Paul LePage stated that Forbes Magazine had identified "welfare" as one of Maine's structural problems that needs to be cleaned up on Wednesday during a town hall-style meeting at Mt. Abram High School.
LePage's statement comes at a time in which he is trying to convince the legislature to cut more than a two hundred million dollars from MaineCare, Maine's medicare program. LePage has not only been undeterred by claims that the cuts will eliminate everything from HeadStart programs for impoverished kids to assisted living programs for low-income elderly people, he has taken his campaign to the streets --- and has been misrepresenting the facts.
One misrepresentation is that a major cause of the current budget shortfall is welfare fraud. The governor provided no facts or statistics to back up this claim that is clearly designed to appeal to the emotions of those who already feel their taxes are too high.
The more recent lie is LePage's statement implying Forbes Magazine told him that Maine had to reduce the size of its welfare program in order to improve from its current last place ranking among the 50 states in terms of climate for business.
Adrienne Bennett, the Governor's press secretary, raised the lie to the level of the absurd by suggesting her boss was referring to"Mainer's welfare" and not to the specific welfare program.
As reported in today's BDN, the conservative magazine took the rare step of correcting LePage for his mis-statement. "“I certainly didn’t say anything about welfare costs, which has nothing
to do with the ranking that we do,” said Forbes senior editor Kurt
Badenhausen. “I didn’t tell them they needed to reduce energy costs. I told
them, basically, the best thing they could do, and that any local
government could do, was just to try and create more jobs.”
The reader comments below the article show that Mainers are more than fed up with this kind of dishonesty from their governor.
Read more about LePage's campaign against welfare at: www.appalledbylepage.com
