LePage to Sacrifice Own Benefits in Budget Crisis

Also Petitions Google to Remove Word “Gullible”  from Search Results

AUGUSTA – Gov. Paul LePage announced yesterday that he will stop accepting the health care benefits afforded him by the State of Maine to illustrate his willingness to make the same sacrifice he is asking of other Mainers who would lose their coverage if the legislature approves his proposed MaineCare eligibility cuts.

And, in a related announcement, the Governor said he personally wrote to the Chief Executive Officer at Google to ask him to remove the word “gullible” from their search results.

LePage admitted his $20,000 benefits package won’t amount to much in the face of a $220 million budget shortfall, but said he would not ask others to make sacrifices he would not make himself.

“We really do have to scrape for every penny,” LePage said, “and, the fact is, I certainly am more able to buy my own health coverage than a lot of the people who would be impacted by these cuts.”

The $20,000 savings that will result from LePage’s gesture could easily be had by laying of an ed tech in a school in some town nobody cares about (i.e. any town but yours), but he said he would rather shell out for his own health insurance than simply ratchet up class sizes for a bunch of helpless sixth graders, “even if they weren’t likely to amount to much anyway.”

Meanwhile, he said, removing the word “gullible” from Google search hours will save the state thousands of dollars in lost productivity from employees at Maine Revenue Services always having to look up what it means.

And, as a side note, LePage suggested there might be “a bridge in Brooklin that we could sell” in order to come up with even more cash.

Bridge for sale. Like new. Selling to pay for huge budget shortfall. Asking $100,000,000 OBO.

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