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Michael Cianchette is a Navy reservist who served in Afghanistan. He is in-house counsel to a number of businesses in southern Maine and was a chief counsel to former Gov. Paul LePage.
Plan the work, work the plan.
It’s fairly simple. That’s probably why it doesn’t seem to get traction in Augusta.
The fact that the entire Legislature has the potential to turn over every two years creates incentives for short-term thinking. It is exacerbated by term limits, as elected officials have an eight-year horizon to advocate for the changes they believe in.
The result is a bit chaotic, with the issue du jour taking over headlines and attention. There is no focused, thought-out plan being worked on over many years.
The exception is the Maine Department of Transportation.
You can go onto their website and see their multi-year work plan. They will forecast the projects they intend to work on, when, and how much they are expected to cost.
It is an example of government run well.
One of the best things that a plan provides is the ability to align needs with resources. That’s where the Maine GOP comes in.
Maine’s transportation infrastructure needs work, to put it charitably. To fully fund MaineDOT’s proposed work plan, they need an additional $265 million. Every year.
Gov. Janet Mills, to her credit, has proposed a one-time payment of $400 million in her pending spending plan. Legislative Republicans want to instead identify permanent, ongoing funding for transportation needs. They want to move money from the general fund into the highway fund.
For most of the past decade, Maine has routinely borrowed money through bond questions to meet transportation needs. They are remarkably popular. But here’s the catch: the debt service on those bonds gets paid out of the general fund.
So, as a practical matter, we’ve been moving money from the general fund to the highway fund for years. We’ve just been doing it indirectly.
As headlines have made clear, Augusta is flush with cash right now. It is the exact right time to focus on aligning our resources with our needs. And the needs identified by MaineDOT require an additional $265 million annually.
Take a look at their work plan. People can judge for themselves on whether these are the right infrastructure priorities. Are some of these investments a higher or lower priority than new social welfare programs? Those are the hard questions we elect people to address.
For Republicans, they seem resolved that transportation spending is a core function of government. That is why Rep. John Andrews sponsored a constitutional amendment requiring half the sales taxes from vehicles be dedicated to transportation funding. Some Democrats seem to agree, as the Tax Committee voted unanimously that the measure should pass.
Yet, in the final days of this session, it appears a fight is brewing. Republicans are standing firm in their belief that this is the right time for a long-term solution. Legislative Democrats are reluctant to do so. It is shaping up to be a major issue just when they should be leaving town.
Republicans wanted to have a credible voice at the table of state spending, including on the non-transportation budget. Democrats denied them that opportunity by playing hard-ball with their majority budget strategy. So, now, turnabout is fair play.
Republicans can and should hold fast to their position in favor of permanent transportation funding. Plan the work, work the plan. And with the right plan, the GOP can help MaineDOT fund their work plan to help get Maine back to work.
