[Paul LePage] Thank you all. What I do in these sessions is I like to give a little introduction about the topics that I will be talking about and then I will open it up for questions. I'd like to discuss some of the issues facing the state of Maine. Every single day, I hear that the state of Maine is a poor state and I will be the first one to tell you that Maine is a poor state but Maine does not have to be a poor state. Maine is a poor state because of 40 years of one mentality and they're absolutely unwilling to change and it's not something I've made up. You just simply have to look at the 10 most prosperous states and the 10 poorest states and look across, see what they have in common and what they don't have in common.
The prosperous states have three things in common. Low taxes, low energy and a pro-business or pro-economy culture. Of course, Maine has high taxes, high energy cost and an anti-business culture. Since I've been your governor, I've worked very hard to change the culture in Maine from anti- to pro-business. I think we've made small changes, small improvements but what I thought could be done in eight years is probably going to take 16 years because we're dealing with 40 years of one way of thinking. I just left a meeting just a few minutes ago and asked the legislature to help me find the money for some bills they pa**ed but they didn't give me the money and they simply said, "We're out of here."
So, either nothing gets done or we try to figure what can we do legally with the laws that are on the books. Maine's tax structure, now, I'll give you just a quick rundown on what I mean by taxes and so you see what I mean. Top 10 states, no income tax. Alaska, Florida, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, Wyoming and then you got North Dakota at 3 percent.
Number one state, Texas. Number two state, Florida. I didn't make it up. New Hampshire, number three. New Hampshire has no income tax, no sales tax. It's the seventh highest property taxes of America. Maine, high income tax, average sales tax, not a very high ... It's a very competitive sales tax, 49th highest property taxes in America. Why? I'll tell you why. Four letters, NRCM, Natural Resource Council of Maine. We'll do anything and everything to get property off the tax rolls and into land trust. They'll do anything to destroy jobs. You've been dealing it for decades. Nobody's ever held them accountable. I bring it up and I'm the bad guy but make no mistake, they are anti-jobs, major anti-jobs.
Right next to them, Maine People's Alliance. Maine People's Alliance only cares for one thing. Entitlements. Your money into the government's hands so the government could spend your money on their priorities. Now, where we differ is I want your money in your pocket, so you could spend it, because you'll spend it better than I could spend it. Because you'll spend it on things that make you happy, not what makes me happy or not what makes the Maine People's Alliance happy. You spend your money on the priorities that you have. Namely, your family, then your neighbors. We don't do that here in Maine.
We have made some major changes, very, very difficult but we're moving ahead. In the taxes, we have more revenue now than we've had since, I think, it's 2002. About 10, 12 years ago, the liquor business was sold for $10 million a year. When I became governor, I brought it back in and we do it in-house now. We're making over $50 million a year. I thought that was a pretty good deal. We spent $750 million. We used the bond. We borrowed a little bit of money, so we could get the federal matched. We used the liquor business to finance the bonds, to secure the bonds and all our debts to the hospital have paid off. We don't owe them any money. We pay as we go now just like every one of you.
Our energy on the other hand we're the 12th highest energy cost in America. We're the 19th highest cost of doing business in America. Why? Because we allow people to pick and choose. Our government picks and chooses what you're going to do for heating your home and what your electricity is going to be made of. Not the cheapest, not the least expensive, not the most affordable for Maine people, they pick it based on what they like. Wind and solar.
Wind and solar are the only two sanctioned sources of energy at the state of Maine. Hydro isn't, nuclear isn't, nothing else is. Of course, you got to heat with oil. We started out at 82 percent I believe it was in 2011. We're down to about 60 percent because we have done things like heat, pumps and other energy alternatives. People say, "I hate wind and I hate solar." Let me tell you this and let me tell all the reporters here, you have misrepresenting me for years. I am not against wind. I am not against solar. What I am against is above market pricing. I'm against people getting subsidies from hardworking Mainers to enrich themselves. I want Mainers to have low cost energy. We could if we bought hydro from Quebec. We could if we bought nuclear from New Hampshire and Port Lepreau.
Do you realize we live between two nuclear power plants? The energy is about three cents. We don't buy it but if anything happens, we're still in the middle of it. How sensible is that? It makes no sense. I continued to work on energy. We're going to continue to fight. we're slowly making some improvements. We have one of the cleanest portfolios in America despite what you hear. Maine has gone one of the largest percentage of renewables in America. About two thirds of its portfolio is all renewable but we have limitations.
In the state of Maine, if you buy hydro up to 100 megawatts, it's considered an alternative renewable energy. If you go to 101 megawatts, it's considered brown. Legislator put that in a dozen years ago. It doesn't make any sense but that's how government picks and chooses winners or losers and then when you look at election years, a whole lot of people from wind and solar, they give a whole lot of people money to vote vote for their projects and so, we are victims of a system in America that is run by lobbyists.
We need to deal with it and I started to. I've never said much about it but in recent months, I've decided, it's time to expose who the biggest lobbyists are and who are the biggest bad people that are hurt ... not bad people but who are the people that are preventing us from being prosperous. It's the people in the halls of Augusta to hand out big ... They used to do with little brown paper bags. Now, they just do it in checks and soon, there will be wire transfers because that's how it works and if you don't think so, you just need to come down and shadow my work there. We'll go up and I'll introduce you to a few of them. Incidentally, they don't give me any money. I'm not on their good list but that's really what's happening with energy.
Now, I'm going to go to the five issues referendums this fall and you need to understand this. You need to get educated on these because these are very, very important. The first one is ranked-choice voting. Now, Eliot Cutler proposes this bill and he says, had he had that in 2010, he came in second and he would have won because he would have more second place votes than I did because the had first place and third place. He had third place and second place but he had more in second place than I had in first place, therefore, he would've been governor. That's what ranked-choice voting does.
Now, there were five people in 2010. Not three. Number three might have become the governor. My suggestion to you is this, ranked-choice voting is simply bad. If you insist on having a governor that has got 51 percent of the vote or more than 50 percent of the vote, it's very simple. You have a runoff. That's what most states do. They take the two highest votes. Get this, everybody goes away, then they have a runoff and then you vote one more time. Very simple. Louisiana does it. It happens all the time. That's what I recommend. Then you go and have voted for somebody that had 51 percent of the vote or over 50 percent of the vote.
Medical marijuana, I don't like to deal with social issues. I don't do marijuana. I could do beer. All I know is, I used to smoke and they said, "Stop smoking because it's bad for your lungs." Now we spend millions of dollars a year to stop people from smoking cigarettes but they want to go smoke marijuana. You make a choice. It doesn't make any sense to me. They say that cigarettes are addicting. They're not. I stopped smoking, no problem. I did it several times.
The fact of the matter is, that's not an issue. I think you need to decide that. It's a social issue and it's an issue that I don't want to put my personal feelings on that one. I readily admit, I'll drink a beer with anybody anytime and I don't hang on smoking anymore.
Then the next three are a little different. Two of them deal with minimum wage and a surcharge on income tax and then the second one is just second amendment rights. The second amendment rights, I will tell you, very, very important to me. Very important to most Mainers but in Maine, the constitution says that you have the right to own and bear arms and it shall never be questioned. This says, it's going to do background checks for letting somebody use your gun to go hunting or you can't let your son use your gun. It's crazy. You're going to have to apply to a federal government every time you want to use your gun.
My suggestion to this one is if you want to change the gun laws in May, we need to change the constitution first and then the law second because the constitutions rules and if this law pa**es, it will never get enforced until it goes through a whole battery of lawsuits all the way up to a supreme court because it's simply wrong.
The constitution's the only one document you have to follow and if a law is pa**ed and it violates the constitutions, repugnant to the constitution, it's not a law. Don't let people fool you on that one. That's a pretty simple cut and dry thing.
Now, I'm not suggesting that we don't have gun laws. I'm not suggesting that we can't do it. I'm suggesting, do it right if you're going to do it and this bill is being promoted by a billionaire who was a former mayor of New York City and he wants to get all the guns out of America and he just doesn't understand the Maine constitution. Very simple. Next to minimum wage.
I'm not going to sit here and say that everybody shouldn't have more wages. I think everybody should have a career wage. I think a minimum wage is nothing but a starting wage. That's where you come out of high school, you get your first job, you get trained, that's the minimum wage. If you want to increase that, that's fine but that's not what this bill does. What this bill does is it's going to go to $12 and then every year after that, it's indexed by inflation. It goes up every year. Major problem. Within a decade, we're going to be the highest minimum wage in America. We will not be competitive with anybody. Bad.
Second thing it does and if I was a young person here, anybody who's been a waiter, a bartender, a short order ... Well, maybe not a cook. I didn't make many tips on cooking but if you work in the tourist industry and you depend on tips, you lose them with this bill because once we hit $12 minimum wage, no more tips. No more tips at Maine means no more service. That means you have to get your own water.
I mean I'm being facetious but basically, that's what this bill does. So many people get through college. My daughter is at law school. Her last year at law school in Portland. Last summer, she worked in Boothbay and she was making $28 an hour. She did so well, my wife went to get a job. Make no mistake about it. There's nothing wrong with working for tips. There's nothing wrong with making $28 an hour, instead of 12 and this is what this bill does. This is a bad bill. It was badly thought out. It's really simply a bad bill.
Now, if we want to change minimum wage, we can. We wanted to put an alternative bill in. It took away the indexing, got rid of the tips, just a straight up minimum wage bill and the Democratic leadership, I'm not going to say the Democratic Party because they didn't get a chance to vote on it but the leaders of the Democratic Party said, "We're not interested in working with you." They were not simply interested. They don't want to do a competing measure. We're going to spend a ton of money to try to beat that.
It's not just the young people that are going to suffer by not getting jobs. The biggest problem with this bill is people on social security and that's a fixed income and they don't get an increase and don't you think that if you go from $7.65 to $12 an hour, a dozen eggs aren't going to cost more, the bread's not going to cost more, milk's going to go up, meat's going to go up, gas going to go up. You'll go to a convenience store and you're going to pay more for everything.
Now, I didn't make that up and I'm not trying to scare you but that's basic economics. If you stay in business, you have to pay your expenses and you have to have a little profit and if you have to pay more for labor, you got to raise prices. You raise prices. Those who don't have the income are going to pay a much higher rate. I'm just saying that's a bad bill. Now, the other bill is about a surcharge on people making $200,000. They're going to pay a 3 percent surcharge and the money's going to go to schools. Sounds good. Except what? Who are the 16,000 or 18,000 people who pays surcharge will be stuck with a surcharge.
Rich lawyers, rich doctors but let me tell you something, the state of Maine right now has a shortage of psychiatrists. Believe me, I'm looking for one. Two, we have a shortage of dentists and we have a shortage of general practitioners. When they drive to Maine to become a doctor in Maine, they go through New Hampshire. No income tax, no sales tax. Here, they're going to have to pay the second highest state income tax in America behind California just short of what California pays and the newspapers won't tell you that. They won't tell you that this is a bad law.
Let me tell you why I say that. The New England average, six New England states, the average income tax for the six states, with New Hampshire being zero, is 6.6 percent. We're going to be going up to 10.15 [percent]. The rule state average, rule states, states like Maine, Vermont, Wyoming, Montana, states that have sparsely populated people, spaces. The average for all 50 states. The average is 5.5 [percent].
We go to 10 [percent], you might as well say bye-bye to good businesses that want to come to Maine. Who's going to come to Maine? Now, I was just talking to Dana Connors before I came here, at the state chamber, and he was talking to the CEO of Texas Instruments, who have a factory in [South] Portland. He said, "My people don't want to go out there. They don't want to go out there and pay 10 [percent]. They look at it as getting a 10 percent cut in pay when they go to Maine and it's higher cost of living in Maine than Texas and then we're going to take more out of their paycheck."
Let's say education. There was not enough money for education. Wrong again. In the state of Maine, we have 177,000 kids in education K through 12. We have 127 superintendents. It takes 5 percent of the school budget to run all the schools. The other 49 states, it takes 2 percent of the school budget to run the schools, 2 percent. 3 percent of pushing $3 billion for 177,000. We are the number 7th highest cost of education in America and let me give you a comparison. State of Florida, three million kids K through 12, 64 superintendents.
They are ranked seven in quality. We're ranked 38. We're ranked seventh in spending and we're 38th. We have it just backwards and to kick it all off, what's the problem? Too much administration and too much union. Not enough teacher pay and not enough money going into the cla**room. That's the problem with Maine. The rest of America pays the teacher better.
We have two winners, two losers. The kids and the teachers lose, the superintendents and the union win because they get the teachers' dues and they don't put the money back into the teacher. They don't give you free education. I've offered them for five years. You put up $5 million. We'll put $5 million. We'll make a fund of $10 million and any teacher in Maine that wants to advance their career and their education, that fund will pay for it. Not only for the courses but for the books and the travel.
I'm still waiting for a response. I've sent them a letter 2011, '12, '13 and '14. When they say I hate education, that's not true. I love education. In my life, I'm successful because of my education and we need education. What we don't need is people who talk out of both sides of their mouth. With that, I'm going to have Adrienne [Bennett] open it up and I'll answer some questions.
[Female] Richard (inaudible)
[Richard] (inaudible)
[Paul LePage]: Yes. In the state of Maine, we just pa**ed for our students going onto higher education. Every student that goes onto higher education, be it university, community college or trade schools can get a student loan from the state of Maine interest-free. You will not be charged any interest. Furthermore, once you go back, you get your education, you start paying back your loan. If you pay it back, every dollar you pay back on your loan will be deducted both on your income tax and if your employer pays for it, you get a job and your employer gets the tax break for paying your students loan on.
Probably, it's the first state to do it. I think it's one way that we can get the state of Maine from being a [median] age of 44 and get the age down to maybe 35, 34, so we can be a younger state so that we old guys and ladies can all go retire and have you young people pay for it.
[Female] All right. Carolyn (inaudible)?
[Carolyn] (inaudible)
[Paul LePage] Okay. First of all, SNAP program is a federal program. There's no state money in it. It's a federal program. This is what we're trying to do. You've heard Michelle Obama is trying to get nutritional value in school lunches in schools but the kids are throwing it away. You know why? Because they don't know any better. They don't have nutritional food at home. I'm not trying to get rid of the SNAP program. What I'm trying to do is reform the SNAP program.
The state of Maine has a serious problem with obesity, Type 2 diabetes and hunger and it's all the same people. Our kids are obese. They get diabetes and they're hungry because they're eating food that have no nutritional value. It just adds wasted calories. Believe me when I tell you, I've been there. I'm doing that. I've been struggling with my weight for my whole life but I never learned to eat properly as a child.
Now I certainly eat much better now but this is not like ... It's not something that you'll learn overnight. Sweets, soda drinks, candy bars, you name it. You got to be very informed in reading labels so that you understand that you're getting nutrition. I am not against the program. It's called a Supplemental Nutritional Program. I am trying to make sure that to ensure that the dollars we put into SNAP go to nutritional foods. Not to d**, not to cigarettes, not to alcohol. That's what I'm trying to avoid.
Many people say, "We fought this big battle with EBT cards." You know why I try to put pictures on EBT cards? Does anybody know? It's to affect the drug trade. It was all about d** because people are using their cards to give it to the drug dealer and the drug dealer give them all the d** they wanted and they just took the money.
The cards are loaded on the ninth of the month. Each month on the ninth, the cards are loaded. The money is made available to the recipient at midnight on the 10th. By 4 a.m., 50 percent of the money is gone. 50 percent of $330 million is gone between midnight and 4 a.m.. That's my problem. Now, I will agree, a couple of Hannafords are open 24 hours and you can get some formula at 2 a.m. but not in every street corner.
Then we did an an*lysis of where's all the money going. $64 million of the $330 million are spent out of state with New Hampshire being number one and Ma**achusetts being number two as a state. Let me give you the top cities. Disney World Las Vegas, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Philadelphia. Top five cities. Now, I can understand Disney World. I can understand somebody wanting to go to Disney World. I go to Fun Town because I can't afford to go to Disney World. Las Vegas, if somebody paid my way and it was there for a conference, I might go but who goes to Brooklyn in the Bronx? You know what happens? The money comes through an ATM machine. There is one ATM machine in Maine that cashes 3 percent of $330 million a year. One machine cashes 3 percent of the entire state budget and it's right next to the Western Union.
That's what I'm trying to affect. It's not the food. It's not the nutrition. I want people to eat healthy. I want them to be healthy children to go to our schools. I want people to use the generosity of the American people in the way it's intended. That's what we're trying to do. This year, for the first time, we finally got rid of buying ... You could no longer buy tobacco, alcohol, lottery tickets, go to strip joints and bail yourself using your EBT card. We just got it pa**ed.
Now believe it or not, we have situations in Maine where a husband would go on Friday night, get drunk, come home, beat his wife up, get arrested, go to jail, get the bail commissioner and be back home by 3 a.m. How right is that? You can't do that anymore. You got to wait until Monday. Now, you got to wait until Monday to see a judge. Sober up in jail. Remember Barney Fife, the guy used to come in, just voluntarily come in. That's what we're trying to go back to.
The point here and make no mistake about it, TANF, SNAP, all of the entitlement programs, I do not want to get rid of them. That's not my purpose. My purpose is this, we have got people with mental issues, intellectual disabilities, physical disabilities and elderly that qualify for services and can't get them because we don't put enough money in but we have thousands of people, 19 to 50 [year-old] able-bodied people. They get everything they want anytime of the day or night and that's who I'm fighting against.
Now, we started out we have 14,000 people on TANF. We're down to 2,000 I think. 12,000 people have been taken off and they're working now. We got them to go to work and this is the catch. The average increase in wages from welfare to work, 114 percent. Having a job is not a bad deal. Keeps you from fighting with your wife, the kids pull some stuff on you and your wife has to deal with it because you're away at work and all the good things. You come home at night and you could be nice to the dog and he'll lick your face.
Joking aside, it's really about trying to help society develop that self-dignity and the self-respect to stand up and be proud and I'll give you a little story. 2011, I met a young lady who sent me a not-so-nice letter. In fact, there were some vulgarities in it and she was pretty nasty. She was objecting to my saying about Welfare to Work. We have a program called, Welfare to Work. Well, in 2016, I want to tell you, she got her RN. Now, I'm her hero. That's the difference. That's what I'm looking for.
[Female] (inaudible) John Marlon.
[John] My question (inaudible). What I'm hearing you say is that you're only (inaudible). What happens (inaudible)?
[Paul LePage] Yeah, okay. Actually, you're right. In order to stop the SNAP benefit and then ... Now, I can stop the TANF benefit and if you've seen, I've gone from 14,000 to 2,000 and those are on there, the 2,000 are people that are elderly that really need it and I'll give you an example here in a minute but the SNAP program is a little different. That was pa**ed in statute. The only way I can stop it is the legislature vote it out and they're not about to. I've asked them. They're not interested.
What I have to do with the SNAP program is I have to try to change the culture of buying non-nutritional food and getting nutritional food. Make no mistake, if I could and restrict it to just nutritional food to help people that really need it, they would get it and a whole lot of people that currently had jobs and Augusta wouldn't need them. We wouldn't need to be providing those jobs. I agree with you but I can't do the SNAP program, the way we did the TANF program.
[Female] (inaudible) Yes?
[Paul LePage] I was going to give you another example and she's walking around. I have a gentleman one day. I was coming out of the dentist at 7:30 in the morning. He's leaning on a car and he only has one leg. He says, "I fell through the cracks. I was in the military and I lost my leg in the military but I've fallen through the cracks and for some reason, I can't get the Veterans Administration to deal with my case and MaineCare won't deal with it. If I had a leg, I'm able to go to work."
I get back to the office and we had just hired a young attorney. Her name is Holly. She's been with us about a week and I said, "Holly, I got a project for you. I need a leg." She says, "What?" I said, "Here he is, the name of that gentleman, his phone number, his name. Call him up. He needs a leg. You need to find him a leg." Believe it or not, it was half-jokingly because I had no idea what to do. She found him a leg and this gentleman's working now. There's some good things that happened.
[Female] (inaudible)
[Paul LePage] Yeah. Small business is the number one employer in the state of Maine. We have 45,000 companies, roughly 200 companies 100 or more. The rest are real small. Some are five to 10, then you got 10 to 25 and 50 is considered a pretty good sized company in Maine. That's why I said earlier, anti-business. I was in a restaurant up in Fort Kent last week, there were six licenses on the wall. Six licenses. Not one, six. They have an entertainment license. You have a liquor license. You got a food license. There's another one that you have to have. Then the DEP [check] comes in and checks your water and then ... and I'm sitting there, I'm saying, "Why don't we have a program where you have a checklist of all the things you need to check and once you check them off, you give them a license. Be done with it. One license." It's a revenue source because we don't get enough of your tax money, now we got to get your license money, your permit money.
I constantly work on that. I will tell you, when this summer and this fall before the election, talk to the people running and ask them if they would reduce the red tape on small businesses because we are overburdening small businesses in the state of Maine. They will all tell you, it's the backbone of Maine. We need small business and they will all vote to put more regulations on small business. Very, very few vote against it.
Usually the few that vote against it are the few business people in Maine that have tried to run a business and have gone through Augusta either because they're retiring and the family's taking over or they just have had enough and they got to try to do something and they will vote with me. The majority, "Oh, we got to protect the public." Well, you're not protecting the public in the sense that that's why we've got the 19th [highest] cost of living because we're charging them more for everything.
[Female] Howard (inaudible)
[Howard] Good evening.
[Paul LePage] Good evening.
[Howard] (inaudible)
[Paul LePage] Countless other interests. Yes.
[Howard] This is (inaudible). What kind of leadership you (inaudible) that this moment where we have an opportunity (inaudible)?
[Paul LePage] That's a very good question. The answer is this, if you go after guns without going after mental illnesses, you're not going to accomplish anything. I do not know anyone who is ... I bought a house one time, lady was murdered in the house. The gentleman was a parolee out of Ma**achusetts who came to Maine. He'd only been paroled three weeks, came to Maine, went on China Lake, stole a gun, then went to get these ... He had to think or know or had some information this lady he k**ed had all these diamonds. She died. He stole the gun. He was a bad guy.
95 percent of Americans who own guns are not bad people. My point ... One thing we do wrong here is we want to go after everyone who has a gun instead of going after everyone who shouldn't have a gun. We should deal with mental illness. We should deal with people that are convicted criminals that should not have guns. That I'm all in. I will fight for that all day long but if you look at all the disasters, now the one in Orlando, some would say it's mental illness, some would say it's not. Actually, it was terrorism. That's not going to change. Terrorism isn't going to change.
You're not going to change somebody's heart from hatred. That I think is one example of one exception. Then the mental illness though, that one we can deal with but we refuse to. I'm all in. If you're going to do it comprehensively, I'm all in but if you're only going to go after guns, every time there's a big gun battle about one of these incidences, I go and buy a gun. I have a gun safety. I don't hunt. I have five guns. I've never shot them but when my wife's alone in Florida in the winter, when she was there to her mom in Florida, that gun is on the night table. I said, "Honey, there's two things you do, you take it, you co*k it and you shoot." You don't give them a warning because if they're not supposed to be there, they're not supposed to be there.
I am not saying that I'm for everybody running around with a gun. Although, I will say this that I will protect my family with a gun if I have to. Now, I'm not looking to hurt anybody but I don't believe that guns do the harm. It's the people who have the guns in their hands that have the problem and we have to deal with those issues. Sandy Hook, mental illness, Aurora, mental illness. I mean I could go on and on and on. Fort Hood, terrorism. I mean we can go on and find ... Is it America? Where are the strictest gun laws in America? The city of Chicago. Which is the deadliest in America? Chicago.
It's not the bad guys will not go worry about the laws. That's why they're the bad guys. The bad guys will get the gun no matter what. Like I said, this guy stole a gun in China, came to Waterville and shot a lady. I'm not saying we don't need leadership. I'm not saying that we don't need to do something and we need to do something but I will say this, why are we reluctant to call terrorism terrorism when we see it? Why are we reluctant to deal with mental illness when we know that 25 years ago, the state of Maine walked away, locked the keys at AMHI and walked away from mental illness and now, they're in our jails? Why are people with mental illness in jail? They should be in treatment.
If you're not going to look at it comprehensively, then I can't make excuses for people having guns. Do I feel bad for those people? It's heart-wrenching. That was heart-wrenching. Just like the two-year-old who's at a park, puts his feet on the water and he dies from an alligator. Do we eradicate all alligators? It said, no swimming. It didn't say, no swimming because of alligators and probably, they're going to get sued all this but the fact of the matter is, these things are going to happen and I think you got to go to the gra**roots in finding out what's the cause. The cause of gun violence is violent people.
One thing you said that I agree with you so much, not so much more in Europe now because Europe is starting to change and just in the last couple of years, they're getting a lot more violent but what I'm saying is you didn't see this in Ireland or England or Canada but even Canada now, in recent years have become far more violent. Somebody attacked their capitol. If you get rid of guns, fine. You solve that problem but you still have baseball bats, swords, knives, anything else. When you want to hurt somebody, you can hurt somebody.
Let's find the cause. The root cause is mental illness, terrorism and these types of things and let's work together to find solutions for all of that but telling people they can't protect their families, concerns me.
[Female] (inaudible)
[Male] First of all, I want to thank you very much for (inaudible). My question for you is (inaudible)?
[Paul LePage] Stop buying newspapers. Stop it, stop it. No, I still believe deep down in my heart that Maine is a 70-30 state. It's 70 percent socially and fiscally conservative and 30 percent liberal or progressive. I really believe that and I think if you look at where the progressives are, they're in a pocket. The overwhelming majority of the state has 14 out of 16 counties are essentially conservative or independent which really is conservative or right.
The issue is we're not loud enough. We're the silent majority. We've always been silent majority and the silent majority never gets heard because those who squeak the loudest get the oil and those who scream the loudest, get the attention. It's an unfortunate thing and unfortunately, what I said about newspapers, the media, all forms of media are not bad people and I'm not suggesting that they're all progressive. What they are, they have a built-in bias. It takes a certain personality to get into that business, so it has a built-in bias.
For instance, law enforcement. Law enforcement see a lot of very difficult things everyday. In recent years, we're seeing a lot more criticism about law enforcement but if you see some of the things that they see, you can see why they're more conservative. They're far more conservative than say, a journalist would be. If a journalist would enter a gunfight, he'd die. If a law enforcement goes into an interview, he gets castrated in the newspaper. It's just the way it is. I don't like it. I think political correctness is overtaking us slowly. It's destroying our nation. It's destroying our culture. It's destroying our way of life.
I was asked a question yesterday, "What's your position on transgender bathrooms?" I was, "I don't know. I don't think about it. I think about the $19 trillion that my kids and my grandkids are going to have to pay." That bothers me. If you're concerned about transgender bathroom, I got a quick solution, unis** bathrooms, everybody has a stall, problem solved. It's not a big issue. Let's deal with the big issues. Let's deal with terrorism. Let's deal with the $19 trillion soon to be $20 trillion and I see all these young people around and saying, "How are they going to pay for it?"
Why is our middle income salaries or the cla** of the middle income just losing ground every year? The rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the middle cla** is gone. Why? Because we have a stagnated economy. We have a jobless recovery. Why do we have a jobless recovery? Everybody's got every gadget in the world, none of them are made here. That's what we have a problem with and we have a government that thinks that the way to solve all our problems, to tax us into prosperity. You can't do it. What you have to do is understand what drives an economy. You have to understand what drives jobs. How do we get Honeywell back from Japan and how do we get Hitachi to go from Japan to Maine? How do we get these companies that left us and have $2 trillion offshore in banks come back to Maine and feel welcome?
I'll tell you. The business climate in Washington today reminds me of the Vietnam War because we treat business today like we treated our soldiers coming home from Vietnam. They're bad and I'm telling you, that's the only way we recover this country, is we save jobs. We get good jobs and I'm not talking about flipping hamburgers. Nothing wrong with flipping hamburgers. I flipped many. In fact, I don't need them anymore because I used to make the hamburgers at McDonald's.
The point is, is let's understand what drives an economy and let's make that good. Do you know that the United States of America is now the highest corporate tax in the world. In America, Maine's the 45th highest corporate tax in the United States. You wonder why we're not attracting business? We are taxing them to d**h. Now, lower the corporate tax, bring them in, lower your energy cost and invite them here in June, July and August, they'll never leave.
[Female] Next question, Morgan (inaudible)
[Morgan] Thank you, Governor Paul (inaudible). Thank you very much. (inaudible)
[Paul LePage] Yeah. You're absolutely correct. We have a whole lot of work to do. Technology's moving much faster than our Homeland Security has been able to cope to what's going on in the world and we are vulnerable for our water. We are vulnerable for our food. We are vulnerable for our electrical grid. Yeah, we are very, very vulnerable. Not to mention that bad people have bad weapons and they can hurt us. Yes. Are we working on it? Yes. There's a lot of work being done. I am not capable to tell you whether or not it's effective or not. I don't know.
I know that the National Guard is taking on a much greater role in the whole cyber and the whole security part of our nation. I'm just not up to speed on whether or not, it's effective. I don't know much about it. Other than, we can lose our grid. We can lose our food supply. We can lose our water real simple and that's a real, real danger. It's a dangerous world we live in and this is what I was trying to say earlier. We live in such a dangerous world but we're worried about bathrooms. We're worried about things that are social values and they're very important but I think the survival of humanity is even more important.
I have a battle with the Natural Resource Council of Maine and this is where I tell them, if we worry solely about the environment, we create severe poverty. If we worry solely about human activity and good jobs, we have China. We have an enormous environmental catastrophe. We need to sit down find balance. We need to try to find a balance and people say, "I don't want to work with the legislator," so they said, "Meet with us." I meet with them. They said, "We don't want to work with you. We don't care what you want."
Now, they say, "Well, we pa**ed the bill." I say, "I don't know. There's no money." "Well, it's too bad. Do what you got to do." Folks, the minute I take action, the second, many other reporters in here will have adversarial headlines and articles that I'm a tyrant. I could walk across the Kennebec River tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. and the headlines on Friday will read, "Governor can't swim." It's just the way it is. What I do is this, I try to do the best I can do everyday. I go home and I pet my dog because if you want loving in this business, get a dog.
[Female] Okay. Next one is (inaudible)
[Female] (inaudible)
[Paul LePage] Thank you.
[Female] (inaudible)
[Paul LePage] I'm sorry, I didn't hear you.
[Female] (inaudible)
[Paul LePage] We are working very, very hard on that. There are three basic issues that I think would help the industry. One is we got to track investment. We need capital investment. I just got a letter today from Mr. Chu from China who invested two machines in Washington County. We're talking about investing in two more machines, tissue machines. The industry has to reinvent itself. In order to reinvent itself, we have to have capital. It's a very capital-intensive industry.
In order to invest in a paper mill or paper machines, you have to welcome the investment and once they're here, you have to appreciate it. We need in Maine to learn to do a couple of things. When the [Millinockets] were closed down, they were paying tax. [The Bucksport] mill sold for $59 million and it was torn down. It could have sold for $62 and continued operating but the owners didn't want to do that because they want the competition in with their other mills. I understand that. I could say that that's an investment piece. The printing market, newspaper, if you haven't noticed, newspapers aren't selling like they used to. I hope I'm not the cause. Am I the cause?
Newspaper prints are not selling like they used to. Maine was a very, very heavy into printing paper. Madison Paper, Great Northern, Sappi, I mean IP. Then you've got Catalyst. They all make printing paper. They have to change, so now you have mills like Twin Rivers. I was there last week. The are moving away from print papers to packaging. Remember the wax paper in grocery stores, now they use plastic? Plastic going away, going back is wax paper. Those type of paper products are coming back. They got to invest in those.
Yes, we have an opportunity because the forest isn't leaving. We have more trees today than we had in 1955 and look, we are the number one state for a paper, for five decades running. Yes, we have a great opportunity for paper but we need to change from newsprint to pressure sensitive, to wax that you use in different industries, packaging.
I'll tell you if you ever see a packaging that comes out of China, it's horrible. We could supply them with all kinds of packaging. Yes, we can divide that and it means, we got to welcome investment. Once they get here, you got to treat them appropriately and this is what I mean. Bucksport sold for $59 million. They were being taxed at $700 million. Now that's a community.
Now, I'll give you another example. The Millinocket Mill closed in 2008. It didn't make a sheet of paper until I became governor. Then I came in and said, "Well, we're in sudden severe danger, you got to help us out here... we're losing all kinds of money for our schools." I say, "Okay, explain to me." Well, the mill's not making papers. It's been down for three years. What have you done?
You know what they were charging taxes on that mill? Here's a company, a mill that had been down for three years. It was scrapped for $2.9 million and the owners were paying taxes on $184 million. What happens? Human nature takes over when these companies come in and the politicians are not big on backbone. It's not one thing that they have. They don't have big, strong bones. They look the other way and towns are allowed to creep away, creep away, creep away and they keep the mil rates down for the residential and they put the burden on the big company and everybody thinks they can afford it. They do, they can. They're very wealthy.
They're usually big taxpayers. They're usually a good contributor. They have big ball fields and everything but there comes a day when they don't put more money in to keep technology. The equipment gets old. They're no longer competitive. I was told today, the company's going out in Lewiston–Auburn area. They do de-[inking]. This is the question I asked. Did the industry [close] up? No. Just this company. You mean to tell me that there are other companies that are going to be de-inking? Oh, of course. They're all over the place. That tells me that this company is now the low cost producer. The other companies produce for less and so, they're getting the business. That's what happens and that's why Maine being at 19th highest cost of doing business in America will not survive. It will survive but it will survive in poverty, not in prosperity unless we do a couple things. We lower our taxes. We fight to get lower energy and we embrace business investors.
Now, I'm not going to say that every business is a good business. I'm not going to say every [paper] company in Maine is a good business. I would tell you this, Sappi, they're a great company. Twin Rivers, they're trying to become a great company. The Woodland Mill, the two new tissue machines, good company. These people care about people and jobs. Safety and good wages. The mill in Bucksport, that could've survived but they decided not to. They didn't want the competition. Madison Paper was a great company. Madison Paper didn't go out of business. They're one of the best companies in the world. They just went to Minnesota because it's cheaper to do business there. They'll keep profit.
To stay in business, you need to be the low cost producer so that you can make profit. If you're the high cost producer, your profits are going to slender and slim. That's what we need to do. It's not rocket science and I've done it. Before being governor, I did a lot of companies Vic Firth was in ... went into bankruptcy. We took it out and now, it's the largest manufacturer of drumsticks in the world.
You can figure these things out and you can do it but it's not politics. It's business. It's different and when politicians say, "I want solar because I feel good about solar." Okay, you'll be on the breadline someday. Until we can figure out how to store electricity, during the day, to be used at night, you're going to have to have two systems. That's the problem with solar. How many people in Maine can afford two systems? Very few.
You got to do what you got to do to keep your family moving ahead. You got to feed them, shelter them, clothe them and if we were a little bit more open-minded as a state, I think we could be prosperous. I'll tell you why we could be prosperous. In the summer months, Maine is the number one state in America for second home ownership. In the summer months between May 31st and Labor Day, we have 40 million visitors. 40 million people come through the state. The people who own these second homes down on the coast, they're from California, Texas, Oklahoma, really Arizona, really hot places and a lot of them have a lot of money but they leave because if you stay here more than six months and a day, you pay taxes.
People will leave for six months a day. I think if we were a smart state, we would lower the state tax, lower the income tax, invite them to stay 10 months a year. Let them go to Florida when it's January, February. Who cares? As long as they're back in March but losing them for six months and a day, means they take all their a**ets with them, except for the house that's empty for six months and a day.
Yes. Great opportunities. It's the most beautiful state. In the summer, it's god's country. Little rough in the winter but maybe global [climate] change might warm it up a little for us. You got to have winners and losers somewheres. Seriously, you laugh but in the last three years, we've had the best potato yields off the land than ever because we have more heat days. It takes heat days to grow potatoes. Gardens have been good in the last three years and it's not even a big temperature change like half a degree. It's just when it is, that's all.
[Female] Okay. (inaudible)
[Paul LePage] God, I had so much fun.
[Female] (inaudible)
[Paul LePage] I am doing this every week. We started last year. I'm trying to get to as many communities as I can and my message is this, I am not trying to tell you what to do or say I'm right and everybody else is wrong. That's not what I'm here to do. What I'm trying to do is tell you what I have found out and what is driving the state over the last several years. I will tell you that our system of government is one of our biggest problems. We are a state that is run by lobbyists because we are a poor state. Lobbyists big money runs the halls and everybody fights for their little agenda but my ask to you is this, we need a lobby that will fight for the Maine people. We need people that you send to Augusta that their number one priority is you, not the next election.
The night before my reelection, the night before the national media, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, all of them, there wasn't one in this nation that said I could win. They said I would lose worse than Tom Corbett in Pennsylvania and I set a record for votes. Why? Because I tell you what needs to happen. You may not like it and you don't have to like it but I'm telling you from 45 years of business experience, what has made companies like [Marden's] and Vic Firth are successful.
I'm telling you, we can accomplish that in Augusta but in order to accomplish it, you folks have to put people in November, in Augusta that will do that for us, that will help me. We need people in Augusta that work for you.
Now, there are three types of legislators, there's the first type is they're the real ambitious ones. Those are the 25-year-olds that come in and they got to be governor in 2018. We got about a third of those that all think that when it's an open seat, it seems like everybody with at least a bit of ambition, runs for governor and it. In fact, I was told by a legislator, a very good friend of mine, Bob (inaudible) he says, "Paul, I think your ego is getting to you. You did a great job in Waterville but nobody knows you out of ... once you get outside of Waterville, nobody knows your name." I said, "But I know how to attract attention." Right? I've done that well.
The second type of legislator is a person who's there to self-enrich. Self-enrichment. It's a real bad ... I'll give you just a quick example, legislator pa** the bill. He sent a bond to you folks and in the bonds, you can't really tell what the bond's going to do and what it's for. It's just a quick little question. It's really complicated but this is what it did with $15 million. It's a housing bond. Whoever gets that money is an instant millionaire because they give you the money and there's no conditions on it. I've refused to do it. In fact, I want to send it back and I want the Legislature to put some meat behind it.
The first person right after it's pa**ed, legislator comes down, wants $5 million of the $15 million. He was going to do a job. His project was $5.7 million. He was going to get $5 million from me and another 500,000 from another investor and he's going to put $250,000 and he's going to be an instant millionaire and that bond allows it. There's no conditions on it and then when I [don't] sell the bonds, every paper goes, "Oh, governor doesn't want to sell bonds. He's hurting Maine people." I spent in the last two years, while this $15 million was being voted on, we approved $180 million of housing bonds in the state of Maine. You never saw that in newspaper and you won't.
What I'm telling you is there are people with self-enrichment and then there are those ... Joel Stetkis, Heather Sirocki, that go down there and just work. Larry Lockman. They work day in and day out. Some of them have jobs and they try to make both ends go and they really work for the Maine people because they love Maine. I became governor for one simple reason, I want my children to stay in Maine. I don't want to have to go chase them to see my grandkids and three out of five are not in Maine. I would like them all to be in Maine because I love Maine but like many others, I'm maybe forced to go to the other states after I retire. That's what I'm fighting for.
I urge you all this November. It doesn't make any difference to me whether a Democrat or Republicans, really because both Democrats and Republicans are fine. Nobody's got a monopoly or on good or bad. There's good and bad everywhere. I will say this though, the progressive movement is a tough movement to overcome because the progressive movement is like a 16-year-old teenager. That's the last time they know it all because once they go from 16 ... I used to tell my kids that the last time I knew it all was your age and that's what happens when you deal with a true blue progressive. They know it all. They're not willing to talk but today, I have suggestions to fix this dilemma but I don't have the authority. The legislator doesn't. They don't want to fix it.
I urge you to really spend some time on the people you elect in November. Those people that you elect really can do or can keep us where we are or they can bring us backwards but it's up to you. Every single vote counts and that's my message. I hope that you really get involved. Vote. I mean some choices are very difficult but it's our responsibility to keep a civil society moving forward. Thank you.