By Elna Seabrooks
Staff Writer
HOULTON — Although Independent candidate Eliot Cutler trails front-runners Republican Paul LePage and Democrat Libby Mitchell in the race for governor, he said he still expects to do very well.
“Voter dissatisfaction, anger, frustration, discouragement and a deep desire for change to make things work again” are what Cutler said is driving some Mainers to give up, not only on the political process, but also on their futures.
“I will focus the final phase of my campaign visiting every county and doing advertising. There is a huge undecided vote that will decide late, and we will do well,” said Cutler.
In his interview for the Northeast Publishing group of newspapers, he discussed how he would address several problems confronting the state, should he be elected Maine’s next governor.
The economy
“I want to turn the Maine economy around by changing the conditions. The most important thing we have to do is get our electric prices down, our health care prices down and our cost of governing ourselves down. The cost of living and doing business in Maine is so high that in Aroostook County we have only one or two potato processing plants left.”
Cutler said with a public power authority, electricity costs would go down and thereby generate jobs and income. He also said Maine should import lower cost electricity from Hydro-Quebec. Other parts of the country, he said, are more competitive for employers to do business due to lower energy costs.
“Governors don’t create jobs. Governors can change conditions,” he said emphasizing that the high cost of living and doing business “is keeping out capital and driving out what’s already here.” Cutler specifically referred to the cost of electricity to operate potato processing plants and lumber mills.
“Jobs don’t come out of thin air. We need to realize that our natural resources are, and are likely to remain, the foundation of our economy.” Cutler pointed out the interrelation between Maine’s industries, tourism and jobs. “Maine has a wonderful brand name that we have never developed and promoted for living, doing business and providing products. We need to do a lot more to protect and promote our natural resources as recreational opportunities for fishing and hunting to the people outside of Maine. We’re losing a lot of business as a result,” he stated. The Maine Winter Sports Center is, he said, one of the most exciting things happening in Aroostook County.
By bringing down the cost of health care, Cutler said employers would be encouraged to stay in Maine. He said that could be accomplished following the example of big employers who are self-insuring and buying catastrophic insurance coverage which is supplemented with strong wellness plans. Then, those employers, according to Cutler, could contract directly with providers — doctors and hospitals — to provide care for employees instead of going through insurance companies. And, he said that type of coverage could work with the new health care legislation, especially since Maine has a large number of non-profit hospitals that directly employ a majority of the primary-care physicians.
Government operations
Cutler said he would streamline government operations from public assistance to permitting and licensing in the unorganized territories. With a billion-dollar shortfall facing taxpayers and lawmakers in the next fiscal year, the candidate said cutting expenses and simplifying various procedures is imperative. “We have to get spending down. We have to take all of the direct spending and tax expenditures – tax breaks, tax credits, tax deductions and squeeze all of that into a zero-based budget.”
“One way to accomplish that is to target places to save money like the Department of Health and Human Services which is, by far, the biggest expense,” stated Cutler. He said administering MaineCare and other public assistance programs which is done through several thousand providers calls for excessive overlap and overhead expenses to families in need – often single mothers with children — not the elderly or disabled.
The most important thing in getting people off public assistance, he said, is making sure Maine’s economy is generating jobs. “Our economy is dead in the water. We have to jumpstart the economy.”
Cutler said public assistance recipients may want to work but they risk losing all of their benefits at entry level jobs for little more than they make to stay home. “That’s tragic for them, tragic for the economy and tragic for us as taxpayers.”
Another example where government can work better, according to Cutler, is his example of the Land Use Regulation Commission (LURC) which has the responsibility for planning in the unorganized territories as well as the permitting and licensing there. “When you give all those functions to the same agency,” he said, “the permitting and licensing consume all the time with not enough time for planning.” He blamed the five-year lag time and adversarial process related to Plum Creek development on investing so much power with LURC.
Cutler suggested the Department of Environmental Protection as a viable alternative to do permitting and licensing with the planning function remaining with LURC. “Right now, nobody knows the rules. Plum Creek had to come in and make the rules.”
Education reform
“We need to reform our public education system from top to bottom,” Cutler stated. He said he would have a goal of establishing pre-K education throughout the state. In grades K through 12, Cutler had a list of improvements. “We need a longer school day, charter schools, a system that rewards good teachers and educators for good performance, more clinical and professional training for our teachers, getting the average salaries up for teachers and completely reforming public education.”
He also recommended merging public higher education to optimize resources and services. To provide employers with sufficient numbers of skilled workers, he advocated more training for the state’s rapidly aging skilled workforce as well as training those who will eventually fill their jobs.
But, Cutler did state that the government cannot and should not take over everything because “nobody would be happy and some functions are better performed at the local level.”
Roads, highways, bridges
With the days of government handouts fading fast, Cutler acknowledged that the high price of repair and maintenance on Maine’s roads, bridges and highways may fall on taxpayers. “I don’t want to raise taxes but it would be irresponsible to not consider it.” Among the possibilities he said are higher gasoline taxes since more efficient cars have cut that income. Another possibility he cited are tolls in certain areas and some type of charge for the number of miles a vehicle has traveled. When reminded that it would not be popular, he said “you cannot get it done for free. But, I would be delighted to look at other options.”
