This is the guy who first linked the hospital debt agreement to the liquor contract, then linked it to the voter-authorized bonds, refusing to sign them until it was passed, and then linked it to everything, threatening to veto every other bill on every other issue if things weren’t done exactly to his specifications and timetable.

Suddenly, when Democrats included his repayment plan with another (much more intrinsically relevant) policy, it’s an unfair “ultimatum.”

Even in his address today, in the exact same moment that he’s castigating democrats for bringing two issues together, he again reminds us that he’s holding hostages: “Once the hospitals are paid, I’ve promised to issue voter-authorized bonds that will grow our economy, including the 2014 transportation infrastructure improvements and $53.5 million for conservation, clean water upgrades, and construction and energy-efficiency projects at post-secondary educational institutions.”

House Speaker Mark Eves and Senate President Justin Alfond

I’m often disappointed with the tactical and strategic moves of elected Democrats. Too often it seems like they’re much less able than Republicans to craft and stick to a simple message or policy plan based on fundamental values and publicly repeat, strengthen and reinforce it over time. The current issue of hospital payments and health care expansion, however, looks set to be different.

Say what you want about Governor LePage (and I do) he knows how to push forward an agenda. His “pay our debts” mantra around his liquor deal/hospital payments plan is a good example and even when he (frequently) goes off the rails, he usually does so in the process of reinforcing his worldview.

When he does something like comparing the Obama administration and the Affordable Care Act to the Nazi Gestapo, for instance, he may lose personal credibility (if he had any left) but he often succeeds in shifting the debate onto his turf and getting media stories like this one that allow him to air all his grievances and repeat his talking points.

It’s hard to compete with someone who has the bully pulpit of the Governor’s office, is willing to be a bit personally self-destructive in order to advance their message and is looking to rile up their base for another 3-way gubernatorial race rather than build broader consensus.

That’s why I was so glad to see Democrats’ brilliant move last week coupling LePage’s own hospital payment plan with accepting federal money to expand health coverage. They’ve claimed the high ground and put LePage in a spot where his own reckless energy will work against him.

First of all, the plan is simple and makes good policy sense as the issues are already intrinsically linked. Taking the federal funds for expansion will also increase the match rate for certain populations already covered by MaineCare. As even the conservative Heritage Foundation has noted, this will save Maine $690 million dollars over the next 10 years. Much of that will be going to hospitals and can prevent future debt from accruing so we aren’t in the same place again.

It also helps to address two other major problems that are currently plaguing hospitals. Over the past six months, Maine’s health care institutions have seen a decrease in patient volumes and an increase in uncompensated care for those without health insurance. It’s hitting their budgets hard. Expanding coverage will mean fewer people putting off treatment (and an immediate rush to get care for conditions they’ve already been suffering) and more people whose care is paid for through MaineCare rather than written off as charity or bad debt.

In short, the Democrats’ plan treats the symptoms as well as the underlying disease. That’s a much more compelling case for linking two policies than could be made for (simply as a for-instance) coupling hospital debt payments with the state liquor contract.

This is, of course, in addition to the fact that the health care expansion will save Maine money, cover 69,500 more Mainers, and save lives, all at no extra cost to the state. 68% of Mainers support accepting the federal funds and a number of Tea Party governors across the country have already embraced them.

Secondly, passing this package puts LePage in a box that no amount of yelling will get him out of. He has made paying the hospital debt a centerpiece of his agenda and expended a great deal of political capital (and even dark money) to make it happen. If he doesn’t get it done the way he wants, he could look weak going into 2014.

LePage’s usual recourse of inflammatory public statements won’t work here. Before when he attacked on this issue, he was met with a nuanced response from Democrats that didn’t match the simplicity and ferocity of LePage’s message: “We also want to pay back the hospitals, but we have certain policy issues with this plan, we have to go through the normal legislative process and there may be some better alternatives.”

Now, however, the message will be straightforward: “We passed your plan exactly as you wanted. Why haven’t you paid the hospitals and why are you denying health care to Maine people?”

It puts the onus on the LePage and shifts the conversation to an issue that’s central to Democratic values and has wide public support.

Recognizing this, most of Maine’s major daily newspapers have now editorialized that LePage should essentially take the deal and expand coverage. The Bangor Daily News even gave him some pointers on how to appease the Tea Party:

“The Democrats’ bill may give LePage the opportunity to expand Medicaid and simultaneously appease his base. He can say Democrats forced the issue, and he took the high road to pay the hospitals. Or, he could finally come around to Medicaid expansion, as other Republican governors have done, and recognize that he would be supporting the hospitals by expanding Medicaid.”

Third, time won’t be kind to LePage. The longer he delays after the Legislature has passed this plan, the weaker his position becomes. No longer can he reasonably claim Democrats are holding up the payments (although I’m sure he’ll still try). Instead, he gets tagged as the obstructionist.

LePage’s fiscal position also erodes with time. As the budget looms larger, the liquor contract money he’s depending on to make his version of the plan work will look more and more enticing to cash-strapped Legislators of both parties who are trying to plug the budget hole. Once it’s up against all the other competing interests of the budget, including LePage’s revenue sharing, education and health care cuts, hospital debt may not seem like the most pressing priority.

In addition, a delay gives strength to LePage’s potential political challengers. Congressman Mike Michaud, who is considering a gubernatorial run, has already highlighted his own support for accepting the federal health care funds. A high-profile showdown over the issue between LePage and legislative Democrats makes the perfect case for his candidacy.

Fourth, this is likely the only way to actually pass the health care expansion. As LePage showed with his hyperbolic reaction to this proposal (calling it “criminal” and “a sin”) he was never really considering accepting the federal funds. Attaching them to his major legislative priority could change the equation, secure the funding and save peoples’ lives.

To make this strategy work, Democrats will need to do two things: stick together and get their message to the public.

While Democrats can’t always be as unified with each other as the Governor is with himself, on this issue maintaining unity shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Accepting the federal health care funds and expanding care is an issue that’s at the core of their Party’s values and on which nearly all Democrats (and quite a few Republicans) agree.

The challenge of getting their message out there is the greater. In case you haven’t noticed, there are a few other things going on in Augusta at the moment that demand attention and legislative leaders don’t get the kind of automatic coverage that LePage does for his pronouncements (in large part because they, rightly, won’t use the kind of inflammatory language that he is willing to employ). But the simplicity of this issue and the inherent conflict with the Governor makes things easier. All they need to do is continue to repeat their message and prod LePage for action. If he doesn’t accede, then the delay itself begins to become the story. I imagine they’ll also appreciate having such a straightforward, values-based issue to talk about as the budget negotiations get more and more complex.

It’s encouraging to see the reversal here. Where before LePage’s rhetoric and pressure from hospitals had put Democrats on the defensive, they’re now in a win-win situation. If LePage gives in right away, the hospitals get paid (although not quite in the way Democrats might have wanted) and 69,500 people get health care. If he doesn’t, then they can take a political stand for a straightforward and popular policy where they have the high ground and LePage’s position will weaken the longer he delays.

My verdict: the proposal has a number of serious political and policy flaws, but the fact that it was proposed may help move things in the right direction.

At the core of the plan is the idea of expanding and increasing the state sales tax in order to replace LePage’s proposed cuts to municipal revenue sharing, the homestead exemption and other state programs. The plan would also see the income tax flattened to 4% and the estate tax eliminated completely, the same numbers as published in a recent Press Herald article. A main goal of the plan is to shift more of the costs of government to out-of-staters who vacation or spend part of the year in Maine.

First, the policy problems: While it may not be as unpopular as property taxes, the sales tax is a steeply regressive tax. The lower your income, the higher percentage of it you pay and even the proposed tax credits to offset it contained in this plan may not be enough to make sure poor and middle class Mainers, especially those who rent, aren’t shouldering more of the burden of the budget. Flattening Maine’s barely-progressive income tax and cutting it to one of the lowest rates in the country, along with the elimination of the estate tax, would further ensure that the wealthy are the primary beneficiaries of this policy.

Even with the unveiling of Knight’s bill tomorrow, however, we won’t know the full impact of the proposal. Because of the way the taxes and offsets are structured, the impact could vary widely from town to town throughout the state.

Second, the political problems: Similar sales tax reform was proposed in 2009 and became law after a Byzantine legislative process that saw many interest groups carve out exemptions for themselves. Passed mostly on party lines, it was soundly defeated in a People’s Veto referendum by a coalition of Republicans, Greens, and industries that would have been taxed. The Maine Association of Realtors alone spent more than $200,000 to support the veto. I imagine similar interest groups are already quietly organizing to gut this legislation.

What’s more, in a Legislature where Democrats ran against tax cuts for the wealthy and even Republicans are now claiming to support tax fairness, a blatantly regressive move like instituting a flat income tax and eliminating the estate tax will likely be a non-starter among the current Democratic majority.

What seems to be a spark of good news in this proposal, in my mind, is that the Republicans involved, including some very conservative members of the caucus like Rep. Amy Volk and Rep. Lance Harvell, have now endorsed a budget solution that includes increasing revenue in a straightforward way, rather than trying to deny the fact of tax increases at the municipal level.

This is an important step for members of the Republican caucus, whose party has been increasingly doctrinaire and dominated by the tea-party, and a sign that the budget situation is bad enough that some of them are willing to split with Governor LePage (who has not yet weighed in on the proposal).

Democrats who were involved in the proposal negotiations made it clear that they see this compromise plan as an idea that moves the ball in the right direction, but that they’ve had to make some difficult choices to get to this point and are still considering other options.

“The income and estate tax pieces, on their own wouldn’t make sense, but in the context of a lot of other changes, they’re worth considering,” said Democratic Senator Emily Cain. “I am taking just as close and serious a look at the Fair Share Now! plan as I am this one. I’m taking all these plans seriously. All of these proposals that are coming forward need to be taken seriously in order to get to the best possible solution.”

(The Maine People’s Alliance, for which I work, supports the Fair Share Now! campaign and its proposed budget solution.)

Cain also praised her Republican colleagues.

“A Republican was the one who first invited me to participate in this conversation. I’ve been encouraged that Republicans are willing to play a leadership role in this conversation and make sure that everything stays on table, including raising significant revenue and making other changes in the tax code,” said Cain.

According to Nate Libby, a freshman Representative from Lewiston and one of the plan’s negotiators, it was the threat of the Governor’s budget that brought people to the table.

“If I were in the Legislature then, I would have fought against the unfunded income tax cuts that caused the budget mess that we’re in right now,” said Libby. “I think folks in both parties realize that the governor’s budget is going to hurt a lot of people and that created a situation where Republicans and Democrats came together to attempt to fix the budget and not raise property taxes.”

Libby, a member of the Taxation Committee, said there are other options that should also be considered as things move forward.

“[Representative] Peter Stuckey’s bill that would create income tax brackets to make sure the wealthy pay their fair share, that’s good policy and that’s really what the income tax is for,” said Libby. “Also the Buffett rule makes good sense, and Maine’s entire federal Congressional delegation has supported it.”

The proposal will be discussed at a press conference tomorrow, which promises to be a busy day, as LePage will also be unveiling his new school grading initiative.

UMPI photo | BDN

Governor LePage has a habit of using false anecdotes to back up his policy positions. It started during his campaign and has continued throughout his time in office. He routinely makes up regulations that don’t exist, conversations that never happened and discriminatory practices that have never occurred. LePage has repeated some of these claims even after they have been proven to be false.

What these lies have in common is that they all seem designed to highlight some extreme example of what LePage sees as wrong with the world and justify his policy prescriptions. If any of them were true, they would be very compelling.

LePage added a new false anecdote to his repertoire on Tuesday as he spoke to the Skowhegan Area Chamber of Commerce. At the end of long rant against the wind power industry, filled with claims that the renewable resource doesn’t create jobs and leads to higher electricity rates, LePage took aim at one wind turbine in particular.

“Now, to add insult to injury, The University of Maine, Presque Isle – anybody here been up there to see that damn windmill in the back yard? Guess what, if it’s not blowing wind outside and they have somebody visiting the campus, they have a little electric motor that turns the blades. I’m serious. They have an electric motor so that they can show people wind power works. Unbelievable. And that’s the government that you have here in the state of Maine,” said LePage.

Listen here in mp3.

UMPI photo | BDN

The University of Maine at Presque Isle’s award-winning wind turbine was built in 2009 and serves as both a source of power for the campus and a demonstration of clean energy in action. Since the turbine’s metering was reset in July of last year, it has produced the clean energy equivalent of 684.6 barrels of oil. You can see live readings of wind speed, rotor RPM and power generation of the turbine any time at UMPI’s website.

When I asked UMPI director of community and media relations Rachel Rice if there was a little electric motor that spun the blades in order to trick people into thinking it was working, her first reaction was to laugh out loud.

When I explained that I was following up on an actual statement from Maine’s governor, she was nice enough to provide a more technical refutation. The turbine blades begin spinning at around 4-5 mph of wind speed, begin generating power at 10 mph and can continue generation with winds of up to around 65 mph.

“If there’s no wind, the turbine won’t spin,” explained Rice. “There has to be naturally-occurring wind in order for the turbine to spin.”

LePage’s anecdote wasn’t just hilariously inaccurate. According to Judy Berk, communications director at the Natural Resources Council of Maine (an organization that supports responsibly-sited wind development), the sentiment behind it is also highly counterproductive for Maine.

“Wind power is an important part of our energy future. As we phase out dirtier sources of energy, we should be phasing in some of these new ones. Maine is poised to be a leader in wind power, if only we’ll let it,” said Berk. “We have many companies that are leaders in installing wind power and Maine has developed an expertise that is recognized outside the state as well. UMPI’s wind power program is working to train the next generation of energy producers.”

LePage’s false anecdotes, like this one, aren’t just a source of confusion and comedy. They also provide some troubling insight into the way he makes and justifies his decisions as governor. It’s hard to trust any policy stance of someone who is either so incredibly gullible or is willing to cynically and habitually lie in such a transparent way in order to advance his own agenda.

Whit Richardson | BDN

Last week, Governor Paul LePage told the Bangor Daily News that he hadn’t yet decided whether to sign or veto the minimum wage increase passed by the Maine House and Senate. He told the Portland Press Herald the same thing, and that he would consider and review the bill once it came to his desk.

LePage had a very different message for an audience at a Skowhegan Chamber event on Tuesday where no media was present, an audio recording of his remarks reveals.

“I’ve got a bill – they haven’t sent it down to me, but I understand that while I was away last week, they passed a minimum wage bill. I don’t know why they’re not sending it to me, because they know what’s going to happen,” said LePage to laughter and applause. “Let me tell you this. When you’re the fifth worst place to do business and you turn around and insist on having the highest minimum wage in the country, what does that say? What kind of message are we sending to the potential investors?”

Listen here in mp3.

Far from considering the minimum wage bill, LePage makes it clear that he has already made a decision and makes a joke of the idea that he would even consider the increase, which would raise Maine’s minimum wage in stages to $9 an hour in 2016 and then index it to inflation.

LePage also, as is often the case, gets his facts wrong. Even if no other jurisdictions increased their minimum wages over the next three years, Maine would still be at or behind the minimum wages of at least four other states in 2016: Vermont, Washington, New York and Oregon. Washington currently leads the nation with a $9.19 minimum wage that increases each year with the Consumer Price Index.

LePage’s potential Democratic rivals in the next gubernatorial election support raising the minimum wage. Independent Eliot Cutler has been more cagey, but appears to be against the increase.

Christopher Cousins | BDN

Last night, Governor Paul LePage spoke to the Skowhegan Area Chamber of Commerce at their annual awards dinner. The event was open to both Chamber members and the public, with individual tickets starting at $30.

According to Chamber executive director Cory King, no media was present at the event and LePage’s staff asked the organizers to prohibit any recording devices from being used, although several attendees took notes.

“One of the things that the governor’s team asked is that we take recording equipment away from anyone that we noticed had it,” said King. “The democrats’ tracker showed up and I asked if I could hold on to his recording equipment and he had no problem with it.”

King says he kept the equipment locked in his vehicle during LePage’s speech.

Lucky for those of us who find it interesting to hear what LePage has to say when he thinks the wider public can’t hear him, not all of the recording devices in the room were confiscated. (In the age of smart phones, how did they possibly think that they could be?)

Thanks to an anonymous source, I have a recording of LePage’s speech, which includes a number of statements that should raise questions and/or eyebrows. Over a series of posts, I’ll upload some of the more interesting ones and attempt to provide some context to the governor’s remarks. I probably have a week’s worth of blog posts here, but I’ll try not to drag it out for that long.

First up is this remark about next year’s gubernatorial election. Not only does LePage commit to running again (a statement he has avoided making so far) but he promises that he will be “the next Scott Walker,” a reference to the divisive Wisconsin governor who survived a high-profile recall election last year after he attempted to strip union bargaining rights from public employees.

“I will guarantee you that you will see the most vicious education campaign ads that you’ve ever seen in your life next year, because I am going to be the next Scott Walker in this country, because I am challenging the status quo,” declared LePage.

Listen here in mp3.

LePage says that the ads will come from “out-of-state union bosses” that he says are the cause of problems in Maine’s education system.

The Maine Education Association and other organizations have objected to many of the education measures LePage has proposed so far, including plans to divert public money to private charter schools and a budget proposal that would cut revenue sharing payments to towns and could lead to deep cuts in local schools.

In his speech, LePage says the division over his policies will only get worse in “the next week or so,” as his administration releases letter grades for their set of performance measures for all Maine schools.

“If you think I’ve caused trouble lately, you wait in the next couple weeks when the grades on all the schools come out,” said LePage.

The unethical practices of the financial industry were the cause of the recession, but Wall Street has almost entirely escaped responsibility. Executives at large financial institutions have avoided prosecution, the banks were bailed out with federal money and the new federal regulations have mostly been stalled or watered-down and made ineffectual.

Even the recent $3.6 billion settlement for fraudulent foreclosures works out to be a pittance of just $300-$1,000 for 80% of the families who were wronged.

What’s worse, the banks have been allowed to claim those fines as tax deductions. That means that this year Bank of America, among others, will once again pay no corporate federal income taxes at all. In fact, they’ll get a tax refund of $1.12 billion. Happy tax day.

There is one good thing, however, that came out of the aftermath of the financial collapse and the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, (the one major regulatory bill that made it through Congress): the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The Bureau is meant to oversee and regulate everyday financial transactions and protect consumers from the worst excesses of banks, credit card issuers, payday lenders and mortgage firms. Republicans attempted to limit the operations of the organization by denying the appointment of Elizabeth Warren as its first director. Warren, a bankruptcy expert who had proposed the office and helped to set it up, instead decided to run for the U.S. Senate, where she is currently being awesome.

Senate Republicans and Wall Street also opposed the nomination of President Obama’s next choice to lead the Bureau, Richard Cordray. Without a director, the legislation creating the Bureau limits its rulemaking ability and scope of oversight. Obama eventually made Cordray director in a recess appointment.

It is thanks to the CFPB that we can begin to get a broader view of what’s happening in Maine in terms of consumer mortgages and financial services. Recently (over the strong objections of the banks) the Bureau released a dataset describing more than 90,000 complaints it has received from across the country, tagged by zip code. By extracting the complaints from Maine, we can get an idea of where and how people here are continuing to encounter problems with financial institutions.

Here’s a map of the complaints in Maine. Yellow pins represent zip codes with one complaint, red pins are multiples. Click on each to see the companies and financial products that are the subjects of complaints. 96.7% of complaints originating in Maine were responded to promptly by the financial institution, according to the CFPB data.

Finally, here’s a chart showing outcomes. 28.6% of complaints were resolved with some form of monetary or other relief for the complainants.

Kevin Bennett | BDN

The purchase of television advertising ($41,000 worth, according to Ethan Strimling) by Maine People Before Politics (MPBP) in support of Governor LePage this week represents a troubling new chapter in Maine politics.

Never before has what is basically an unaccountable SuperPAC that is closely linked to a candidate and sitting officeholder made this kind of political play, and they’ve done so at an incredibly early date (19 months before the election).

MPBP is a 501(c)(4) organization. Traditionally, c4s were advocacy and social welfare organizations that had a limited ability to engage in candidate elections (the Maine People’s Alliance, for which I work, was founded as one of these c4 membership organizations). With recent Supreme Court rulings that stripped away restrictions on political action, however, some c4s have come to be used as a way to influence elections while shielding donors from having to disclose their spending. Karl Rove’s c4 organization Crossroads GPS spent nearly as much as his traditional (and slightly more transparent) SuperPAC during the last election.

Comedian Stephen Colbert recently brought some much-needed light to this dark money issue when he created a SuperPAC and linked c4 organization live on his show during the last election.

“Clearly, these c4s have created an unprecedented, unaccountable, untraceable cash tsunami that will infect every corner of the next election,” said Colbert. “And I feel like an idiot for not having one.”

But what’s going on with MPBP is even shadier than these national groups. The organization is closely aligned with the political agenda and personal aggrandizement of one politician, Governor LePage, and whatever individual and corporate donors are funding the group could be doing so in order to buy influence with the Governor.

The decision-maker for MPBP appears to be LePage’s campaign political strategist Brent Littlefield. His name has been removed from the group’s website “About” and “Contact Us” pages, but older versions of the site cached by Google list him as its “strategic advisor.” His profile still exists on the site and can be accessed through search engines.

Jason Savage, a LePage campaign staffer who formerly worked at MPBP, left the group to become executive director of the Maine Republican Party when LePage’s allies took over the Party apparatus earlier this year.

This sharing of personnel is troubling, but the links to LePage go even deeper. According to the Maine Bureau of Corporations, Maine People Before Politics was formerly known as “LePage Transition 2010.” That’s right, they didn’t even bother to transfer the transition money they received to a new account, they just changed the name of the c4.

Interestingly, this fact gives us a small window into who has funded the group. Because the LePage transition listed its donors (although not the amounts they gave) we know some of the companies and individuals whose money ended up in MPBP’s accounts.

The results aren’t pretty. Among the contributors are insurance companies, chemical firms, corporate polluters and dozens of companies whose business interests would be served by buying influence with the governor.

Donors include BP (which gave twice from two different subsidiaries), Anthem Insurance and pharmaceutical giant Astra Zeneca. Some of the companies would seem to have no interest at all in Maine except for their legislative agenda. iGPS Company, LLC, for instance, is seeking to stop Maine’s Kid-Safe Products law and donor Mallinckrodt is a legal entity created to fight the cleanup of the mercury-contaminated site of the former Holtrachem plant on the Penobscot River.

Also on the list: The Maine Hospital Association.

It is unknown how much of the money from these companies is funding the current activities of MPBP, just as we don’t know the identities of other donors that may have given since the name change. The amount of money being spent this early before an election by a group so closely linked to the Governor, however, is deeply troubling and represents a new low for transparency in Maine politics and government.

The data here is from the Maine Department of Labor, adjusted with CPI figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. If the Maine minimum wage had kept pace with inflation since the late 1960s (when the wage began to be broadly applied), it would currently be more than $10 an hour.

The proposal before the Senate would increase the minimum wage in stages to $9 an hour by 2016 (when it will be worth somewhere around $8.40 in today’s dollars, according to current CPI forecasts) and then index it to inflation.