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LePage: Maine to Lose Between 1,200 and 1,500 Jobs This Summer

PORTLAND, Maine - Gov. Paul LePage has upped by hundreds the number of jobs he says will be lost in Maine this summer.  LePage made the prediction at one of his ongoing town hall meetings in Biddeford Tuesday night.

"This summer, we're going to lose between 1,200 and 1,500 more jobs - not all paper, but some paper and some other industries," LePage said. "The problem is this:  Every single job that we're talking about are jobs that get paid above the per capita median income of Mainers.  We're talking jobs in the $60,000, $70,000 and $80,000 a year. I find that appalling."

Earlier this month, LePage told an Orono town hall audience that an unnamed company in southern Maine was on the verge of shedding 900 jobs.  But he refused to say which company, and none has come forward.

The Republican governor has frequently cited high energy costs and taxes as reasons for job losses. 

LePage also said he will sit down this week with Democrats who back a bill that aims to expand solar power generation in Maine to see if there may be common ground.

But the long-time opponent of what he sees as unwarranted consumer subsidies for solar power also isn't holding out much hope. "I've invited the Democrats to come in on Friday and to see if they can understand where I'm coming from, and if they do then there may be a bill," he said. "But the likelihood is it's going to get vetoed and sustained."

LePage frequently condemned the Legislature - often over the burden Maine's energy costs place on business. But he also praised several measures to emerge from the session that ended last week; those included holding the line on student costs in the University of Maine system, and new limits on the strength and duration of opioid prescriptions written by Maine doctors.

He also said he's pleased with a welfare reform measure, passed by the Legislature with Democratic support, which will restrict the use of welfare benefit cards for items such as tobacco or alcohol.

"As of this week that is no longer going to happen because now they can only spend their money on certain things," he said. "We have fixed a big part of that and we are going to continue to."

During the event, there were a couple of clashes with young critics, who've challenged him at other town hall events. LePage now calls them his "groupies."

 

 

A Columbia University graduate, Fred began his journalism career as a print reporter in Vermont, then came to Maine Public in 2001 as its political reporter, as well as serving as a host for a variety of Maine Public Radio and Maine Public Television programs. Fred later went on to become news director for New England Public Radio in Western Massachusetts and worked as a freelancer for National Public Radio and a number of regional public radio stations, including WBUR in Boston and NHPR in New Hampshire.
Barbara grew up in Biddeford, Maine. She earned a master’s in public administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a bachelor’s in English from the University of Southern Maine.