“Just Another Vindictive GOP Governor”: Maine Governor’s Welfare Investigation Turns Up Next To Nothing
Maine governor Paul LePage (R) finally has a smoking gun in his effort to restrict welfare programs — at least according to him. According to a much-hyped study conducted by the state department of Health and Human Services, recipients of social programs like SNAP and TANF used money from these programs at places like bars, smoke shops, and strip clubs.
But according to the Bangor Daily News, during the period the study was conducted, these questionable transactions accounted for just two-tenths of one percent of the total money spent from these programs. The small amount of misuse holds steady with the national trend. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, families and single parents who receive public benefits have much smaller budgets on average and spend a larger portion of their budgets on basic necessities.
LePage, however, sees any abuse of the welfare system in Maine as evidence of the need for reform. “Any amount of abuse in the system that takes away from the truly needy needs to be dealt with,” LePage’s spokeswoman told the Bangor Daily News. “We’re not uncovering anything new. There are always going to be bad actors out there. We’re simply saying, ‘We’ve got an eye on you.’”
In fact, what came to light after the study signals a larger problem with the system than LePage expected.“This information is eye-opening and indicates a larger problem than initially thought,” LePage said in a press release. “These benefits are supposed to help families, children and our most vulnerable Mainers. Instead, we have discovered welfare benefits are paying for alcohol, cigarettes and other things that hardworking taxpayers should not be footing the bill for.”
However, it’s important to note that, according to the Daily News story, “those transactions include purchases at the checkout counter and withdrawals from on-premises ATMs. The state does not track what is purchased in EBT transactions.” So it’s highly likely that a substantial number of the hinted-at “immoral” purchases were not even made.
Similar efforts to expose fraud in social programs were attempted in Florida and Utah. Both states began drug-testing their welfare recipients to weed out drug users. There were similar results: Utah, for example, spent $25,000 to drug-test 4,730 recipients, only 12 tested positive for drugs.
Despite all the evidence to the contrary, LePage is convinced there is a problem with welfare fraud in his state. The answer to this problem? Limits and restrictions to social programs like TANF and SNAP.
First, LePage would back legislation that reforms the lack of paper trail on where welfare money is spent. It’s a measure that Maine Democrats would also support, according to the Democratic House Speaker. “No one wants to see funds meant for struggling families abused,” House Speaker Mark Eves said Tuesday. “State law already forbids EBT cards from being used at liquor stores. If this list is verified, it’s time to take action. The question for the governor is, will he prosecute or politicize it? Democrats will continue to support good-faith efforts at cracking down on fraud and abuse.”
The question of whether this is a good-faith effort to stop fraud, or a political tactic to further a conservative cause, is an important one. LePage’s record on welfare reform doesn’t suggest that his intentions are sincere. In fact, LePage has been encouraging cuts to government aid throughout his term as governor. In 2012, for example, LePage said at a Republican convention: “Maine’s welfare program is cannibalizing the rest of state government. To all you able-bodied people out there: Get off the couch and get yourself a job.”
Previously, LePage instituted a five-year cap on TANF benefits, a move Democrats argue ended benefits for thousands of poor Maine residents. Just last week, Governor LePage also introduced a bill that would increase Maine’s work requirements for welfare recipients, another reform Democrats opposed.
Thus, it’s not hard to conclude that this push to investigate welfare recipients is another partisan move by a notoriously vindictive governor.
By: Ben Feuerherd, The National Memo, January 9, 2014
“The Village Idiots”: The 13 Craziest, Most Offensive Things Said By Politicians In 2013
Unfortunately, it wasn’t easy limiting this year’s list to just 13 statements but here are the craziest and most offensive things said by American politicians this year:
13. “He’s the first one to give it to the people without providing Vaseline.”
— Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R), quoted by the Bangor Daily News, on Democratic rival Troy Jackson (D) who he said has a “black heart” and should go back in the woods “and let someone with a brain come down here and do some good work.”
12. “Mankind has existed for a pretty long time without anyone ever having to give a sex-ed lesson to anybody. And now we feel like, oh gosh, people are too stupid unless we force them to sit and listen to instructions. It’s just incredible.”
— Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), quoted by Right Wing Watch, adding that it all reminded him of the Soviet Union.
11. “I am the senator. You are the citizen. You need to be quiet.”
— North Carolina State Senator Tommy Tucker (R), quoted by the Raleigh News and Observer, to Goldsboro News-Argus publisher Hal Tanner who was opposing legislation to change public notice requirements for local government.
10. “I wonder how many Boston liberals spent the night cowering in their homes wishing they had an AR-15 with a hi-capacity magazine?”
— Arkansas State Rep. Nate Bell (R), on Twitter.
9. “This administration has so many Muslim brotherhood members that have influence that they just are making wrong decisions for America.”
— Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), in an interview with WND Radio, explaining what he sees as President Obama’s downplaying of the threat of radical Islam.
8. “More background checks? Dandy idea, Mr. President. Should’ve started with yours.”
— Sarah Palin, quoted by the New York Times, speaking to CPAC about President Obama’s gun control proposals.
7. “A holstered gun is not a deadly weapon… But anything can be used as a deadly weapon. A credit card can be used to cut somebody’s throat.”
— New Hampshire state Rep. Dan Dumaine (R), quoted by the Concord Monitor, opposing a move to ban guns for the chamber floor.
6. “In the emergency room they have what’s called rape kits where a woman can get cleaned out.”
— Texas State Rep. Jody Laubenberg (R), quoted by the AP, arguing that a bill restricting abortion needed no exemptions for case of rape.
5. “Assault weapons is a misused term used by suburban soccer moms who do not understand what is being discussed here.”
— Missouri Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder (R), quoted by the Missouri News Horizon, on efforts to ban assault weapons.
4. “First of all, the kid’s going to grow up in Gracie Mansion. So I’m going to say, ‘Kid, don’t complain.'”
— Anthony Weiner (D), quoted by the Staten Island Advance, on what he’ll eventually tell his now 18-month old son about the sexting scandal that ended his congressional career.
3. “I’m not gay. So I’m not going to marry one.”
— Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Georgia), quoted by Politico, when asked if his views on gay marriage were changing.
2. “He’s partly right on that.”
— Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Georgia), an OB-GYN, quoted by the Marietta Daily Journal, on former Rep. Todd Akn’s (R-MO) “legitimate rape” comments.
1. “Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful. They stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to believe that they could feel pain?”
— Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas), quoted by Salon, suggested a fetus might masturbate.
By: Taegan Goddard, The Cloakroom, The Week, December 27, 2013
“The Tea Party, Now And Forever?: That Cosmopolitan, Multiracial Man In The White House Is The Embodiment Of Everything They Fear
People (including me, I’ll admit) have been predicting the demise of the Tea Party for a long time, yet it has managed to stick around, the tail wagging the Republican dog even unto the point of shutting down the government and bringing the country within hours of default. Yet at the same time, if you paid attention to this crisis, you would have seen the words “Tea Party” escaping only the lips of Democrats (and a few reporters). None of the Republicans holding out to destroy the Affordable Care Act started their sentences with “We in the Tea Party…” It has become a name—or an epithet—more than a movement, even as its perspective and its style have woven themselves deeply within the GOP. Not that there aren’t still Tea Party organizations in existence, but how many Republican politicians in the coming months are going to be eager to show up at a rally where everyone’s wearing tricorner hats?
What this moment may mark is the not so much the death of the Tea Party as the final stages of a transition. The silly costumes will get put away, and the angry rallies may draw no more than a handful of fist-shakers. But we should finally understand that the Tea Party has metastasized itself within its host, even if fewer people use its name. It would probably help to come up with a new name for it, since the word “party” misdirects us into thinking that if it isn’t doing practical things like endorsing candidates or putting forward a policy agenda, then it’s fading. But it isn’t, and defeats like this one don’t necessarily make it weaker.
The time has come to stop looking at the Tea Party as a political movement and understand it as a psychological, sociological, and religious phenomenon. That isn’t to say it’s unalterable, and I do think it’s going to be politically wounded in 2014. What is likely to happen is a geographical winnowing, with its politicians losing where they were weakest to begin with. In 2010, many Tea Partiers got elected even in places where they weren’t thick on the ground, since that’s what wave elections can produce. But in the next election we’ll probably see the defeat of people like Maine governor Paul LePage—in other words, those who come from anywhere other than the South and certain corners of the Midwest and interior West. Tea Partiers will still win in Alabama, but not in New England.
The ones who remain will not be chastened by what just happened, nor when their numbers decrease. As there is after every Republican defeat, there’s talk now amongst the base about the need for more “true conservatives.” But if you look at the people who decided to end the crisis, they aren’t that different in their policy beliefs from the Tea Partiers. Mitch McConnell would genuinely like to repeal the ACA, and outlaw abortion, and slash food stamps. This isn’t even a dispute about tactics, because that would mean the Tea Partiers have some kind of coherent set of tactics in mind, beyond “Fight, fight, fight!” It’s about the apocalyptic worldview that animates the Tea Partiers. Establishment Republicans like McConnell have the same policy agenda as the Tea Partiers, but they also know that if they lose this round, there will be another round, and another after that. They don’t think that America could literally come to an end if they don’t prevail in the next election.
But the Tea Partiers do. In one recent poll, 20 percent of Republicans said they believe Barack Obama is the Antichrist. It’s easy to laugh, but try for a moment to imagine that you believed that. What kind of tactics would you favor? Would you be amenable to compromise? How would you look at even a small political defeat? As Andrew Sullivan argues, even for those who are a step back from imagining a literal apocalypse coming some time in the next few months, the root of the problem is modernity itself, and the stakes are impossibly high:
What the understandably beleaguered citizens of this new modern order want is a pristine variety of America that feels like the one they grew up in. They want truths that ring without any timbre of doubt. They want root-and-branch reform – to the days of the American Revolution. And they want all of this as a pre-packaged ideology, preferably aligned with re-written American history, and reiterated as a theater of comfort and nostalgia. They want their presidents white and their budget balanced now. That balancing it now would tip the whole world into a second depression sounds like elite cant to them; that America is, as a matter of fact, a coffee-colored country – and stronger for it – does not remove their desire for it not to be so; indeed it intensifies their futile effort to stop immigration reform. And given the apocalyptic nature of their view of what is going on, it is only natural that they would seek a totalist, radical, revolutionary halt to all of it, even if it creates economic chaos, even if it destroys millions of jobs, even though it keeps millions in immigration limbo, even if it means an unprecedented default on the debt.
It isn’t just that they sincerely believe that the most uncompromising tactics are the path to victory, it’s also that they believe that adopting anything short of the most uncompromising stance is itself a surrender, before the battle has even begun. You can’t let the devil just sit in the parlor for a while and hope you’ll be able to convince him to leave. You have to bar the door. And as Ed Kilgore notes, this isn’t just about very religious people bringing a religious worldview to their politics; it’s a circular process:
It’s not just that these culturally threatened folk embrace their politics like it’s a religion. The actual religious outlook many of them espouse—whether they are conservative fundamentalist Protestants or neo-ultramontane Catholics—has imported secular political perspectives into their faith. They’ve managed to identify obedience to God with the restoration of pre-mid-twentieth-century culture and economics, and consequently, tend to look at themselves as the contemporary equivalents of the Old Testament prophets calling a wicked society to account before all hell literally breaks loose. So their politics reinforces their religion and vice-versa, and yes, the Republican Party, like the squishy mainline Protestant Churches and lenient do-gooder Catholic priests, are generally within crisis-distance of being viewed as objectively belonging to enemy ranks.
It’s true that this phenomenon is the latest iteration of a pattern we’ve seen before, whether it was the Birchers during the Johnson years or the militia movement under Clinton. Some portion of American conservatives comes to believe that the country has been infected with the most diabolical of viruses, and the normal democratic means are no longer sufficient to confront the evil within our borders. But by now we have to conclude that it’s been worse this time, and not only because the Tea Party’s forebears never got a fraction of the influence within the GOP that it now has. The threat of modernity that Sullivan points to is, for these people, all too real. The world is leaving them behind. And that cosmopolitan, multiracial man in the White House became the embodiment of everything they fear. Every one of his policies, whether born in The Communist Manifesto or at the Heritage Foundation, they see clearly as a rapier thrust at their very hearts. There is no telling them to wait for a more opportune moment to strike, or that the battle of the moment is one they cannot win. To lose is to lose everything.
So when does the Tea Party end? In the simplest terms, it ends whenever the next Republican president takes office. When that happens, there will be no more government shutdowns, no more cries of Washington tyranny, no more debt ceiling standoffs, no more Republican obsession with deficits. The tricorner hats will be put away. But the fears and resentments that created and sustained the Tea Party will fester, waiting until the next Democratic presidency to burst out. And it will begin all over again.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, October 18, 2013
“A Monopoly On Stupid Comments”: Offensive Republican Rhetoric Is Backed By Offensive Republican Policies
As the nation’s attention turns to the 50th anniversary of the March of Washington, Reince Priebus and the Republican National Committee are at least making an effort to show the public the party takes race, diversity, and civil rights seriously. Whether these efforts have merit is a separate question.
Keli Goff reports this morning that Priebus took questions from a handful of African-American journalists following an official RNC luncheon yesterday, and Goff asked the party leader an interesting question.
I asked Priebus, whether in light of the many racially inflammatory comments made by Republican leaders recently (which you can read here, here and here) and the many more made by Republican leaders as a whole since President Obama took office (which you can read here), if he as party leader would consider apologizing on behalf of the party for such rhetoric and setting a zero-tolerance policy so that such rhetoric stops being commonplace. The chairman replied that he has criticized specific Republicans for specific instances of offensive language, most notably when he pressed for the resignation of an Illinois Republican Party leader who made racist and sexist comments about multiracial Republican congressional candidate Erika Harold. But in a baffling turn, Priebus then seemed to insinuate that the GOP doesn’t have any more of a racist rhetoric problem than Democrats.
“Look I don’t think either party has a monopoly on stupid comments,” he told The Root. “I think both parties have said plenty of stupid things and when people in our party say them, I’m pretty bold in coming out and talking about them, whether it be the issue in Illinois [involving Erika Harold] or Todd Akin or a variety of issues.”
When Goff reminded Priebus that one of his predecessors, former RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman, apologized at an NAACP event for Republicans exploiting racial tensions for electoral gain, Priebus responded, “I don’t know what the back story is. You’re giving me facts and back channel information I’m not aware of.”
Nevertheless, the RNC chair’s response was unsatisfying for a variety of reasons.
When it comes to race, saying that the parties are effectively the same on “stupid comments” is belied by the facts. Indeed, it’s not even close — Republicans are the party of birthers. They’re the party of Rep. Steve “Cantaloupe” King and Gov. Paul “Kiss My Butt” LePage. It was Republican Don Young who talked about “wetbacks” in March, and it was Republican Sarah Palin who talked about “shuck and jive” during the 2012 campaign.
Obviously, plenty of Democrats make plenty of stupid comments all the time, but to hear Priebus tell it, specifically on race, there’s nothing especially unique about Republicans’ troubles. I think the evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
What’s more, this isn’t just about offensive rhetoric; it’s about offensive policies. Republican policymakers nationwide continue to approve voter-suppression laws that deliberately target minority communities.
And therein lies part of the RNC’s problem: Priebus seems eager to do the right thing so he can expand his party’s old, white base, but he just doesn’t have anything constructive to offer in the way of solutions. He seems aware of the fact that he has a problem, but doesn’t know what to do about it, exactly, except say nice things about outreach.
Priebus will need far more.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, August 27, 2013
“Obama Hates White People”: Loose Lipped Maine Gov Paul LePage’s Penchant For Ignorance And Gross Stupidity
Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) announced last month that he would run for re-election in 2014.
LePage squeaked into office in 2010 with some help from the Tea Party — he won just 38 percent of the vote in a three-way race — and has since earned a reputation as a blunt, loose-lipped politician with a penchant for controversy. Think a less diplomatic version of Chris Christie.
Things got so bad that in June, Assistant Senate Republican Leader Roger Katz wrote an op-ed saying he was “embarrassed” by LePage’s “unfortunate tone.”
With LePage gearing up to pursue a second term, here’s a look back at some of his more memorable controversies.
“Obama hates white people”
Move over, Kanye West.
At a fundraiser in August, LePage reportedly told a group of Republican lawmakers and supporters that President Obama “hates white people,” according to an account one attendee gave to the Bangor Daily News.
The chairman of the state GOP, Rick Bennett, told the Daily News he personally had not heard the remark, but said LePage did discuss how “President Obama had an opportunity to unify the country on race, but didn’t do anything.”
“The governor is not a racist,” he added.
“Blow it up”
LePage is no fan of newspapers (more on that below). Just how much does he hate the print news business? Enough to joke about bombing it to smithereens, apparently.
LePage had the chance to test out a fighter jet simulator this summer. While sitting in the cockpit, he was asked, “What would you like to do?”
His response: “I want to find the [Portland] Press Herald building and blow it up.”
A spokesman for the governor later said he was “clearly joking.”
“Vaseline”
LePage came under fire in June for making a vulgar sexual reference about a Democratic state senator, Troy Jackson, while discussing the state’s deadlocked budget negotiations.
“Senator Jackson claims to be for the people, but he’s the first one to give it to the people without providing Vaseline,” LePage said in an interview with Maine’s WMTW News.
LePage then walked away, only to return a little later with a semi-apology.
“Damnit,” he said. “That comment is not politically correct, but we’ve got to understand who this man is. This man is a bad person. He doesn’t only have no brains, he has a black heart.”
“Governor LePage tells Obama to go to hell”
On the campaign trail in 2010, LePage told voters they should elect him because he would defend them from the federal government’s tyranny. He added, “As your governor, you’re gonna be seeing a lot of me on the front page saying, ‘Governor LePage tells Obama to go to hell.'”
“The new Gestapo, the IRS”
There have been a number of criticisms of the Affordable Care Act: It’s unconstitutional; it’s unwieldy; it hinders job growth. LePage, responding to the Supreme Court ruling that upheld the law, added a new one, likening the IRS, which will enforce much of that law, to Nazi Germany’s police force.
“We the people have been told there is no choice,” he said during a weekly radio address. “You must buy health insurance or pay the new Gestapo, the IRS.”
After catching flak, LePage clarified one week later that the IRS isn’t actually the Gestapo.
“What I am trying to say is the Holocaust was a horrific crime against humanity and, frankly, I would never want to see that repeated,” he said. “Maybe the IRS is not quite as bad — yet.”
“Kiss my butt”
Shortly after assuming office in 2011, LePage said he would not attend Martin Luther King Day events hosted by the NAACP, explaining his decision by saying, “I am not going to be held hostage by a special interest group.”
When asked about the NAACP’s criticism of him for turning down those invites, LePage told a reporter, “Tell them to kiss my butt.”
“Some women may have little beards”
In 2011, the Maine Board of Environmental Protection recommended banning bisphenol A, or BPA, in all reusable food and beverage containers sold in the state. Studies have linked BPA to health problems in young children and fetuses, prompting the European Union and several U.S. states to regulate the chemical’s use.
LePage, unconvinced that the science behind those studies was sound, disagreed with the environmental agency’s recommendation.
“The only thing that I’ve heard is if you take a plastic bottle and put it in the microwave and you heat it up, it gives off a chemical similar to estrogen,” he said. “So the worst case is some women may have little beards.”
“Newspapers”
LePage is terrified of Maine’s newspapers.
While visiting a grade school, LePage told the students, “My greatest fear in the state of Maine: Newspapers. I’m not a fan of newspapers.”
TV and radio news were all right, LePage added, because they don’t “spin” the news.
“Brainwash the masses”
Months into his first term, LePage ordered that a mural depicting labor triumphs and notable figures like Rosie the Riveter be removed from the state’s Department of Labor building, saying the mural was too one-sided.
A spokesperson for LePage said he had made the decision after receiving an anonymous fax likening it to “communist North Korea where they use these murals to brainwash the masses.”
“The Department of Labor is a state agency that works very closely with both employees and employers, and we need to have a decor that represents neutrality,” the spokesperson added.
The U.S. Labor Department, which helped pay for the mural with a $60,000 grant, filed a federal lawsuit demanding that it be returned. A judge threw out that lawsuit, but LePage placed the mural back on display in the Maine State Museum earlier this year.
By: Jon Terbush, The Week, August 20, 2013; Editor’s note: This story was first published on July 3, 2013, and updated on August 20.
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