Finds donated coats story ironic

To the editor:
    I am outraged that Gov. Paul LePage would allow the state of Pennsylvania. to send winter coats to the needy children of the state of Maine! Doesn’t the governor realize that this is welfare?!?
    Do the poor kids of rural Maine really need these coats? After all, it’s only been minus 22 degrees here in “The County.” Surely it’s not nearly cold enough to warrant accepting charity or welfare from another state. Can’t we find a way to sell those coats for a huge profit margin and funnel the money to Speaker Nutting or Treasurer Poliquin, or, maybe the money could be used to fund private religious schools that only the privileged fanatical will be allowed to attend.
    And why can’t those poor children of rural Maine just “pull themselves up by their bootstraps?” Oh, I forgot, they don’t have boots or bootstraps to pull up, because Mommy and Daddy can’t find any work, because instead of creating jobs, which is what the GOP ran on in 2008, they would rather spend their time and our money attacking women’s rights and women’s health care, dismantling unions and benefits, deregulating agencies that protect us from the poisons their corporate donors spew into our skies and disenfranchising the voters of Maine who are elderly, poor or disabled.
    I am shocked that the party of “family values” and “conservatism” are going to allow these donated coats into Maine at all. After all, it may actually do something unheard of lately … that is, it may be a simple act of kindness and humanity seldomly legislated or enacted that keeps Maine children warm and their struggling parents breathing a short sigh of relief.
Richard Dyer
Monticello