This week’s edition!
Editorial
Op/Ed: Private-sector leaders are taking Maine government in healthy new direction
By State Treasurer Bruce Poliquin
Some 230 years ago, the founding documents that created our representative Republic acknowledged that free enterprise is the optimal engine of prosperity and liberty.
Our Founding Fathers and their fellow colonists included merchants, trades people and farmers. They understood the importance of hard work and enjoyed the fruits of their labor. They were thrifty and resourceful. They embraced risk and its potential for reward. They invented and competed, and sold their products far from their New World. They were private sector business people.
For more than two centuries, our dynamic free enterprise machine has generated new income and wealth for 300 million fellow Americans. Part of that income is taxed to provide services for our citizens, including national defense. Without a healthy and growing economic engine, we cannot live better lives—we cannot be free.
Op/Ed: What we can all learn from the TEA Party
By Tim Lajoie, Chairman
Lewiston Republican City Committee
The recent battle over raising the federal debt ceiling thrust the TEA Party into the limelight—and not in a good way.
Vice-President Joe Biden called the TEA Party terrorists. Democratic Leader Senator Harry Reid called the TEA Party “unfair and disconcerting.” The major news outlets blamed the TEA Party for holding up the debt ceiling deal because of their “extreme” positions.
Massachusetts Senator John Kerry suggested—apparently forgetting that we have a 1st Amendment right not only to speak out against our government, but also to peaceably confront it—that the news outlets stop talking about TEA Party members because he said their arguments were not credible.
Lost in all of this hyperbolic rhetoric is some valuable truth, truth that only the TEA Party is not willing to abdicate for the sake of political compromise. I submit that every American, for the good of the country, take a real hard look at what the TEA Party stands for and learn some lessons from them.
Op/Ed: Eliminating the estate tax is the right thing to do
By Tim Lajoie, Chairman
Lewiston Republican City Committee
The Democrats are at it again—this time through their chief apologist from Lewiston, Mayor Laurent F. Gilbert Sr.
Mayor Gilbert submits testimony given by Dan Coyne, policy analyst for Maine Center for Economic Policy (MECEP), before the Joint Standing Committee on Taxation as the foundation of his argument against eliminating the estate tax here in Maine.
The usual fear tactics are employed in arguing against eliminating the tax. It is argued that Maine’s economic recovery will be in danger and less investment in K-12 education, higher education, health care, environmental safety and public safety will hurt Mainers. Those dastardly Republicans will cut off funding for your children’s education, threaten your health, pollute your drinking water and make your communities less safe!
Op/Ed: Debt ceiling games and a balanced budget amendment
By Bruce Poliquin
Maine State Treasurer
There’s been lots of talk lately about the forthcoming fiscal Armageddon. Surprisingly, it’s not about our elected officials in Washington spending us into oblivion. They’ve already done that.
Rather, it’s about their request to spend even more.
You’d think that a behemoth $14 trillion national debt is enough. Apparently it’s not for most of our U.S. Senators and Congressmen. They’re trying to gather enough votes among themselves to authorize borrowing another $2 trillion by selling more U.S. Government bonds. They want to “raise the debt ceiling” in part to feed their reckless spending addiction.
Op/Ed: Mainers should welcome passage of teen labor bill
By Tim Lajoie, Chairman
Lewiston Republican City Committee
A week ago I sent an Op/Ed to this paper attempting to rally Lewiston Republicans and all others who are tired of Democratic encroachment into their personal lives. I suggested that there was a real contrast between the self-sufficiency ideals of the Republican Party and the government-orchestrated solutions offered by the Democrats.
No sooner had Twin City TIMES published my piece did the Democrats in Lewiston and Augusta give me the opportunity to offer such a contrast, a contrast that serves as a real example of our differences. I would be remiss and hypocritical if I did not seize the opportunity to illustrate it.
I’m speaking of the teen labor bill, (LD 516) “An Act To Amend Maine Law To Conform with Federal Law Regarding Employment Practices for Certain Minors,” which was just passed and signed by Governor LePage. Now, speaking as a less-government, personal freedom, personal responsibility, autonomy-loving citizen, I say that the amount of hours a teenager should be allowed to work should be decided by the teenager and his parents or guardians.
Op/Ed: New chairman seeks to rebuild Lewiston Republican base
By Tim Lajoie
Chairman, Lewiston Republican City Committee
Ask a room full of people in Lewiston if anyone is a Republican—go ahead, it’s okay. Ask. You’re likely to see a few heads to glance quickly from side to side to see if anyone is looking and then a sheepish nod with a half-hearted raised hand before putting it down quickly.
In a city that has gone to the Democrats by an average margin of victory of 35% in the last 10 years, it’s clear we’re a minority—and a silent one at that.
In fact, about the only thing Republicans can celebrate in this city is that we could probably accuse the Democrats of shamelessly running up the score. For a party that prides itself on having a big heart and strong feelings, this Republican is not feeling any love from the Democrats. I only feel their boot heel on the back of my neck, and deservedly so. To the victors go the spoils, I guess.
OP/Ed: Republican Senators express concern about Governor’s tone
By Senators Roger J. Katz
and Brian D. Langley
As Republican Senators, we all want Governor LePage and his administration to succeed. Yet we feel compelled to express our discomfort and dismay with the tone and spirit of some of the remarks he has made.
Were these isolated incidents we would bite our collective tongues because we are all human. But, unfortunately, such is not the case. We feel we must speak out.
We ran for this office as a proud Republicans, inspired and energized by the campaign themes of the Governor to make Maine a more business-friendly state and attract the capital investment we need to create jobs and ensure that our children and grandchildren will have the kind of opportunity and prosperity we all want for them.
Op/Ed: U.N. efforts have failed in Somalia
A Plan for Peace in Somalia
By Prof. Ali M. Mohamed Aden
As the director of the Centre for Democracy and Political Reconciliation in Somalia, I am here to propose an alternative peace initiative that will end the long and difficult Somali conflict.
CDPRS is poised to assist United Nations, European Union and the United States in the reconciliation process to bring peace, to re-institute Somali constitution and to rebuild the Somali Republic.
The United Nation’s policy on Somalia has failed. It did not bring peace—on the contrary, it has brought more chaos. The U.N.-supported transitional government (TG), which was based outside, has also failed to govern and bring peace. The TG has become part of the problem: it is now seen by the majority of Somali people as one of the warring factions.
Editorial: 30-somethings want candidates who understand them
Published in TCT on October 7, 2010
By Peter A. Steele
TCT Editor
Pundits and pollsters are still scratching their heads at the rise of regular, everyday people who are gaining steam as the mid-term elections rapidly approach.
These “experts” are still perplexed at this nationwide, grassroots movement by the people to reject traditional politicians and to propel ordinary, hard-working folks into the halls of U.S. government.
They need not be perplexed. They just need to attend some of the political rallies happening all across the country—the events they are too quick to ridicule as unsophisticated or ignorant. We attended one of these events, and we realized exactly where this movement is coming from.
Editorial: Who are you calling conservative?
Published in TCT on June 24, 2010
By Peter A. Steele
TCT Editor
We still cringe when someone calls us “conservative.” That must get a laugh from many of our readers, but it’s true.
Your editor grew up in the most outlandishly liberal town on the Eastern Seaboard, Provincetown, a place in which the political spectrum stretches only from far-left extremism to moderate Democrat. Anything to the slightest right of that was considered evil and ugly and just plain wrong. When people spoke of anyone who was conservative, they practically spat the word and looked like someone just fed them rotten fish.
No one ever explained why being “conservative” was so wrong—it just was.
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