Preserving The American Political Philosophy

Continuing from Part One ..... Bonds are frequently sold to the public in the interest of job-creation. During the Lepage years, under the enactment of Industry Partnerships , the public educational system was re-purposed as a job training resource. Industry Partnership's is a new government bureaucracy dedicated to function as central managers of the relationship between industries operating in economic sectors targeted by the State. Funding was re appropriated from traditional government functions such as the Department of Corrections to capitalize ‘ quality centers ”, collective communes in the community college system, equipped with the state of the art means of production and used as facilities for training workers in the state-targeted industries. More taxpayer funding was distributed to build communal Tech Places , industry quality centers with state of the art facilities designed to attract start-up companies to communal environments with shared facilities and administ

The letter of the law versus the spirit of the law is an idiomatic antithesis . When one obeys the letter of the law but not the spirit, one is obeying the literal interpretation of the words (the "letter") of the law , but not necessarily the intent of those who wrote the law. Conversely, when one obeys the spirit of the law but not the letter, one is doing what the authors of the law intended, though not necessarily adhering to the literal wording. "Law" originally referred to legislative statute , but in the idiom may refer to any kind of rule. Intentionally following the letter of the law but not the spirit may be accomplished through exploiting technicalities , loopholes , and ambiguous language. Wikipedia . For clarification's sake: The Botanical Gardens is listed on the Maine corporate name search as  COASTAL MAINE BOTANICAL GARDENS, INC. I attended the appeals board meeting  pursuant to giving permission to the Botanical Garden's 30 milli

Tweet This: http://goo.gl/0m1HSr Beth O'Connor is a Maine State Legislator who threatened to block me from Maine Tax Payers United during election season for criticizing LePage. Eventually she had her proxy block me. But today I saw a post on Facebook by Beth promoting a bill she is sponsoring to add the town of Berwick to the special interests groups in Maine which are qualified to receive Pine Tree Zone benefits- one of the Maine Development Corporation's many  corporate welfare programs: Maine LD 93: An Act To Allow the Town of Berwick To Be Eligible for Full Pine Tree Development Zone Benefits I made the comment below and a few others before Beth caught on and blocked me once again from posting comments on her Facebook page.  In Maine it is common practice for public representatives to block the voices of those expressing views that the politician does not want to hear. The other participant in the conversation  testified that LePage blocks her comments- a sto

Tweet this post with short link:  http://goo.gl/aoedF6 Maine officials worry state effort won’t recapture revenue lost in alcohol sales to NH Bangor Daily News Under the previous contract, inked by the administration of former Gov. John Baldacci, the state was paid $125 million plus a small percentage of the annual profits between $7 million and $9 million per year over the contract’s 10-year span. The company doing the work, however, made about $36 million each year in profit. Now how unfair is that- the company DOING THE WORK is making a bigger share of the profits that the corporation of Maine?  Gotta change that ! And I am sure companies will be rushing to compete for the contract especially after the University of Maine business consortium (a kinder, gentler way of saying public- private oligarchy), arranged to have the PUC terms of agreement changed in the Wind Baron Wars *  in order to chase Norwegian company Statoil out of Maine so that Maine State Inc could cre

TWEET THIS USING THIS SHORT LINK http://goo.gl/u2fKk0 New Hampshire features a state by state comparison on its website. This is the comparison to Maine . Interesting to note that despite New Hampshire NOT taxing personal income, NOT having a sales tax, and NOT having an estate tax, it's top corporate income tax is still lower than Maine's . Top Corporate Income Tax New Hampshire 8.5% Maine 8.93% An explanation for this may be Maine's two-tier income tax whereby Maine offers corporations providing jobs of an income level above the median household income, tax exemptions and cash payouts - but taxes businesses offering jobs that pay the medium household income or below under general laws. I would argue that such a practice is unconstitutional by Article IV Part Third Section 14 of the Maine Constitution which stipulates that "All corporations, however formed, are subject to general laws" I suspect that all of the state by state comparisons tha

SHARE THIS! TWEET THIS USING THIS SHORT LINK; http://goo.gl/VXLcX8 Continuing where I left off in my last post - addressing the Lepage Campaign talking points as presented by Representative Heather Sirocki in this Portland Press Herald article titled  Maine reaping rewards of governor’s commitment to fiscal responsibility The article says: Let’s start with the state’s improved credit standing. In June, rating agencies issued their outlooks for Maine’s creditworthiness. Standard & Poor’s Rating Services assigned its AA rating to our long-term bonds, while Moody’s Investor Services affirmed its Aa2 rating and upgraded its forecast of Maine’s debt from negative to stable. The agencies cited several major factors that influenced the strong ratings, including repayment of $748 million in MaineCare’s hospital debt; substantial public pension reform; and measures to control costs in the MaineCare program, which provides “free” taxpayer-subsidized health care to more than 300,00