.5 billion and got us on a plan to get it paid off by the constitutional deadline.

That’s on top of reducing income tax rates and welfare rolls.

Doug Thomas
Ripley