The battle lines are drawn
By Hayes Gahagan
This past Saturday following a Republican State Committee meeting in Augusta, I went over to the Statehouse to observe the Maine state employees’ union “Day of Rage”.
On one side of the Statehouse was the state employees’ union (and possibly others) involved in a Wisconsin-type demonstration in opposition to Governor LePage’s budget modifications designed to control Maine state spending and taxation.
On the other side of the Statehouse was a large gathering of Maine taxpayers. I saw a lot of folks I knew from the Republican State Committee and many “Tea Party” folks I had met at the Republican State Convention who were there to support Paul LePage for Governor.
It was clear that the battle lines had been drawn. On one side of the State Capitol were Maine taxpayers, the ultimate employers of Maine state employees; on the other side was the state employees’ union demonstrating against their taxpayer-employers.
As a state, we are reaping seeds that were sown decades ago when our elected representatives voted to allow collective bargaining in the public sector. While collective bargaining is a reasonably effective and legitimate negotiating tool for employees in the private sector (where company owners and shareholders ultimately pay the bills, including salaries and benefits), collective bargaining in the public sector is an entirely different matter because our elected representatives send the bills, including bills for state salaries and benefits, in the form of taxes, to individual tax-paying citizens.
Maine taxpayers want and need basic but limited government services such as police/fire protection and highway maintenance. Maine taxpayers do not want, nor should they be required to pay for, unlimited government services, especially essentially life-time employment/benefits for state employees. No sane business shareholder would allow a corporate officer to enter into the kind of employment/benefit package that Maine voter/taxpayers have allowed our elected officials to enter into with state employees during a time of economic scarcity.
With a $4.3 billion unfunded state employee retirement commitment and about $8 billion in other obligations, we’re living way beyond our means. If Maine were a private business, corporate officers and directors would be fired and bankruptcy would be declared. Creditors would get only cents on the dollar from the liquidation of assets. But Maine is a state government! We the people of Maine need government to preserve, protect and defend our individual liberty and property.
What I saw Saturday was the crashing conflict of two political ideologies, two world views.
On the state employee union side of the Statehouse, the political philosophies of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes and Saul Alinsky were evident as they have been manifested in the Obama Administration. These centrally planned and controlled elitist economies eventually lead to tyranny, loss of individual liberty, property and death.
On the taxpayer side of the Statehouse, the political philosophies of John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman were evident as they have been manifested in the political candidacy of Barry Goldwater, the Administration of Ronald Reagan, and more recently with Gov. Walker in Wisconsin, Gov. Christie in New Jersey and Gov. LePage in Maine. Small, limited self-government and its corresponding free market economic system preserves individual life, liberty and property.
It’s unfortunate and unnecessary for this money-matter to become an adversarial class-warfare confrontation when a kitchen-table approach to taxing, spending and budgets on a priority basis could work among friends; however, in the context of geo-political economic considerations and anti-republic union goals, this may be overly optimistic.
Nevertheless, having worked with many state employees over decades of service, I’m sure there are many, if not a significant majority of state employees, who can be trusted to work with the Governor and the Legislature to evaluate and prioritize state spending. I don’t know, but suspect many if not most of the Saturday demonstrators were a vocal union minority, probably working an Alinsky union playbook.
In the end, everyone will understand that Maine taxpayers simply can’t afford the cost of excessive government spending and taxation. To preserve our life, liberty and property, the cost of government must be drastically cut back to provide only essential services, with essential services being defined, not by unions, but by taxpayers, through our elected representatives.
From this taxpayer’s perspective, essential services are defined in the preambles to the U.S. and Maine constitutions: “establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity”.
While economic conditions could and hopefully will change, at this time there are too many working for government and too few working in the private sector to pay the taxes required to support them. Governor LePage’s budget is fair and reasonable and for the benefit of all Maine citizens.
Hayes Gahagan of Presque Isle is a former State Senator from Aroostook County and member of the Joint Standing Committee on Appropriations and Financial Affairs, member of the Republican State Committee and chairman of the Aroostook County Republican Committee.
