In ten days, lawmakers will return to Augusta to complete our work for the year. One unfinished item is a TABOR-like measure that has been forced through the Republican Legislature, despite opposition from Maine towns and cities.

LD 849 ratchets down state revenues, lowering income tax rates without a plan to pay for it. While a tax cut on its face sounds good, Maine families, towns, and schools will have to pick up the tab.

Our towns and schools will lose billions of dollars to pay for critical investments — like road and bridge repair, or teachers for our children.

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By State Sen. Phil Bartlet

Maine, much like the rest of the country, is at a crossroads. We are at a make or break moment for many middle class Mainers and those working to make ends meet. We are at a critical point where we can make targeted investments to improve our economy; and, we can promote policies that empower individuals, entrepreneurs, and businesses to create jobs. Or, we can adopt an approach that picks winners and losers and goes against our values and traditions.

Unfortunately, the tone in Augusta, under GOP leadership, has turned in to one that, at nearly every opportunity pits Mainer against Mainer. It ignores the balanced approach that is necessary for businesses to succeed and workers to prosper on the job and at home.

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by Gina Hamilton of the New Maine Times where this is posted

In the wake of the killing of Trayvon Martin, most Americans became aware of the existence of a 40-year-old shadowy think tank called ALEC — the American Legislative Exchange Council — and the extent to which this organization is changing the laws under which we all live, and in some cases, sadly, die.

ALEC, on its website, claims to be for limited government, but also claims it is non-partisan. In fact, it is entirely dominated by the GOP and by corporate interests. And right now, ALEC is losing much of that corporate sponsorship.

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by Joel Johnson of the Maine Center of Economic Policy | April 26th, 2012

In a piece that appeared Tuesday on its website, The Maine Wire, the Maine Heritage Policy Center (MHPC) argued for the elimination of the state’s personal income tax. It’s not hard to infer from this piece MHPC’s ultimate goal: To transfer control of our infrastructure, our schools, our natural resources, and our health care system for poor, elderly, and disabled individuals to private interests. The first step is to undermine state government and the influence of the voting public by eliminating Maine’s income tax.

Maine’s state and local tax system already favors the most fortunate. It takes a higher share of income from poor families than it does from middle class families, and it takes a higher share of income from middle-class families than it does from the wealthiest.

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There is a bank that has supported over $255 million in export sales from Maine businesses over the last 5 years, but it’s in danger of exhausting its lending authority at the end of May. It doesn’t need to be bailed out to continue to help Maine and our nation export products and create jobs. It simply needs Congress to pass a bill to reauthorize its authority.

And the kicker? It doesn’t cost the taxpayer a dime – it’s self sustaining based on fees it collects and loan repayments. In fact, the bank actually makes money for U.S. taxpayers and has returned $4.9 billion to the U.S. Treasury since 1990.

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By Congressman Mike Michaud

As a nation, we can’t afford to abandon infrastructure improvements. They are job creators, and they are necessary to our overall economic growth. Thankfully the Senate recently passed a bipartisan bill that will move us forward. With over 7,000 jobs in Maine on the line, it’s time for the House to act too.

As a longtime member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, I know how critical it is to maintain and improve our highways and bridges. It not only provides for increased safety, but it also promotes productivity and boosts our nation’s competitiveness in the global marketplace.

But we have to do better than the status quo if we want to grow our economy and really move out of this recession.

That’s why I joined with my colleagues on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to introduce the bipartisan Senate transportation bill that recently passed by a vote of 74 to 22. We also called on House leaders to abandon their partisan transportation bill and bring the Senate bill up for immediate consideration.

The bill has a long title – the “Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21) Act” (H.R. 14) – but a simple mission: to move our nation forward and create desperately needed jobs. The bill maintains investments for highways and public transportation, consolidates and streamlines highway programs, strengthens safety, eliminates earmarks, establishes a national freight program, institutes performance measures and improves accountability for transportation infrastructure investments. At a time when 50 percent of our nation’s roads are in disrepair and 70,000 bridges are structurally deficient, we can’t afford inaction on this issue.

Unlike the House bill, which slashes funding and eliminates over 500,000 jobs, MAP-21 continues current funding levels, sustaining approximately 1.9 million American jobs. Under the Senate bill, states will receive $3.8 billion more in highway construction funding than the House bill over the course of the next two years.

This transportation legislation is by far the biggest jobs bill Congress will consider this year. It has a significant impact on Maine too – according to estimates by the U.S. Department of Transportation, 7,400 jobs in our state would be supported by the funding levels contained in the bill.

But we must act soon. On March 31st, authorization for current transportation program funding will expire. If allowed to expire, transportation projects around the country will grind to a halt. We saw what happened when the Federal Aviation Administration programs were allowed to expire, and we can’t let history repeat itself. Our economic recovery can’t afford another massive shutdown.

Unfortunately, as I write this, House leaders are not planning to bring up the Senate-passed bill. Instead, they’ll seek to move a 3 month extension of current law, something that the Senate opposes. This would be the 9th of these short-term extensions, which removes certainty from transportation planning at a time our states can least afford it.

It is imperative that Congress gets a bill to the President as soon as possible. As our economy shows some additional signs of recovery, we can’t pull the rug out from under it by ignoring our critical infrastructure needs.

Do you ever wonder how much rainfall you received from a recent thunderstorm? How about snowfall during a winter storm? If so, then a new volunteer weather observing program needs your help! The Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow network, or CoCoRaHS, is looking for new volunteers across Maine and New Hampshire. The grassroots effort is part of a growing national network of home-based and amateur rain spotters with a goal of providing a high density precipitation network that will supplement existing observations.

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Ed note: this was originally posted on the CFPB’s blog

When I was at Fort Drum, NY last week I heard from a military spouse who said her family has been separated for four years – partly because of deployments but also because they can’t sell their house. At the same meeting an officer told me that he is underwater on a home he bought at a previous assignment. He wondered if there were any options for him that wouldn’t ruin his credit or require a large sum of money he didn’t have.

I’ve had conversations like these repeatedly in my travels to military communities across the country during the past year. The housing crisis has had a devastating impact on military homeowners, and their unique challenges have made it difficult for them to get help. So I’m glad to see that important protections for military homeowners were included in the recent settlement between the Federal government, 49 state Attorneys General, and five of the largest mortgage loan servicers: Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and Ally Financial.

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Rolling back services and firing employees is not the way to restore the firm financial footing that is needed at the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). Unfortunately, that’s exactly what the USPS did when it announced recently that it plans to close its Hampden mail processing facility in addition to hundreds of others throughout our country. I believe targeting this Maine facility is a huge mistake for a number of reasons and that it must be reversed.

First off, this decision could negatively impact about 170 workers. They could lose their jobs or get transferred to another location that’s very far away. This uproots families and harms not only the lives of the workers, but also those of their families and the communities they call home.

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Olympia Snowe has been in Congress since 1979. After 33 years as a career Washington politician, Snowe should know better than to assail one party for the current “dysfunction.” While I agree with Snowe’s dismay of the Senate’s failure to enact a budget since 2009, I disagree with her partisan tactics to “pass the buck.” All 100 Senators are responsible for this failure of leadership. If I am given the privilege to represent Maine in the United States Senate, I will not only be calling on Republicans and Democrats alike to compromise, but will work tirelessly to bridge the partisan gap to reach an intelligent and balanced consensus.

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