Category: James Downing
Baldacci’s Assistant Testifies Before Committee
WASHINGTON, March 2 – Gov. John Baldacci’s representative pleaded Maine’s pecuniary plight caused by the new Medicare prescription drug benefit program before the Health Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee Wednesday.
Jude Walsh, the governor’s special assistant in his Office of Health Policy and Finance, told the subcommittee that Maine has had to pay some $6 million to cover the drug costs of those Mainers who did not receive the coverage that they should have under Medicare Part D. That’s the new prescription benefit that went into effect Jan. 1 and has been plagued by what Republican members of the subcommittee called “glitches.”
“The federal drug benefit was not ready Jan. 1 and is still not ready for everyone today,” Walsh testified before the subcommittee, of which Rep. Thomas Allen (D-1 st District) is a member. Walsh said the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services “never would have allowed a state Medicaid program to implement a benefit as flawed as this one remains.”
While the new benefit is intended to give many seniors and poor people access to medications that they did not have last year, much of the problem in the program’s first weeks had to do with the plight of former Medicaid recipients who were automatically assigned to the new Medicare program and found themselves at least temporarily deprived of government drug benefits.
Critics see the new program as corporate welfare for the pharmaceutical and insurance industries.
“Speaking for my constituents in Maine, I have to say the process has been chaotic,” Allen said. “The Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 gave the pharmaceutical and insurance industry most of what they wanted. But it denied senior citizens and people with disabilities the simple option of adding a Medicare-administered drug plan to their existing benefits.”
Dr. Mark McClellan, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, agreed that Medicare Part D gives less coverage than some employer plans, but he said that seniors now had a wide range of choices, up to 50 depending on the area, and that help is available in choosing the plan that best fits their needs.
One of the biggest criticisms Democrats at the hearing had was that the original legislation was drafted by industry lobbyists and congressional Republicans.
“It was conceived in sin, born in the darkness of night with no participation by Democratic members at all and was attended only by a fair gaggle of lobbyists of the health care industry, the insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry,” Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) said.
Republicans countered by saying the market is working to provide seniors with choice and the lowest prices, and called the Democrats’ plan for government price negotiations with the industry a relic of the “command economy.”
“The horse that’s actually being ridden on the other side is a unicorn,” Rep. Steve Buyer (R-Ind.) said. “Because it’s pure fantasy to believe that if you’re going to have price control in America that we’re going to be the land that creates these blockbuster drugs that will provide quality of life to people not only here but throughout the world.”
Walsh said there also were problems in the implementation of the new program. Many pharmacists around the state reported that as many as 50 percent of their customers who had sought the benefit could not be confirmed as participating.
The state set up a hotline to air these grievances, and at the turn of the year as many as 15,000 people called every day, Walsh said. Many of the callers said they were having to pay $250 deductibles and $100 co-pays after they were moved automatically into the new program.
Baldacci responded by reauthorizing the state’s pharmacy benefit, which so far has spent $6 million on 115,000 prescriptions for more than 50,000 Mainers. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has promised to pay this back, but that has not happened yet, Walsh said.
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National Congress of American Indians Holds Winter Meeting
WASHINGTON, Feb. 28 - Chief James Sappier of Maine Penobscot Tribe ate buffalo meat on toothpicks and gourmet nachos at a "gala reception" the National Congress of American Indians hosted at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian on Monday.
Hundreds of Native Americans from all over Indian Country milled around under the colossal dome that the museum's galleries wrap around, socializing with themselves and with congressional staffs and members of Congress from Capitol Hill, only a few blocks away.
Sappier said he came down to Washington to make sure that the interests of the Penobscot people and Indians in the Northeast in general were as well represented at the congress's winter executive session as those of the tribes in such western states as Oklahoma and Arizona.
Representatives of the Micmacs also were here, but they said they were not authorized to talk to the news media. No Passamaquoddy or Maliseet representatives came down to Washington. All four of the Wabanaki Tribes that are still live cultures in Maine--the Maliseet, Micmacs, Passamaquoddy and Penobscot--were here for a meeting of the United South and Eastern Tribes at the beginning of February. The tribes at that convention all met with the Maine congressional delegation to discuss Indian affairs.
The Washington-based National Congress of American Indians, started in 1944, is one of the oldest Indian advocacy groups in the country. Sappier said that when the Penobscots were looking for formal federal recognition, the congress passed resolutions and wrote letters in support of the tribe. The chief said the congress was the only organization where all the tribes come together; he called it an effective way of projecting a unified Indian voice to the federal government.
Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz. addressed the congress, along with several Cabinet secretaries, including Mike Johanns of Agriculture and R. James Nicholson of Veterans Affairs. Many House members also made appearances, including Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.), who represents the most Indians of anyone in the House, and Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a member of the Chickasaw Tribe and the only tribal member among the 533 current members of Congress.
While Sappier lingered in the Museum's gift store and debated over what gift to buy his staff for a future raffle, he described what he hoped to accomplish in Washington: "To influence the decisions of Indian tribes and look out for the Northeast tribes' welfare in federal legislation, in policy making, in regulatory decisions with regards to health services for the tribes and their relationship with the U.S. government."
In the working meetings of the Indian congress, Sappier said he and his colleagues from around the country discussed every major issue Indians face today, including tribal court systems, law enforcement, energy, natural resources and health care.
As a group of traditional performers sang to the party below, Sappier said the Penobscots needed more economic development and an improved infrastructure to succeed. Another theme many who attended the conference voiced was the need for more education to break the cycle of poverty that is plaguing the vast majority of Indian Country, and a need for more health care spending.
"The issue is the level of health care in Indian Country; on a per capita basis, federal prisoners receive twice the health care the Indians receive," Sappier said. "Tribes receive $1,900 per capita, federal prisoners receive $3,800 per capita, and the average nationwide is $5,600 per capita."
"Every year we come to these same meetings and ask for the same crumbs," said Jefferson Keel, the congress's first vice president. "We don't even get a slice, we get crumbs, and that is insulting."
Some Indian supporters expressed concern that the current Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, which in part involves his representation of Indian tribes, might lead some to think that Indian tribes spent enormous amounts of money in Washington and received enormous dividends in return. But Rep. Cole told the convention that all 500 tribes across the nation contributed some 0.3 percent of all the money spent in the 2004 elections. Sen. Kerry, for his part, said the tribes were innocent in the scandal; he put the blame on corrupt Republicans.
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Think Tank Examines Budget Proposal’s Impact on Maine
WASHINGTON, Feb. 23 - Maine will have to raise its taxes or accept cuts in social programs if President Bush's budget recommendation for fiscal year 2007 is fully implemented, the independent Center on Budget Policy and Priorities warned Thursday. Bush's proposal would cut $7.5 billion nationwide from state and local grants.
The center released a report on program cuts that outlined what effect the budget would have on various social safety net programs in each of the 50 states.
The $7.5 billion in reduced federal grants to states and localities would represent almost half the total proposed cuts in domestic discretionary spending, the center said.
The report was compiled from materials from the President's Office of Management and Budget (OMB), including computer predictions on the budget's impact over the next five years that was apparently erroneously released. For the last 25 years, the center, which calls itself nonpartisan, has done research on how national and state fiscal policies affect low-income people.
"When President Bush gave me guidance on what the 2007 budget should look like, he directed me to focus on national priorities and tighten our belts elsewhere," OMB Director Joshua B. Bolten said in a statement earlier this month. "Congress substantially delivered on the President's spending restraint goals last year, and after speaking with members at this week's congressional hearings, I'm optimistic we can again provide a significant level of savings for American taxpayers."
OMB also had some things to say about the center, which is not popular in Republican circles.
"This is a liberal think tank that opposes every effort to control domestic spending," OMB spokesman Scott Millburn said in a statement. "It has made these same false predictions in the past that it knows have been proven wrong. For example, two years ago, it stated that the President's budget would require deep reductions in programs for veterans, low-income mothers and children and special education. Instead, the President's subsequent budgets have increased funding for all of these programs."
The President's proposed budget would cut $183 billion in domestic discretionary spending nationwide over the next five years, according to the center. Discretionary spending is for programs that are not mandated by law. These include many social programs like the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, educational subsidies, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program and job training under the Department of Labor.
Under the Bush proposals, the center said, Maine would sustain cuts, for example, of almost $42 million in elementary and secondary school aid and $25 million in heating assistance for low-income families over the five years, among other scaled-back social programs.
"To me this budget is incomprehensible because when I was growing up in the '60s and frankly all through the rest of the 20 th century, I think people in both parties wanted to reduce poverty," Rep. Tom Allen (D-1 st ) said. "This is a budget that will increase poverty, and it will diminish opportunity."
Allen sits on the House Budget Committee. He said the President's cuts in education, jobs, health care and other social programs would hurt the poor and not help reduce the federal deficit.
"There is no consistent policy in this budget other than taking money and opportunity away from low and middle-income Americans to protect his tax cuts for the wealthy,"
Allen said. "He's made promises that can't be kept. He can't reduce the deficit without raising taxes. He's nibbling away at these domestic programs. The trouble is they are large enough to do great damage to children and families but too small to help in any material way with the total budget deficit because Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, defense and interest on the national debt are the more important factors in the budget."
According to the report, Maine would lose $41.7 million from 2007 through 2011 for K-12 educational funding, including $25.9 million from special education. The state would lose $6.5 million in grants for vocational and adult education programs next year, and nearly $35 million over the five years. Cuts in education could also keep some 400 to 500 children from participating in Head Start programs in the state in 2011, the report said.
Mainers would lose $5.9 million in grants for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children over the next five years, which could lead to 1,400 people not getting assistance from the program, assuming that the cuts are implemented in part by cutting back on enrollment, according to the center's report.
While the President's budget would increase home energy grants for low-income people, which aids many families in Maine, by $601 million at the national level this year, the center's report says that over the next five years the program's total spending would drop by $1.9 billion, including a cut of $25 million for Maine.
Robert Greenstein, the center's executive director, noted that legislation supported by Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe would move $1 billion of next year's spending for the program to this year. The center supports this move, he said, but added that this would deepen next year's proposed spending reduction.
Rep. Allen said he favors leaving social programs intact and instead ending the recent tax cuts for the wealthy.
"The upper-income tax cuts for people earning over $380,000 a year simply cannot responsibly be continued," he said, "because we have to invest in education, environmental protection and energy conservation if we're going to compete in the global economy and give people a fighting chance to make themselves a better life."
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The Maine Delegation Gets Environmental Report Card
WASHINGTON, Feb. 21-Maine's congressional delegation ranked third in the nation on the League of Conservation Voters' annual National Environmental Scorecard. The four legislators averaged scores of 84 percent on key votes in 2005.
"As a whole, Maine residents can be proud that they have sent a delegation to Washington, D.C., that represents their interests - not those of big oil and other polluting industries," Tiernan Sittenfeld, the league's legislative director, said in a statement.
Rep. Michael Michaud scored a perfect 100 percent, voting the way the league liked on 18 votes last year. Rep. Tom Allen scored 94 percent, voting against an amendment to the Water Resources Development Act that the league supported.
"I originally decided to seek public office out of concern for the environment, and what my own paper mill was doing to the Penobscot River near my house," Michaud said in a statement. "The river was badly polluted, and I wanted to do something about it. People deserve clean water and an environment that doesn't harm their health."
Mark Sullivan, a spokesman for Allen, said that "as a member of the House Budget and Energy and Commerce Committees, Tom fought hard on behalf of LCV priorities like protecting the Artic National Wildlife Refuge and securing funds for environmental protection and land conservation."
Maine's two senators fared a little lower than the representatives with each getting 70 percent. That score was enough, however, to put Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins among the highest Senate Republicans, with only Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island doing better, with 90 percent. The average of all Senate Republicans was 15 percent. The league has endorsed Snowe in her bid for reelection this year.
"I have always cared very deeply about our environment," Collins said in a statement. "Sound environmental stewardship is so important in Maine, and Maine's environment is just so beautiful, that I think it is difficult to grow up here without feeling a sense of environmental responsibility. A clean and healthy environment is critical not only for the health and well-being of the people of Maine, but also for our economy. Our natural resource-based industries, our tourist industry, and indeed the State's very image depend upon the quality of our environment."
Clean air and clean water are among the most important environmental issues Maine faces, according to Matt Prindiville, the federal policy advocate for the Natural Resources Council of Maine. With Maine "at the end of the nation's tailpipe," with pollutants from other states blowing into the state and polluting pristine lakes and the air, he said, it was important for current regulations to be maintained. Prindiville said he had nothing but praise for Maine's delegation.
The League of Conservation Voters has "cast an unbiased eye" on elected officials since 1970 with these reports, according to Tony Massaro, the group's vice president for political affairs and public education. The group works with policy experts to identify votes that will have an effect on the environment. The league hand-delivers letters just before a vote notifying members that the vote will be taken into account in the annual scorecard.
For 2005, the league looked at 20 votes in the Senate and 18 in the House, and compiled the percentages based on lawmakers' records on these votes. Because the league is for government regulation of the environment, it generally scores Democrats much higher than Republicans.
The league focused on such legislation as the energy conference report on energy policy, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, human pesticide testing, authorization of the Central American Free Trade Agreement and the Senate's approval of Janice Brown to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Snowe voted for the energy conference report, which the league opposed. But her spokesman said that while it was not a perfect bill, it included $1.3 billion in conservation and energy-efficiency tax credits and $2.7 billion in alternative energy production tax credits.
"This legislation is not perfect," Snowe said in a statement when the vote was taken, "but I believe it is an improvement over the status quo. I would have written a more ambitious bill that would have more aggressively reduced our dependence on foreign oil."
After the league unveiled its scorecard Tuesday, Snowe said in a statement: "The League of Conservation Voters works tirelessly to preserve the environment and serve as an information resource for its members and the public. I appreciate their recognizing my support for conservation and sensible environmental policy. Mainers understand that protecting the environment is essential to maintaining our quality of life, our health and the large sector of Maine's economy that is driven by outdoor recreation and tourism. There is broad consensus in Maine on the need to address issues from mercury pollution to keeping our coastline healthy, and my votes in the Senate are a reflection of this awareness and my own personal beliefs."
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There Ain’t Much Down East Flavah on Maine Avenue
WASHINGTON, Feb. 21-You might think that the juicy crab cake sandwich you were taking a bite out of was made at the Cod End fish market in Tenants Harbor if it were not for the noisy rushing of cars on the overpass, the lack of salt smell in the air and the occasional buzzing of the President's Marine One helicopter flying overhead.
Instead of being on the Maine coast, you are at the Maine Avenue Fish Market in the nation's capital.
Captain White's Seafood City, where that crab cake sandwich was fried up for you, has been on Maine Avenue for a long time. Jesse White started the business with his father more than 30 years ago; he has worked there since he was a teenager. White's, one of a half-dozen vendors at the seafood market, gets a lot of its goods from the Chesapeake Bay, but it also gets lobsters and mussels from Maine. It takes less than a day for a lobster brought into port in Maine to be flown down to Washington and arrive at White's.
Maine, like every other state in the union, has a street named after it in Washington. There is Pennsylvania Avenue, with the Commander in Chief in residence at 1600, and Connecticut Avenue, which is one of the main thoroughfares in town, and Massachusetts Avenue, home to a lot of embassies. All this is according to city planner Pierre L'Enfant's original design.
Maine Avenue is in the southwest quadrant of the city and runs along the Washington Channel and the Tidal Basin, which are separated from the Potomac River by an island park. Across the Potomac is Virginia.
According to Captain Eric Slaughter of Capital Yacht Charters at the Washington Marina, foreign heads of state were meant to arrive in the city on the avenue after coming up the Potomac on their royal yachts.
"The Southwest became Washington's official port soon after the Washington Channel was completed," Slaughter said. "But the city plans as they had been developed over the life of the city have all included various wharfs and plans and public access for the Southwest Washington Waterfront because that was Washington's Waterfront."
The seafood market is usually busy around the lunchtime hour. One local customer, 65-year-old George Imes, regularly visits the market. He gets "a little bit of everything," from shrimp to crab to Maine lobsters. When asked about Maine, Imes said his first thought was "lobsters, of course."
In addition to selling raw seafood, Captain White's offers many cooked-food options. You can get a steamed lobster or fried trout or a crab cake sandwich, which is full of fresh crab fried to cakey perfection. It comes on a cheap bun, which you could buy an eight-pack of for 99 cents at Hannaford's in Bangor, and do-it-yourself ketchup and tartar sauce. Eating it on a bench along the Potomac waterway might make you think you're sitting at a seafood shack in Stoneham.
But looming across the street is the cavernous Mandarin Oriental Hotel. A footbridge gives hotel guests access to the waterfront and the Tidal Basin, with its famous Japanese cherry trees. A spokeswoman for the hotel, which opened in March 2004, said it has 400 guest rooms, two restaurants, a bar and thousands of square feet of ballroom and meeting room space. Weekday room rates range from $395 to $8,000 a night. But there will be special deals during the Cherry Blossom Festival at the end of March, the spokeswoman said.
Workers trot across four-lane Maine Avenue, dodging BMWs and delivery trucks, from the Oriental to the Washington Marina. The marina, which Slaughter said was started in 1939 under an order from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, rents out boats, including the Celebrity Yacht
After the seafood wharf, Maine Avenue leaves the water's side and is replaced with Water Street. Along Water Street are a few seafood restaurants and more marinas, including the Capital Yacht Club, the oldest marina in Washington, and the Gangplank Marina. Both serve super yachts that come up the Potomac to visit town.
About 100 people also call these marinas home. There are two-story house boats painted gray that moor alongside 50-foot sailing vessels and motorized pleasure ships.
Along with the boats, there is fishing in the waters along Maine Avenue, although there are no smelt fishing shacks because there is no ice. Signs warn not to eat any catfish, carp or eels from these waters. There is also even some wildlife: the ubiquitous gray squirrels are frequent visitors, and even cranes sometimes fly above these waters.
I f you wa lk further west on Maine Avenue you'll pass under the Route 1 overpass that occasionally provides shelter for homeless people. The Washington Monument, the Bureau of Printing and Engraving and the Jefferson Memorial are past the overpass.
The avenue crosses 14th and 15th streets, where you might see an official limousine accompanied by the standard SUV full of guys with machine guns.
At the west end of Maine Avenue is the Tidal Basin ringed with the famous cherry trees. The snowstorm in mid February blanketed the city with half a foot of snow, which led to the erection of snowmen that looked back at Thomas Jefferson in his memorial across the basin.
A few days later, the snowmen were a fraction of their former glory. Their stick arms sat lifeless in the mud and dead leaves. These snowmen sat at one end of Maine Avenue, until they met their final melt
At the other end of Maine Avenue, just before it flows into M Street, lies the State of Maine's most visible imprint on its namesake avenue. The Lobsterman Statue looks out over the Potomac toward East Potomac Park.
According to Jane Radcliffe of the Maine State Museum (which has the original plaster cast in its collection), the statue is an exact match of one that kneels near Congress Square in Portland and one on Bailey Island in Casco Bay as well. The Washington copy was put up in 1983 thanks to the efforts of the Cundys Harbor Campfire Girls. The original lobsterman statue is modeled after Elroy Johnson of Bailey Island and was made by the artist Victor Kahill for the Maine State Pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair.
The statue is of a simple working man, crouching on a coil of rope. His thigh-high fisherman's boots are bent in half and don't come above his knees. He is wearing a thick collared shirt that is rolled up close to the elbows so he can work with the un-banded lobster that he is grasping with his right hand. His eyes glance down his prominent and shapely nose, with a look that either glories in the efforts of his labor or is worried about getting pinched by that left claw.
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Veterans’ Lobby Michaud’s Committee for the 2007 Budget
WASHINGTON, Feb. 16 - Veterans' organizations made their pitch Thursday for more money for the Veterans Affairs Department to the Veterans' Affairs Committee, on which Rep. Michael Michaud (D-2 nd ) serves.
The Bush Administration has asked for $80.6 billion for the fiscal year 2007 for the department, an $8.8 billion increase over this year. The department's health care budget would rise 11.3 percent next year to $34.3 billion.
Many Democrats, including Rep. Bob Filner of California, complained that this fell far short of fulfilling veterans' needs. Another $4 billion would be needed, Filner said, to satisfy veterans' needs across the country.
Michaud said that his office was looking into what the proposed budget will mean for Maine.
"My big concern is that they're moving monies around. We've heard that there is going to be a shortage in a lot of divisions," Michaud said. "And we're currently keeping a close eye on what it means to Maine and making sure that we have plenty not only to adequately fund programs but also to try to get the clinics .. up and running as well."
Chairman Steve Buyer (R-Ind.) said he was not worried about any shortfalls in the 2007 budget. "What I've learned in the years in which Republicans have been in the majority, whatever the benchmark is that we set, the Democrats will have the theme that it isn't enough," he said. "It isn't just with veterans' benefits; it could be with education, it could be with Medicare, it could be with Medicaid."
During the hearing Buyer said that Michaud was "a very valued member of the committee" and was in sharp contrast to Filner, whom the chairman occasionally bickered with during the hearing.
"Mr. Michaud is sincere and he's engaging and he is substantive," Buyer said.
Among the shortfalls, according to some critics, are a plan to impose a $250 enrollment fee on higher-income, non-disabled veterans seeking Veterans Affairs medical benefits. The administration also wants to increase the co-payment on prescription drug benefits from $8 to $15 per monthly prescription.
According to several witnesses at the hearing, the VA estimates that these charges would discourage 200,000 veterans from seeking health care coverage for the first time and force more than one million current enrollees to drop out.
Michaud, in a statement after the hearing, called the enrollment fee and the co-payment plan "a non-starter" and said he will oppose the higher charges.
He also said he was "concerned with potential funding shortfalls at facilities around the country. Last year, many facilities, including Togus [Medical Center], were forced to borrow, put off hiring or tap into capital accounts to maintain medical services. And ultimately, Congress had to pass emergency supplemental funding for the VA of over $1 billion." "It is my hope that the VA has given us a full account of their needs this year, so we will not experience a similar budget mess this year that would require another supplemental," Michaud said in the statement.
The majority of the groups that testified Thursday, including the Vietnam Veterans of America and the Association of Service Disabled Veterans, were in favor of mandatory spending for the VA. Though Bush is seeking an increase for 2007, that is not always the case, and the VA budget is subject to cuts, like most other agency budgets, according to witnesses.
Another major issue that the committee will be tackling is a reform of the GI Bill, which helped to expand the middle class after World War II by paying for veterans to attend college . However, the bill does not give the same benefits to members of the Reserve and National Guard. With a large number of reservists and National Guard members fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, this is becoming an issue that both sides of the aisle are getting behind. Both Michaud and Buyer said they support the extension of benefits...
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Maine College Republicans Visit the District
WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 - Maine College Republicans have come to Washington in force this weekend to take part in the Conservative Political Action Conference. The 104 Maine students represent the largest delegation at the conference.
"It's really a great opportunity for our members to get to know each other and also other College Republicans from throughout the country," said Nate Walton, the chairman of the Maine College Republicans for the past seven months.
Walton said Maine brought such a large delegation to the Capital partly because the organization is strong but also because 2006 is a crucial election year back home, with Democratic Gov. John Baldacci in a tenuous position and Democrats controlling the state House of Representatives by only a single vote..
The delegation includes students from all over the state, from Bowdoin to Husson to the University of Maine at Presque Isle. All 104 students got a quick meet-and-greet and a photo on the Capitol steps with Maine's two Republican senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. Collins echoed Walton's desires for a party switch in both branches of state government.
The American Conservative Union hosts this annual gathering, the largest of conservative activists in the country. The Maine students will get to sit through speeches by Vice President Dick Cheney, United Nations Ambassador John Bolton and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.
It is a cliché that college students are predominantly liberal, and in most colleges liberal thinking dominates the student body and the faculty. Walton said that such liberal dominance has served only to make his organization stronger.
"I think that one of the reasons that our organization is so strong is that we are constantly being challenged on views and being questioned about them," he said. "It really makes our members know what they believe in very strongly, and we're here to fight for those values."
Shanna Moody, a 20-year-old physical therapy student from Husson College, said she had some problems last semester with her ethics teacher, whose teachings leaned to the left a little too much for Moody's liking.
"She would just make comments like she contrasted Republicans and vegetarians," Moody said. "I was like, eh, what does that mean?"
Husson's administration is fairly GOP friendly, according to Jared Grover, the vice president of the Husson College Republicans. Grover said the college's president, William H. Beardsley, is very supportive.
"Our president is a strong conservative, a nice guy, really encouraging, and he really backs us," said the 27-year-old LaGrange native. "Every time I talk to him he asks how things how are going and what we're going to be doing."
According to members of its College Republicans organization, the University of Maine at Presque Isle is less supportive of conservatives on campus. Though the chapter received financial aid from the student senate for the trip to Washington, the more liberal students often pose a challenge.
"Our signs are taken down and Democrats obviously hate us, but you know that's natural," said Tyler Clark, a 20-year-old Easton native who is majoring in business management.
Clark joked that despite some problems with campus Democrats there had not been any "death threats or anything."
"Not yet," interjected Brandon Marquis, the vice chairman of the Presque Isle College Republicans and Clark's hometown friend.
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Maine Delegation Outlines Their Positions on Wiretapping
WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 -- President Bush's domestic wiretapping program has stirred up a lot of controversy, and the Maine congressional delegation has doubts about the program's legality.
"Revelations that the U.S. government has conducted domestic electronic surveillance without express legal authority indeed warrants congressional examination," Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe said in a statement after the program became known about in December. "I believe the Congress - as a coequal branch of government - must immediately and expeditiously review the use of this practice."
Sen. Snowe and four Senate Democrats sent a letter at the end of last year encouraging the Judiciary Committee and the Select Committee on Intelligence to hold hearings.
The Judiciary Committee started its hearings Monday with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testifying. The intelligence committee is scheduled to hold a closed hearing on Thursday.
Snowe, a member of the intelligence committee, said she looked forward to learning more about the legal justifications for the National Security Agency's program at Thursday's hearing. "The NSA's domestic electronic surveillance program raises profound questions about the executive branch's authority as it pursues our enemies in the war on terror," she said in a statement Tuesday.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, also is in favor of bringing the issue to Capitol Hill with hearings.
"There is no question that there are terrorists that want to strike our country, and it is important that the Administration have the authority to use all the tools necessary to detect those plots," Collins said in a statement. "It is also important, however, that we have in place a system of checks and balances to ensure that our efforts to protect Americans from terrorist attack do not infringe upon our personal liberties."
Rep. Michael Michaud, D-2 nd District, also supports the Senate hearings, and said he believes the administration had plenty of tools within the existing law to defend the country.
"While I share the President's commitment to securing our country from those who wish to do us harm, I firmly believe that our surveillance programs must be conducted within the law," Michaud said in a statement. "Our law and intelligence communities need the necessary tools to ensure that critical information is obtained that would help prevent future attacks. However, we have legal safeguards in place, including the FISA Court, that exist to ensure that we can gather intelligence in a lawful way. We should not be circumventing these safeguards."
The secret court was created under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Rep. Tom Allen, D-1 st District, said he welcomes the Senate Judiciary Committee's investigation. "Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' defense of the program was evasive and incomplete," Allen said of Gonzales' appearance before the committee on Monday. "Further and broader investigation is clearly needed."
"The law is clear: the National Security Agency cannot conduct surveillance of Americans' foreign communications without a court-approved warrant," Allen said in a statement Tuesday. "The President's program of warrant-less surveillance may violate basic Fourth Amendment rights and has troubling consequences for our democracy. The Constitution forbids any government official, including the President, from waiving or ignoring fundamental liberties as a matter of convenience or policy."
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The House Votes to Cut Social Spending
WASHINGTON, Feb. 1-Both Maine Representatives joined all of their fellow Democrats Wednesday in voting against the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. But supporters of the bill narrowly prevailed, 216 to 214.
The act will cut over five years $39 billion in social programs, including Medicare, Medicaid and student loans. There is also a $56 billion tax cut bill pending, which Democrats say effectively cancels out the savings from the Deficit Reduction Act.
The new law will cut $12.7 billion from federal student aid at a time when college is not getting any cheaper. The average student leaves school with $17,500 in debt.
The House had approved a nearly identical version of the bill in December by six votes, with Maine Reps. Michael Michaud and Tom Allen voting against it. The Senate passed the bill on Nov. 13 by 52-47, with both Maine senators voting against it.. "The House is about to consider a proposal that is one of the worst that I have seen in my years so far in Congress," Michaud said in a statement before the House vote. "They call this bill the Deficit Reduction Act, but that is nothing short of a deception; $38 billion in budget cuts, combined with $56 billion in tax cuts, means a $17 billion increase in the deficit."
Of the $12.7 billion in student aid cuts, some $9 billion will take the form of higher interest rates. Rep. Allen said that President Bush and his party were sending a very different message from the one enunciated Tuesday, when the President, in his State of the Union speech, said this country needed to stay competitive with India and China in a new world market. "I think if you're concerned about international competition, you don't start by making it harder for young people going to college," Allen said.
The Campaign for America's Future, a liberal non-profit organization that pushes for "progressive social change," said in a statement that a Department of Education study showed that some 4.4 million students over the next decade would be unable to attend four-year public universities for lack of funds. During the same period, some two million students would be unable to attend any post-secondary education facility. By 2020, this will lead to a shortage nationally of 12 million college-educated workers. The new law will cost Maine college students an additional $1,799 a year, according to the Campaign for America's Future.
"This bill will make it harder for students from working families to go to college," said Robert Borosage, the organization's co-director. "This measure makes deep and harmful cuts to student loans that will not even pay for the new tax breaks planned for the wealthy." Michaud and Allen agreed that there are better ways to reduce the budget deficit than by cutting health and education programs.
"We desperately need to restore a sense of fiscal discipline in our nation's capital," Michaud said in a statement. "Not only will this budget plan balloon a federal debt that has already passed $8 trillion-the equivalent of $27,000 for every man, woman and child in the country-but it also contains devastating cuts to programs that are important to Mainers."
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Maine Delegation: Where the Money Comes From
WASHINGTON, Jan. 26-No members of the Maine congressional delegation accepted money from indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. But they have raised considerable campaign funds from industry and labor political action committees.
Abramoff has plead guilty to charges of fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials in a deal that requires him to provide testimony against unnamed members of Congress. His indictment has sparked a flurry of activity aimed at overhauling the rules for lobbyists' interactions with Congress.
"I think our delegation is not as influenced by their donors because their seats are relatively safe," said associate professor of political science James Melcher at the University of Maine Farmington.
Sen. Susan Collins, as the chairwoman of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, is in charge of examining the reform proposals now before the Senate.
"We must act to strengthen the laws governing disclosure and ban practices that erode public confidence in the integrity of government decisions," Collins said at a meeting of her committee on Wednesday.
Congress, she said, needed to limit the access to members of former members who are now lobbyists, to end the practice of lobbyists' paying for vacations that masquerade as fact-finding trips and to end the rampant abuse of earmarking, or tacking on spending for projects to unrelated bills.
In her last election, in 2002, Collins raised $4,266,392, according to the Center for Responsive Politics' Web site, opensecrets.org, which compiles records from the Federal Election Commission. Of that total, 58 percent was from individual donors, but Collins still received more than $1.5 million from political action committees.
Collins' largest contributor was MBNA Corp., the credit card giant and one of the largest employers in the state of Maine. MBNA employees and PACs donated $86,750 to her campaign. At the time, MBNA was pushing for a reform of the bankruptcy code, which would mean millions more in profits for them. President Bush signed the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 last year after seven failed attempts to pass similar legislation.
Collins said that she had supported bankruptcy reform for years, and with so many employees in Maine that it was no surprise that her campaign had received a lot of money from the company.
Collins has raised $68,557 this election cycle. Some $32,700 of that comes from individual donors who gave $200 or more.
Many of the senators at Wednesday's Government Affairs hearing complained that they had to travel all over the country to raise money. Senate campaigns are usually the most expensive statewide campaigns.
Unlike her junior colleague and fellow Republican, Sen. Olympia Snowe is up for reelection this year. She has raised some $1,475,205 so far, according to opensecrets.org, which is based on FEC reports from Jan. 4. However, her campaign manager, Lucas Caron, said that the campaign reported $2.2 million in a more recent filing.
According to opensecrets.org, 54 percent of that came from individual donors and about 39 percent from PACs.
Snowe has raised $756,131 from individual contributions of $200 or more, with 36 percent of that from Maine donors. Caron said many non-Mainers respect Snowe for her moderate stance and bipartisan approach to politics and give money to her campaign.
Opensecrets.org reports that the insurance and finance industry PACs were the largest donors, contributing more than $100,000 through last October,. including $6,500 from MBNA.
Caron said that PACs generally donate to candidates whom they agree with on the issues. Snowe, as a fiscal conservative, votes in ways that the insurance and finance industries like.
As for lobbying reform, Sen. Snowe has signed onto Sen. John McCain's bill, which calls for more disclosure of lobbying activities.
Maine's two Democratic House members also are pushing for lobbying reform. Rep. Michael Michaud of the Second District has co-sponsored bills that would eliminate lobbyist-sponsored travel, investigate ethics lapses and require that members be able to review legislation for at least 24 hours before it is voted on. Recently the leadership has pushed some bills through after midnight and without any advance notice.
"Honest leadership is not a partisan goal," Michaud said in a statement. "It is the key to a stronger country and a value that we all share, and that we should all expect from our government."
Rep. Tom Allen of the First District co-sponsored the Special Interest Lobbying and Ethics Accountability Act of 2005 with Rep. Martin Meehan (D-Mass.).
Michaud's campaign had raised $228,890 as of Jan.4, with about 72.2 percent if it from PACs, according to opensecrets.org. Monica Castellanos of his office said that historically contributions move more toward individual donations by Election Day. In 2004, 41 percent of his campaign money was from individuals, and in 2002 it was 46 percent.
Labor has given his campaign $75,000 so far, or 54 percent of his total PAC contributions. Michaud is a member of the United Steel Workers (the USW PAC has donated $1,000 to his campaign), which mergedwith the Paper, Allied-Industrial Chemical and Energy Workers International Union . Michaud worked at the Great Northern Paper Company in Millinocket for 30 years.
Michaud has received $43,250 in individuals donations of $200 or more this election cycle, with 75 percent of that money from Maine.
Rep. Allen also has received a lot of money from labor: $41,000 for this election, or 57 percent of his total PAC contributions, according to opensecrets.org.
Allen has raised $210,447 this election, with 59 percent from individuals. Of the individual contributions of $200 or more, 81 percent are from Maine.
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