Good jobs and strong wages. These were the priorities of the past year for Democrats and many Republicans in the Legislature. But you hardly would know it because headlines only focused on Gov. Paul LePage’s habitual conflict with the Legislature.
While the media love a good conflict story, significant economic progress was made this past year for working people in our state. Democrats, Republicans and unenrolled members of the Legislature came together to invest in our students and workers, provide a middle class tax cut and provide property tax relief for working families.
As Democrats, we believe economic progress is made when everyone has a fair shot at a good education, a chance to own a home and a chance to see a doctor when you get sick. We believe in creating economic opportunity for everyone — not just those at the very top.
I take strong issue with the Aug. 9 BDN article “Will Democrats be content to play defense against LePage?” suggesting Democrats haven’t offered a proactive agenda. Not only have we offered a proactive agenda; we actually have gotten results.
With our 10-seat majority in the House, we were able to forge policy agreements with a conservative Republican Senate majority to help create more economic opportunity for working families in our state.
At the start of the legislative session, we set out to prioritize the kind of economic opportunity that leads to good jobs and strong wages. Maine ranks among the worst in the nation for job growth in report after report. Our wages lag the nation and New England.
As part of our response to our lagging economic growth, lawmakers conducted a bipartisan jobs tour across the state. We heard from employers, workers and students that investment in education and the workforce was key to strengthening our economic future. We listened, and we learned.
From York to Aroostook counties, each and every one of them urged lawmakers to invest in educating our workforce so students and workers could have more opportunity to earn a better wage. Not a single one of them said they wanted tax breaks for the wealthy or to vilify the poor with false attacks on struggling families.
The loggers in Rumford, the businesses and students in Presque Isle, the farmers in central Maine and the machinists in North Berwick all were telling us the same thing: Investing in our workforce is the best investment in our economic future.
Maine’s comeback story will be written by our growing middle class, our vibrant entrepreneurs and those who are innovating our traditional industries. Democrats set out to help foster that economic growth four years ago in the 126th Legislature with the creation of the special bipartisan panel dedicated to Maine’s Workforce and Economic Future. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle set the foundation for investing in our workers and Maine’s future industries.
During the last year, we built on the panel’s success and created the Put ME to Work program, which helps workers get the skills and training they need for the jobs of the future. It will create partnerships between the private and public sector to train workers in growing sectors, including manufacturing, health care and agriculture.
Investments such as these already have led to workers getting better paying jobs. Students from community college machinist programs, from York to Presque Isle, are graduating with jobs lined up at manufacturing companies paying more than $17 dollars per hour. These programs have a near 100 percent job placement rate.
Lawmakers made investment in our children, students and workers a top priority this session. We increased support for early education programs such as Head Start, bolstered the state’s commitment to K-12 education by $80 million and increased funds for higher education and for scholarships to help make college more affordable. These are the kinds of policies that keep our young people here and attract new Mainers to our state.
We made great strides for workers and students in our state. We did it by working with our colleagues across the aisle, not by offering sound bites or ultimatums. This is the tradition of great Maine leaders and the way governing should be in our state.
At the start of the session, I personally made an effort to reset my relationship with Gov. Paul LePage and Democrats sought to work with him, offering compromises on the budget, tax policy, education and welfare reform. But he refused to meet us in the middle or consider anything but his own proposals. Lawmakers in both parties had no choice but to work together to accomplish our goals — often while the governor issued vetoes and news releases from the sidelines.
If we want to grow good jobs and strong wages in our state, we need to work together to invest in our people and put more money in the pockets of working people. Maine people always can count on Democrats to push that proactive agenda.
Rep. Mark Eves, D-North Berwick, is speaker of the Maine House of Representatives.