FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DECEMBER 21, 2009
CONTACT: TED O’MEARA
207.699.4401
ted@cutler2010.com
CUTLER CALLS SUPPLEMENTAL BUDGET A “FAILURE OF LEADERSHIP”
PORTLAND, Maine – Independent candidate for Governor Eliot Cutler today called the Governor’s latest supplemental budget a travesty, saying it represents a failure of leadership.
“Instead of facing the music and proposing the kinds of fundamental changes we need to make Maine work again, the Governor’s supplemental budget avoids the tough calls, relies on the most transparent gimmickry and fails the test of leadership,” Cutler said in a blog posted today on his campaign website,www.cutler2010.com.
Cutler renewed his call for a BRAC-type process for reorganizing state government, a proposal that he made in his announcement speech on December 9. The process would be similar to the one that the federal government uses to realign or close military facilities. Cutler said he would chair a special commission that would review all state agencies and expenditures and make recommendations on which should stay and which should go. He then would ask the Legislature to take a simple yes or no vote on the entire package.
Cutler also noted several major and fundamental changes in state government policies that he already has proposed in his campaign that the budget fails to address:
- Authorizing charter schools, which would make the state eligible for millions of dollars in federal funds
- Merging the community college and university systems
- Reducing the number of organizations that have contracts with the Department of Health and Human Services from more than 7,000 to a much smaller and more manageable number
- Ending mandatory annual vehicle inspections
- Making healthcare more affordable for Maine families and business
Cutler called the Governor to task for relying on “sugar pills”, when the state budget needs what he says is major surgery. He criticized the supplemental budget for passing the buck by delaying payments to cities and towns, making one-time transfers to the General Fund from other special funds, and engaging in a “Shell Game” whereby the state will be “borrowing” $93.5 million from Other Special Revenue Funds on June 30 and then paying it back 24 hours later on July 1..Cutler likened this to someone paying overdue credit card balances with another credit card.
Cutler said he holds out little hope that the Governor and Legislature will deal effectively with the continuing budget shortfalls. “We’ll see what the legislature does with the travesty of a budget that the Governor has turned over to them, but nothing so far suggests that the political parties that got us into this mess are going to get us out of it,” the Independent candidate said.
About Eliot Cutler
Eliot Cutler was born and raised in Bangor. After college, he worked in Washington, D.C. for Senator Edmund S. Muskie of Maine, helping to craft the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and other laws important to Maine. He went on to serve as Associate Director for Natural Resources, Energy and Science in the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and was the principal White House official for energy matters from 1977 to 1980. At President Carter’s request, he helped negotiate a settlement to the Maine Indian Land Claims.
Following his government service, Eliot founded the law firm of Cutler & Stanfield LLP, which grew to become the second largest environmental law firm in the United States, concentrating on job-creating infrastructure projects such as airports, highways and other major public facilities. After a number of years of working on projects around the country from a base in Washington, Cutler returned to Maine permanently in late 1999, just prior to his law firm’s merger with the international firm of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP.
Cutler also has been a highly successful businessman and entrepreneur, helping to start or acquire several businesses and serving on the boards of large and small companies, as well as not-for-profit organizations. He was chairman of the board of visitors of the Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine for nearly a decade and helped lead the School to its position as one of the leading graduate schools of public policy in the United States.
Cutler lives in Cape Elizabeth with his wife, Dr. Melanie Stewart Cutler. Their family includes three grown children.
