I took this photograph in Washington, D.C. prior to the April 5, “Hands Off” demonstration. I am a strong supporter of labor and a union member. I have been a union member of the Maine Service Employees Association for nearly forty years. Several years ago, I visited the Occupy Wall Street encampment shortly prior to its removal by the City of New York.
The gap between the haves and the have nots is widening. Real income for the middle class has been decreasing for more than forty years. As someone with a degree in economics, I am familiar with the laws of supply and demand and how economics works. The rich are getting richer and the rest of us are left to fight over the crumbs. This growing economic disparity is sowing the seeds for class warfare. Inflation is essentially another word for greed. If and when wages increase to try to keep up with increasing prices of goods and services, the costs to produce those goods and services increase as well. Business owners typically pass on those increased costs to the consumer rather than absorb them. This is called inflation.
As governor, I will support increasing wages, decreasing taxes on the lower and middle class, and increasing taxes for those who can best afford it. I will support labor unions and workers in general. I will support increasing economic opportunities by encouraging entrepreneurship and by growing Maine’s small businesses. Maine’s economic potential has not begun to be tapped. While growing our economy, we must not kill the goose that laid the golden egg by despoiling our environment. It will take working together and perhaps some compromises, but we can and must have both a healthy economy and a healthy environment.
