Category: Maine
Small Businesses Called Key to Rebuilding Economy
BUSINESS
Bangor Daily News
Drew FitzGerald
Boston University Washington News Service
March 27, 2009
WASHINGTON – The key to reviving Maine’s faltering economy is restoring national confidence in small businesses, say Maine’s members of Congress, who are encouraging firms to start spending and investing now.
“In Maine, it’s small businesses that are creating virtually all the new jobs,” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said in an interview Thursday. “Virtually all the large businesses that we have in Maine are scaling back their operations.”
Sen. Olympia Snowe, the senior Republican on the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, said the nation will be “almost wholly dependent” on small firms in bringing the economy out of the recession, which is why Congress and the administration are lowering credit barriers for small businesses.
Snowe said the 2010 budget proposed by the president and modified by Democrats this week guaranteed less funding for the federal Small Business Administration than she would have liked, but its $700 million baseline funding represents an improvement over past years.
“I think there is a depreciation of the value of small businesses in our nation’s economy,” Snowe said, also in an interview Thursday. “We simply don’t do enough. Small business was a natural constituency for Republicans, yet we diminished and undermined [the Small Business Administration] for eight years.”
Among other provisions, the stimulus law signed last month raises the maximum guarantee to 90 percent on certain SBA loans, increases the New Market Tax Credit Allocation to $5 billion through 2009 and offers a series of tax breaks.
The growing need for relief was highlighted this week by new unemployment figures. After months of continuing job losses, Maine’s unemployment rate rose to 8 percent in February, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Among other temporary assistance efforts, the Labor Department offered a $254,516 emergency grant to assist workers laid off from Wausau Paper after Rep. Mike Michaud, D-Maine, requested the aid in December.
Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, a small business owner herself, held an open house at her Portland office last month for business owners to learn how to benefit from stimulus dollars.
Looking ahead, Collins said she finds the idea of tax breaks for small business dividends as an “intriguing” way to free up capital market.
A second proposal being discussed aims to persuade businesses to speed up their own investments through a tax credit that shrinks progressively over the next year and a half. The credit could serve as an incentive for firms to spend early, helping break the cycle of uncertainty that has brought new investments to a crawl, Collins said.
“A lot of business owners have told me that they’ve put investment decisions on hold because the economy is so uncertain,” Collins said. “If you can unfreeze those investments by giving a tax credit that’s only going to be available for 18 months and that is more generous the earlier you use it, it would unlock some of those investments.”
In the meantime, lawmakers also are working to help businesses cut costs on energy and health care. The stimulus package included a tax credit for wind, geothermal and to a lesser degree biomass, tidal and hydroelectric energy. As these industries, which could provide less expensive electricity, are developed, new jobs would be created.
“Maine is perfectly positioned based on its natural resource base, its entrepreneurial predisposition and its inclination for innovation to develop renewable energy sources,” Snowe said. “I think we’re going to see a real potential there for investments in those rural areas.”
Renewable energy production could prove an economic driver “in and of itself,” Maine State Chamber of Commerce President Dana Connors said in a telephone interview, but he cautioned that any legislation must not raise the overall cost of energy in the state.
“The bottom-line test for all of these initiatives is will it reduce our costs,” Connors said. “Don’t add costs, because we’re all living on razor’s edge.”
Health care is a heavier burden but also a more complicated long-term problem to solve for businesses, Connors said. The chamber is open to new ideas, especially on ways to entice private insurers to the state.
“We always struggle with health care,” he said. “The problem with the private market is that it’s never free of the influence of government… We kind of have to let that play itself out.”
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Senate Slow to Take up Bill that Would Tax Executive Bonuses
bonusbill
Bangor Daily News
Drew FitzGerald
Boston University Washington News Service
March 26, 2009
WASHINGTON – One week after the House of Representatives rushed to pass legislation imposing heavy taxes on bonuses paid to American International Group executives, Senate leaders are signaling they could take two weeks or more before they address it.
The bill the House passed last week would impose a 90 percent tax on executive bonuses paid by corporations that received more than $5 billion in bailout money. But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said senators might not debate the House bill or a more moderate version from the Senate Finance Committee until late April.
Asked Wednesday about the House bill’s chances, Sen. Arlen Spector, R-Pa., said the bill would be in better shape “if it were on life support.”
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, an original sponsor of legislation that would tax executive bonuses, called the Obama administration responsible for the delay.
“The resistance for this legislation emanates from the administration – no question,” Snowe said in an interview. “By all admissions and all accounts that was the case.”
One effort Snowe proposed with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., in February would have taxed all large bonuses that bailout recipients paid their executives in 2008 at an extra 35 percent. Snowe aides acknowledged the legislation would not have rescinded the AIG bonuses paid this spring, but it would have applied to larger bonuses paid by other firms.
The Snowe-Wyden amendment passed the Senate on a voice vote with little public opposition but vanished after Democrats hammered out the final version of the bill in conference committee. When Congress passed the final bill that arrived on President Barack Obama’s desk, the provision had been completely stripped.
“That had to come from the administration,” Snowe said. “There’s no question about that.”
But Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, expressed concerns about the Snow-Wyden legislation during an appearance on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" Sunday.
"We need to be careful," Collins said according to a transcript of the program. "The problem with the Senate bill is it is so wide in its scope that it would apply to tens of thousands of employees all across this country who had nothing to do with getting us in this mess."
Snowe said the Senate proposal would not punish middle-class executives because it would apply only to bonuses of more than $50,000.
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As Outrage Grows, Congress Lashes AIG Chief Executive Over Bonus Debacle
BONUSES
Bangor Daily News
Drew FitzGerald
Boston University Washington News Service
March 18, 2009
WASHINGTON – Lawmakers expressed surprise and outrage Wednesday as they learned the details of $165 million in bonuses that troubled insurer American International Group paid some of its executives while accepting billions in government bailout money.
Recognizing surging public anger over the retention bonuses AIG paid its top employees – some of whom worked at the same troubled securities trading unit that drove the company to the brink of failure – House and Senate members offered strong rebukes and new legislation to help get back the taxpayer money used to pay the executives.
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said she will help resubmit a stronger version of legislation she and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., sponsored last month to retrieve large bonuses issued by companies receiving government assistance under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. The revived proposal would tax the companies and possibly the individuals who refuse to give back the money.
Congressional Democrats in conference committee removed her amendment to the stimulus bill, replacing it with weaker language, Snowe said.
“It’s virtually a toothless provision, and ours was practically ironclad,” Snowe said in a later telephone interview. The negotiations were “all behind closed doors,” she said, “so it was very difficult to ascertain what was happening.”
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she voted against authorizing new bailout funds because of the lack of transparency in the first phase of funding.
“I am angry that the Treasury Department failed to exercise its authority to prohibit these bonuses in the first place,” Collins said in a statement. “As a condition of AIG receiving funds, the Treasury Department should have included a contractual requirement prohibiting the company from awarding these outrageous bonuses.”
AIG did not notify the Treasury Department about its latest retention bonuses until last week but did communicate the details to the Federal Reserve, according to testimony Edward Liddy, the CEO of AIG, offered Wednesday before the House Financial Services Committee.
Liddy apologized repeatedly for the payments, noting he joined AIG after the company signed off on the bonuses and could not rescind the compensation without breaking legal contracts. He did, however, surprise committee members by announcing that he had asked recipients to give back half of their bonuses, adding that some had voluntarily returned all their compensation.
But the CEO defended his decision to retain the employees who received the bonuses, saying their expertise was needed to manage the $1.6 trillion the company still owes.
“There’s still risk that that could blow up,” he said.
Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., threatened to subpoena AIG for the names of the executives who received the bonuses and said the government, which by bailing out AIG took an 80 percent stake in the company, might have the authority to rescind the bonuses.
Snowe said the government can and should retrieve taxpayer money from the companies, but said the Senate proposal “may be a better way to go about it to address the concerns of constitutionality.”
Snowe nevertheless criticized the heads of corporations like AIG and Merrill Lynch for their “dismissive” and “arrogant” attitude toward public opinion and Congress. She said to her knowledge the heads of those corporations never notified the Finance Committee they were dispensing bonuses after receiving government bailout funds.
“It’s a mindset and a culture on Wall Street,” she said. “They don’t understand it’s a new day.”
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Report Finds 1.5 Million Children Homeless in U.S.
HOMELESS
Bangor Daily News
Drew FitzGerald
Boston University Washington News Service
March 10, 2009
WASHINGTON – About one in 50 children in the United States is homeless, according to a report released Tuesday that says a weak economy could push that number even higher without quick government and community action.
The National Center on Family Homelessness, a Massachusetts nonprofit organization that studies and advocates solutions for youth homelessness, estimated more than 1.5 million children accompanied by a guardian go homeless each year, not counting the 575,000 to 1.6 million youth who sleep away from home because they are runaway or shut out..
The survey does not just count families in shelters or on the street. About half of homeless children are living in often crowded houses or apartments with relatives or family friends.
New England states ranked among the best in the nation for preventing and combating child homelessness, with Maine earning the ninth best rating. Texas scored the worst, largely because poverty levels in southern states are often double the rates in the North, said Dr. Ellen Bassuk, president of the center.
“It’s a very deep problem,” Bassuk said during a conference call with reporters. “There isn’t a place in the nation where a mom working full-time at minimum wage can afford a two-bedroom apartment.”
The wave of foreclosures hitting the United States this year gives added urgency to providing families with stable homes, the report said. Bassuk urged the federal government to boost funding for housing vouchers, emergency shelters and food stamps to head off an increase in the number of families shut out from their homes due to economic circumstances.
“You’ve got a pool of children here who are suffering much more and are much more at risk,” Gloria Guard, president of the Philadelphia-based People’s Emergency Center, said during the conference call. “It would make sense to target programs to these kids. And the worst part is they’re captive.”
The organization also urged states to make simple changes to their family housing policies, such as placing the newly homeless in rented houses rather than motels.
Maine was one of six states highlighted for its “extensive” state support of homeless families through its 10-year plan on homelessness.
Officials dealing with homelessness in Maine meet each month to ensure services are reaching all families that need them, said Shawn Yardley, director of Bangor’s Health and Community Services department. Still, he said the number of homeless families could be underreported among some of the families that stay in other people’s houses.
“While I think it’s good that people take care of their neighbors or relatives, I would not want people to have the false sense that those numbers are lower than they are,” Yardley said.
Helping homeless youth adjust to their new environments is critical, Yardley said. New schools can be as jarring as temporary housing, he said, and without school liaisons to help them, uprooted youths will continue to lag behind their peers.
“We all know the consequences of under-realized potential in young people,” he said.
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Lawmakers Aim to Prevent Waste in Stimulus Contracts
OVERSIGHT
Bangor Daily News
Drew FitzGerald
Boston University Washington News Service
March 5, 2009
WASHINGTON – Senators grilled federal auditors Thursday on ways to prevent waste and fraud as the government doles out the first portions of a $787 billion economic stimulus package.
The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which is charged with the task of overseeing the billions of stimulus dollars aimed at saving and creating jobs and boosting consumer spending, asked federal inspectors how they would monitor the money, at least $58 billion of which has already been allocated to specific programs, according to the Office of Management and Budget.
Lawmakers said it could be difficult balancing efficiency with the need to spend the stimulus funds quickly, which most economists say is necessary if the money is to effectively boost the economy. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the senior Republican on the committee, pressed auditors to hire more talent soon.
“The federal hiring process is so encumbered with regulation that it’s very difficult for you to hire people quickly, even if they’re supremely qualified,” Collins told Department of Agriculture Inspector General Phyllis Fong. Collins said she is working with Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., on a bill to make it easier to temporarily hire more auditors.
Collins pointed to the federal Web site Recovery.gov, which has already received more than 1 million hits, as a sign of the stimulus program’s transparency and told the auditors she would like the site to expand to include more details on individual programs down to the state and local level.
“It’s going to take a little bit of time to reform the Web site, but it’s certainly a step in the right direction,” Collins said later in a phone interview. “The more eyes that we have on these expenditures, the better it will protect us against mismanagement, waste and outright fraud.”
The House version of the stimulus bill also contained a provision that would shield federal workers who expose corruption in stimulus grants and contracts, but Collins said Senate negotiators agreed to remove the protections from the bill, citing concerns over national security.
Instead, Collins co-sponsored a separate whistle-blower protection bill on Tuesday, but it does not guarantee employees the right to a jury trial to defend themselves against agencies that seek to suppress information on waste.
The omission could make stimulus spending less transparent as a result, Marthena Cowart, spokeswoman for Project on Government Oversight, an independent nonprofit organization that investigates corruption in the federal government.
“It’s just not enough,” Cowart said in a phone interview. “We can all count on some of this money being misused, and we need to ensure that federal workers who are on the front lines of this… have access to a jury trial.”
Cowart added, however, that Collins has consistently advocated for federal whistleblower protection.
Collins defended the change, saying the existing forum for whistleblowers to defend themselves, the Merit Systems Protection Board, is a better system than allowing workers to take the cases to expensive jury trials.
Gene Dodaro, the acting comptroller general of the U.S. Government Accountability Office, told the committee his agency would monitor spending in 16 states that make up two-thirds of the nation’s population over the next few years but will largely rely on other states’ own auditors to root out waste in the program. Maine is among the states that will face less federal oversight.
The state government will hire one to two new employees in addition to auditors in the state controller’s office to ensure that stimulus projects in Maine meet federal requirements for efficiency and transparency, said David Farmer, deputy chief of staff for Gov. John Baldacci.
Baldacci also launched a Web site where Mainers can look up general information on where stimulus money is being spent in the state.
“We will be up to the task of doing this,” Farmer said.
In the 1st Congressional District, there will be a “recovery czar.” Rep. Chellie Pingree announced Thursday that Jackie Potter, former chief of staff to former Rep. Tom Allen, will help Maine businesses and individuals take advantage of stimulus funding.
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New Bill Would Allow Drug Imports From Canada
PRESCRIPTIONS
Bangor Daily News
Drew FitzGerald
Boston University Washington News Service
March 4, 2009
WASHINGTON – Americans could save as much as $50 billion in prescription drug costs under a revived Senate proposal that would allow pharmacies to import FDA-approved medicines from other countries, according to Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine.
It is “absolutely unconscionable” that high drug costs have forced patients to ration their prescriptions, Snowe said Wednesday at a press conference announcing the legislation. Snowe was an original cosponsor of the bill, a version of which was first introduced five years ago by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.
“Had that bill become law by now, many Americans would have access to lower drug prices that are already available in many industrialized nations,” Snowe said.
Snowe said allowing U.S. pharmacies to import cheaper drugs from countries like Canada would save consumers $50 billion and cut $10 billion in direct costs to Medicare and Medicaid over the next 10 years.
The latest legislation, which the senators have not yet officially introduced, would authorize the Food and Drug Administration to review and register foreign companies to export drugs to the United States.
Federal law currently prohibits pharmacies from importing prescription drugs, though individuals can travel to other countries and bring the drugs back themselves, said Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., another co-sponsor of the bill.
Previous efforts to end that import ban failed in the face of Bush administration opposition, but Snowe predicted swift passage of the legislation. “There is no question that we can get it done this year,” she said.
President Barack Obama co-sponsored a failed version of the bill when he was in the Senate and his administration backed the idea in its budget proposal last week.
A spokesman for Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said the senator would have to read the legislation but noted she cosponsored similar legislation in 2007. Aides to Reps. Mike Michaud and Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, said both supported the idea.
“I think there’s a tailwind here that wasn’t here previously,” Dorgan said.
Pharmaceutical industry representatives criticized the proposal, saying it cannot prevent counterfeited drugs entering the country.
“If the recent recall of foreign products has taught us anything, it is that Congress must better equip and fully fund the FDA so that it has the resources to do its job,” Ken Johnson, vice president of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said in a statement. “Now is not the time to weaken the Agency by moving forward with prescription drug importation.”
Snowe said the current inspection system does not do enough to ensure drugs’ safety, but she said the proposed bill would fund and enforce FDA inspections of drug manufacturers in other countries from start to finish.
“There will be inspections of every facility and approval by the FDA for every facility… [from which] we import these medications,” she said. “We just don’t say, ‘We certify the safety.’ We set up a standard for that safety regime.”
Pete Wyckoff, a co-chair of the National Coalition of Consumer Organizations on Aging, said the bill’s safety measures would make most drugs Americans consume safer than they are now.
“This has been vetted,” Wyckoff said. “The reason the pharmaceutical industry is so worried is because this can really make a difference in international prices.”
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U.S. Lumber Benefits From Court Ruling
LUMBER
Bangor Daily News
Drew FitzGerald
Boston University Washington News Service
Feb. 27, 2009
WASHINGTON – The U.S. lumber industry scored an economic victory Thursday after an international court ruled Canadian producers must pay millions of dollars in additional taxes for violating a bilateral trade agreement.
The London Court of International Arbitration said eastern Canadian producers violated the U.S.-Canada Softwood Lumber Agreement in 2007 by exceeding their export quotas. The agreement was designed to help U.S. producers compete on equal footing with Canadian producers, who can be subsidized when the provincial governments charge smaller fees to harvest timber from government land.
“We [the United States] felt strongly that they knowingly refused to implement it from day one, and we challenged it,” said Zoltan van Heyningen, executive director of the U.S. Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports.
The ruling requires Canada within 30 days to impose a 10 percent tariff on softwood exports from Québec, Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan until it collects $68 million in Canadian money.
The added charges, equal to about $53.6 million in U.S. money, make up a small slice of the more than $7 billion U.S. buyers spend annually on Canadian softwood lumber.
It is hard to quantify the ruling’s impact on U.S. producers, but they will be helped if the agreement is enforced, van Heyningen said.
Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade spokeswoman Renee David said Ottawa was disappointed that the court ruled against it and that there was no option for appeal. The government is reviewing the decision and deciding how it will enforce it, she added.
The cross-border dispute has by no means ended, with U.S. lumber advocates charging Canadian producers of dodging the agreement with new subsidies that include lower government fees and poorer quality ratings for timber.
In a statement released Friday, Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said the success of the “hard-won deal” depends on whether provincial Canadian governments enforce the agreement and clamp down on current and future subsidies. Low Canadian land use fees are testing the agreement’s effectiveness, she said.
John Allan, Canadian Lumber Trade Alliance secretary, disputed Snowe’s allegations, calling accusations of Canadian subsidies untrue and the products of “economic competition for a dwindling market.”
“Given the prices that we’ve seen for the last couple of years, this will have a huge negative impact on the eastern Canadian lumber industry,” he said.
Van Heyningen agreed that the weak economy has especially hurt the lumber industry, after a collapse in housing prices halted new construction and reduced demand for all building materials.
“The housing market is horrible, which is why it’s more important that it [the agreement] is adhered to,” he said. “Will it solve everything? No. But it will certainly help.”
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Spending Bill Steers $15 Million Toward Maine Projects
OMNIBUS
Bangor Daily News
Drew FitzGerald
Boston University Washington News Service
Feb. 26, 2009
WASHINGTON – Maine stands to get more than $15 million for programs ranging from emergency response to blueberry research under a long-delayed $410 billion bill to fund government operations that passed the House Wednesday night.
The proposal combines nine separate spending bills that never came to a final vote during the last congressional session. The last Congress passed a continuing resolution that provides for funding until March 6. This bill would fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.
The House passed the bill 245-178 with 16 Republicans voting for it. Reps. Mike Michaud and Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, both voted for it.
“It’s probably not a perfect piece of legislation, but it was needed to get us going so we can start with the 2010 budget cycle,” Michaud said.
Though congressional leaders said they passed a stimulus bill with no earmarks, the late 2009 spending bill was full of funding for specific local projects. Michaud set aside several provisions for Maine, including funds for national parks, agricultural research and town utilities.
Among the provisions:
- The proposal includes $190,000 to help restore rail service between Brewer and Hancock, which would serve vacation destinations in Eastern Maine.
- The University of Maine would receive $1.4 million for research on lobsters, blueberry cultivation science and pest tracking for potato growers. The bill also provides $2.2 million for the New England Plant, Soil and Water Research Laboratory.
- The Maine Tidal Power Initiative, a relatively new program, would receive $951,500 to study possible locations for renewable tidal power plants in on the coast. The project is a collaboration between the Maine Maritime Academy and the University of Maine.
- Maine health care facilities stand to gain, with $114,000 allocated for Bucksport Regional Health Center and $209,000 for Charles A. Dean Memorial Hospital in Greenville.
- The bill provides $200,000 for the Maine Warden Service to upgrade its search-and-rescue equipment. Michaud spokesman Ed Gilman said the service could use the money to buy night-vision goggles.
- At least $200,000 would go to the Maine Public Safety and Health Initiative, which assigns law enforcement to investigate drug trafficking and overdoses in the state.
Republican leaders blamed Democrats for passing what they called a bloated bill full of earmarks and called for a “spending freeze” in Washington.
“Congressional Democrats haven’t lost their appetite for spending in Washington,” National Republican Campaign Committee spokesman Ken Spain said in a statement.
The funding was proposed last year, so freshman Pingree did not make her mark on the legislation. The bill now goes to the Senate.
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Snowe Introduces Bill to Strengthen Title IX
TITLEIX
Bangor Daily News
Drew FitzGerald
Boston University Washington News Service
Feb. 25, 2009
WASHINGTON – Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said she aims to draw more girls to high school sports by making schools report the gender breakdown of their athletic programs and making that information available online.
In legislation proposed Tuesday, high schools would collect information on the gender and ethnicity of participants in school-sponsored athletic programs, including the number of practices, games and playoff appearances each team makes. Information on each school would be posted on the Department of Education’s Web site.
“While we’ve made tremendous progress in ensuring gender equity, students and parents can’t see whether the law is being followed because they don’t have key information about scholarships, opportunities or athletics budgets,” Snowe said in a statement Wednesday. “This bill would help us take those last couple steps and ensure that girls are getting the same chance to play sports as their male peers.”
The bill, also sponsored by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., would enact the same requirements for high schools that are already mandated for colleges and universities under Title IX, which requires that federal funds be distributed equally between male and female teams.
College athletic programs risk lawsuits from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights if they do not comply with Title IX, said Katie Herbine, associate athletic director for compliance at the University of Maine.
Stricter reporting requirements could force high schools to “open their eyes” to the fact that they are not complying with the law’s provision on gender parity, she said.
“Universities have been caught on this before,” Herbine said. “A lot of places do the best they can, but sometimes that’s not good enough.”
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Maine Members of Congress React to Obama’s Speech
MAINE REACT
Bangor Daily News
Drew FitzGerald
Boston University Washington News Service
Feb. 24, 2009
WASHINGTON – During a speech in which Republican senators often remained seated while Democrats applauded, Maine Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe stood up when President Barack Obama referred to the passage of a $787 billion stimulus package. They and Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn., were the only GOP senators to vote for the bill when it passed the Senate.
After the president’s speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night, Snowe released a statement lauding Obama’s “aggressive and ambitious agenda,” saying bipartisan cooperation will prove even more important now given the challenges facing the nation.
Snowe singled out Obama’s plan to reform the American health care system, the details of which the president said he would outline as soon as next week, as a good idea to address a “mounting crisis” affecting more than 47 million uninsured Americans.
The senior Republican on the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, Snowe called health care the biggest burden faced by business owners. She added, however, that the president would need not only her support but the help of her Republican colleagues to pass broader legislation on health care.
“Every major legislative initiative, from Medicare to civil rights to clean air, has enjoyed strong support from both parties because representatives from both sides of the aisle were at the conference table,” she said.
Though she did not comment specifically on Obama’s explicit pledge not to raise taxes on 95 percent of families, Snowe took the opportunity Tuesday night to call for more aggressive tax reform.
“Clearly, our tax code is broken and must be changed,” said Snowe, who attended the president’s Fiscal Responsibility Summit Monday. “Now is the time for both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue to commit to pay-as-you-go rules for both revenues and spending.”
Collins said she looked forward to reading the details of Obama’s budget proposal, which is slated to be officially released on Friday.
“I am pleased that the President tonight focused on renewable energy and energy efficiency as ways to reduce our dangerous dependence on Middle East oil,” Collins said in a statement. “As the President emphasized, the plan should promote conservation, spur development of alternative energy sources, and expand production of American energy.”
Obama gained loud applause from both parties when he promised to cut the budget deficit in half by the end of his term, though some Republicans stopped clapping when he added that the deficit was “inherited.”
Rep. Mike Michaud, D-Maine, said he supported the president’s plans to reform the nation’s health care and education systems but added that “they are lofty goals that will require tough budget choices.”
“Both our fiscal crisis and our economic crisis are interrelated,” he said. “We cannot move forward with one without addressing the other.”
Michaud also praised Obama’s decision to count costs relating to the war in Iraq and other domestic programs as part of the federal deficit. During the past administration, these expenses were not counted as part of the general budget, making the gap seem smaller than it really is.
“The true costs of programs were hidden through gimmicks,” Michaud said. “These unsustainable actions have helped to create the fiscal crisis we find ourselves in today.”
Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, also praised Obama for pushing through the stimulus package, estimating it will eventually create about 15,000 jobs in Maine.
“President Obama is doing all the right things – he is reaching out across the aisle and he has shown a willingness to compromise. But most importantly he has put together a comprehensive plan that can get our economy back on track,” Pingree said.
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