Is taking care of our constituents at home. Voices from the states on cspan. Maine Governor Paul Lepage delivered his final state of the state address last week at the statehouse in augustine. He said he will not move forward to a voter approved measure to expand medicaid because the state legislature hasnt determined to pay for it. He leaves office in january of 2019 after eight years on term limits. [applause] thank you so much. Members of the 128th legislature, distinguished guests, and my fellow citizens, i want to briefly remember Paul Mitchell of waterville, brother of senator mitchell, who passed away this weekend. He was a dedicated Public Servant and a good friend. As i begin the last state of the state address of my time as governor of this great state, let me be first to thank my wife. Honey, please stand. [applause] first of all, she looks gorgeous. [laughing] [applause] she has been unwavering as a representative from the governor to the people of the state of maine. And here she has done it with grace, with dignity, and shes never said no, that i can recall. Shes just unbelievable. And in case i forget, happy valentines day. [applause] i also want to thank our children. And tonight there are two that are here, lauren, who youve all heard and known. Shes been with me since 2010. Now shes on her own trying to set her own career, and i want to tell you, before its done shes going to tower over whatever she wants to accomplish. My other daughter, lisa, who has two children, im so proud of, and she has a son that is very active. And all i can tell he is payback is a bitch. [laughing] [applause] because i remember when she was young. [laughing] Staff SergeantRonald Fowler of the air force at 243rd engineering installation squadron, thank you for your service to the state of maine antique United States of america. You make us very proud to be the outstanding officer in 2018, and i cannot be any happier, and my wife, and the first lady, is so proud to be seated next to you as she is such a dedicated person of our military. [applause] little unusual, im going to thank a few people recognize a few people tonight. And one is sergeant angela i dont how to pronounce her lasting but she is head of the security detail. And in her home at the blaine be house the rule is of this. If my wife is not around, angela is in charge. [laughing] and the other one is holly lusk, my chief of staff who just took over recently. I was approached, you seem to be more assertive than youve ever been. Well, holly has the distinction of getting me out of my shyness. [laughing] [applause] tonight im here to speak to you about the future of maine. The future of this great state. We have made progress but there is much more we could have done and we should have done. But as we move forward, i hope that you can get it done. In his last state of the union, Ronald Reagan said, if anyone expects just a proud recitation of the accomplishments of my administration, i say lets leave that to history; were not finished yet. So my message to tonight is put on your work shoes; were still on the job. Now is not the time to slow down. Now was the time to working until the very last minute of my administration. The last day as they inaugurate the new governor in 2019. I hope to take my lovely wife and i, sit back, take some rest and get to enjoy each Others Company once again. I came into office saying i will put people before politics, and i have tried to do that. Politics as usual puts our most vulnerable mainers at risk. As most of you know, im no fan of the status quo. Today, special interests continue to highjack our ballot box and politicians continue to kowtow to wealthy lobbyists and welfare activists. The legislature has forgotten about the mainers who need our help the most. Our elderly, our intellectually and physically disabled and even our youth are being left out of the process. I vow to spend my final year as governor fighting for those mainers who dont have a voice in augusta. [applause] for the last seven years i have heard that the left is compassionate. Subsidizing solar panels for wealthy homeowners at the expense of the poorest people in maine is not compassion. Raising taxes on hardworking families to expand welfare entitlements for able bodied people is not compassionate. Catering to the activists in the halls of the state house instead of the struggling Family Businesses on main street is not compassionate. I know what its like to need help. And i know some representatives. I see craig right there and weve talked about it. We know what it is to have rough times. We understand that its not always easy. Thats what every saturday i meet with constituents one on one. We talk about their problems. I have been accused of getting involved with peoples personal lives and trying to fight for them from my office. It is all our jobs. It is our jobs as elected officials to help them. We are, after all, Public Servants. For the last seven years my priority has been to make all mainers prosper, and ive been fighting both sides of the aisle because i believe that both sides of the aisle need to be working closer together. Too many maine families are facing skyrocketing property taxes that strain household budgets. Our elderly on fixed incomes are particularly vulnerable to these increases. You simply cannot tax your way to prosperity. As chief Justice John Marshall wrote, the power to tax is the power to destroy. School budgets are not commonly blamed but arent normally blamed for tax increases. The real culprit is the tremendous amount of land and Property Value we have allowed to be taken off our tax rolls, leaving homeowners to pick up the tab. These land owners must contribute to our tax base. Its time for all land and real estate owners to take the burden off homeowners and pay taxes for a fee in lieu of taxes. The federal government does it. Maine property tax people homeowners need a break. We, you and i need to make sure that a large foundation, the Natural Resources council of maine who are whipping off ripping off the land owner in the state of maine need to step up to the plate. [applause] all those of you who have exercises during the course of this meeting you are welcome. The rest of you, you know, you got to break a sweat sometimes. We propose allowing municipalities to collect property taxes or fees from large nonprofit entities and we have tried to require land trust to contribute to their tax rules. We have been met with staunch resistance from the democrats. Now, lets talk about this. Lets think outside the box. Tough problems the tough decisions and solutions. I dont walk away from tough decisions and i think i have proven it many times, even this last weekend. Im not embarrassed to tell you that it is the right decision. Training to be efficient and effective leaders to the state. We establish an online registry for all non processed to have ownership and all property taxes options report within municipalities exceeds 18 billion. Think about that. 18 billion. The loss of that tax revenue shifted over 330 million to guess who . Hardworking Property Owners in maine. My office is going to be distributing to each one of you the total value the total proper value for each tax rules for each town along with the estimated increase in taxes that the annual homeowner has had to pay. It will be out tomorrow and you can run away but you cant hide. The main people need your help and you need to stand up and be counted in this dialogue. You can continue to put land on conservation and i complement you for that but lets save the planet but lets pay a fair share. You need to pair your taxes. [applause] [applause] over 4 million acres have been conserved by the federal State Government, as well as nonprofit organization, such as land trust. Nearly 20 of the state is conserved development. Ladies and gentlemen and people of the state of maine, this area is larger than the entire state of connecticut. Think about that. We have taken the state of connecticut and made it taxexempt. In 1993, about 35800 acres of land was owned by land trust and that number has increased by an astonishing 1270 since 1993. Land trust now control over one half million acres with an estimated taxable value of 400 million. I am all in for conservation but they need to contribute towards the hardworking people of the state of maine. We cannot just turn our backs and walk away. We need and could have a state that is every bit as prosperous as the state of New Hampshire and all you need to do is make sure that everyone contributes. Ask your local officials how much land in your community has been taken off the tax rolls. Then ask them how much tax revenue they could be contributing to help the property tax owners of maine. The desire to preserve land to the taxpayer without their input is out of control. We must restore balance. We must ensure that all Property Owners are required to contribute to the local tax base. Everyone was pay their fair share and now i have listened to pair share comments at least a thousand times in the last eight years. It is not only here in the halls of government but its in your communities and everyone has to pay a fair share. It is common sense. Let me move on. Richard and lynette are the elderly couple were evicted from their home due to their inability to pay their property taxes other fixed income. Due to Health Reasons they were unable to attend to it and there were two or three other company couples that have gone to the same thing and they are also elderly and werent able to get them arranged to get there tonight but i will tell you this in 2015 the town of albion closed on their home and sold it for 6500 and the property was worth 70 and 80000 and a compassionate neighbor offered to pay their taxes on the day the lien reflected. The town officials refused to accept the money. , the town refused. I dont believe there is a person in this room, whether in the gallery sitting here as an elected official, that would think that that is a proper thing to do. If someone walks in and is willing to help these people why couldnt they . I was told that it is one example and i am telling you its a lot more. As we dig into it now there is a lot more. A lot more than you realize and i will tell you this, though, i will say this. We are finding out that some of the cities are far more compassionate than some of the rural towns. But it is a problem. This couple was removed from their home and she was bedridden from a stroke and they lost everything, all of the equity and everything else. If you budding landowner that bought it demolished and evicted the. I wish i had learned from them a little earlier because could have intervened and we did try. But it was too late to help. I submitted a bill to protect the elderly from foreclosure going forward. I am not suggesting and you need to sit with me and talk about changing the language of the bill, please work with me. I am not suggesting that cannot and will outlaw foreclosing on elderly but what i am saying is very simply this. As a mayor for eight years in the city of [inaudible] i never had to throw an elderly couple out of their homes because there are options. When you file a lien it takes 18 months to perfect in a town official has 18 months to work with this family and i urge you all to have the compassion to work with them so that we can preserve whatever little equity we have and stay in their home for as long as they can because ultimately guess who picks up the tab . I can tell you right now that they are in a nursing home and theyre both very ill and since they lost everything we, the people, are picking up the tab. They did not want that. They were very proud people and she was a veteran, elderly gentleman and from the greatest generation that they dont ask for handouts. We, the Public Officials of the state, through the on the street. We must fight to protect our parents and our grandparents whose fixed income cannot keep up with the rising cost of property taxes. This commonsense solution will require municipalities to put a little more effort and show a little more compassion for the people who live in the communities and frankly, i dont think that is too much to ask. When i was mayor would have folks that had problem with the taxes and would come in and i see a counselor here that shared in those meetings that weve never had to throw people out and there were some really sad stories but we always found a way and i think we as people remain have the fortitude to do that. We dont have to make it very complex and it could be a one paragraph, do everything you can before you foreclose. That is all we ask. [applause] thank you. I want to thank representative for sponsoring this bill and i truly, from the bottom of my heart, urge you all to support this bill. It can be made very simple and it can be made so that we will all want to do the right thing and there are many options available to the elderly the problem has always been they simply dont know. I think that is a really Good Opportunity for this body. Want to get in to the tax conformity now because im on a roll and my taxcut has resulted in tangible savings for maine families. A family of four earning 90000 pays 29 less today than they did when we did the tax package. A family of four earning 35000 who are paying 298 in income tax no longer pay income tax. [applause] and despite, despite the rhetoric you hear from people, this is not wealthy people. This is not tax breaks for the rich. These are tax breaks for hardworking people coming. People in the New Hampshire is 74000 and the number one have to income in 28 border our state and we have this figured out and we ought to try. [applause] the new federal tax cut and object will provide savings for families and businesses in the federal tax cut will result in an estimated economic benefit of approximately 1 million in 2019 for the plumbing. More than 500 million of that will be a direct income tax benefits to the main families in the Small Business in the state of maine. However, whenever Congress Changes the federal tax code maine has to make a decision and whether to conform to the federal tax code or to state unfocused and we have historically and with most states have historically stayed and informed the federal tax code. Doing it is better for maine because it certifies the tax code and keeps one tax system, not doing so means that the state of maine has to go on to its own and higher whole lot of people and beef up their income tax division. For that reason i am proposing legislation to conform fully to the federal tax code. However, again because of the hard work that has been done over the last seven years and in reducing our taxes in dealing with the exemptions and the standard deduction with the federal government is doing now if we conform fully we are going to be having a tax increase. I am asking you all that this is really federal tax dollars in im asking you to pass it on to the main people. Conform but pass it on because that is the right thing to do. [applause] i am asking you that if you dont i will not use a taxcut the federal government is trying to pass on to americans and i will not stand in the way and allow it to conform and not pass it on. I am simply not going to. In fact, i think after seven years you have probably got the hint that i am not big on increasing taxes. I do believe in conformity and i do believe in Medicaid Expansion. Medicaid expansion, while i think it is a bad public policy, when you give ablebodied people a free ride it is the law of our state and i will enforce the law of the state. [applause] that is the good news. That is the good news. [laughter] now let me give you the bad news. Medicaid expansion is the loss and i will execute the law but funding is a legislative constitutional duty and it is the legislators responsibility to appropriate the funds. Appropriate the money so we can implement the law sooner than later. I do not believe it is appropriate for this body to wait until after the november elections. Do it now. Do it now, the people of maine if you believe in it then fund it. I have laid out the basic principles to guide your decision on how to paint Medicaid Expansion. I will not jeopardize the states long term school health. We must avoid the budget disasters of the past and many of you are here and you know what i am talking about. We paid off 750 million through our hospitals. We must Fund Medicaid expansion in the way that is sustainable in ongoing and therefore my principles are very simple. No tax increases on main families were businesses. Note use of the Budget Stabilization fund which is better known as the Rainy Day Fund. Note use of other onetime funding mechanism known as gimmicks. You all know what i am talking about. Fully fund the Vulnerable People of maine who are still waiting for services. [applause] no reductions of services of funding for Nursing Homes or people with disabilities. [applause] it would be fiscally irresponsible for the legislator to demand to implement Medicaid Expansion without adequate funding. It is simply not too much to ask a legislator to prioritize are truly needy over those looking for taxpayer funded handouts. I am very serious when i tell you that it is important that the disabled, the elderly and those with the intellectual disabilities are put in front of the line and not behind the li line. [applause] dhs cannot hire and train the additional hundred and five people needed to run expanded Medicaid Program without money. We cannot pay the state share of new enrollees of medical bills without funding. Democrats hospitals, hospitals and advocacy groups and wealthy outofstate interest who campaigned for this referendum claim that adding 80000 people on to this program will save us money and i will tell you right now i will take you to your word. Show me the money and put it in writing. [applause] before this election, show the maine people that what you campaigned on is the truth a