Stashing excessive amounts of tax revenue in a “rainy-day fund” while roads disintegrate, children go hungry and an opioid epidemic rages is not only cruel. It’s fiscally shortsighted and irresponsible.

I heard Ken Fredette, House minority leader and Republican candidate for governor, on “Maine Calling” bragging about the rainy-day fund that Gov. Paul LePage has amassed since taking office. It’s in the neighborhood of $200 million.

Every state needs a rainy-day fund for emergencies. But I don’t pay taxes so LePage can squirrel away money while kids go to bed hungry, people don’t have access to timely health care, our roads are a sea of disappearing pavement or an opioid epidemic intensifies each year. That’s fiscally irresponsible and cruel.

Hungry children can’t learn. Those caught in the throes of addiction can’t parent or work. The chronically ill with no access to care can’t contribute to society. And roads eventually have to be fixed, often at much greater cost.

The state is charged with providing for the common good. And if you’re questioning whether the common good is any concern of yours, think again. We sink or swim together, as a state.

A vote for any of the Republican candidates for governor will give you more of the fiscally irresponsible and inhumane policies that the LePage administration has inflicted on the state, a continuation of the race to the bottom.

Mary Ann Larson
Portland


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