May 2, 1992
PREAMBLE
The Republican Party of the State of Maine , gathered in convention, looks at the world around us with pride in eleven years of national and international Republican leadership. Under Presidents Reagan and Bush, with the assistance of Republican legislators like Bill Cohen and Olympia Snowe, America has led the way to a world of democratic governments, respect for human rights, and the rule of law rather than force. Thanks to their efforts, our children will grow and live in a world safer than we have known. Our challenges now are the challenges of peace, to build a country as prosperous economically as it is strong militarily, as free from the threat of crime and drugs as it is from the threat of war, and as committed to the happiness of every citizen as it is to the liberty of every nation.
Here in Maine we see how those challenges can be met by Republican leadership at the state level. Under Governor McKernan, Republicans have led the fight for employment rather than entitlements, for business rather than bureaucracy. We have sought to put young people in school and drug pushers in jail. We have attempted to reduce the burden of unfunded mandates and unrestrained government spending, while preserving essential services for those truly in need. We salute Governor McKernan and the Republican legislators of Maine for their vision and continuing efforts to make Maine a better place to live, work, and raise our families.
We remain committed to the essential Republican philosophy of government: that government should act only when individuals cannot. When government must act, it should do so at the level closest to the people whose needs it addresses. We want policies that promote individual initiative, strong families, and equal opportunity, and believe that Republican leadership is the best means of achieving these goals.
We are proud of ’s diversity, and welcome men and women with new ideas and varying points of view to the Republican party. We seek, not a wooden conformity, nor a patch-work of competing special interests, but a healthy, growing consensus that results from open, informed discussion and reasonable agreement. Where such consensus proves impossible we allow each individual to follow the dictates of his or her own conscience.
In this spirit, we offer the following platform to the citizens of Maine .
JOBS
Just as a strong economy is dependent upon a profitable and diversified business community, so are jobs.
As Republicans, we recognize the need for jobs, but more than that, we recognize the need to maintain and generate jobs which will pay a wage sufficient for a worker to support his or her family in a dignified and adequate manner.
As Republicans, we promote the free enterprise system and recognize that only private sector jobs will provide the revenue to get our State back on a sound financial basis.
We support the following positive actions:
* Make our Legislature and State bureaucracy more “jobs friendly”, and reverse the anti-business climate.
* Encourage new job providers to settle in Maine and develop incentive programs to retain the businesses we have.
* Target retraining for those who have lost their jobs so they can regain the dignity and self-esteem of having a meaningful job or owning their own small business.
* Make educational opportunities available, so Maine workers can meet the needs of new technology, and compete in the changing global economy.
* Support equal work opportunities for all of Maine ’s citizens.
To address the critical issue of worker’s compensation we must scrap the present statutes and re-write them so that our injured workers receive more than the current forty cents of every dollar paid for worker’s compensation claims.
We support a private enterprise system and must remove the stigma our state carries for having one of the most expensive compensation systems in the nation.
To achieve this state statutes must:
* Make the injured worker the principal beneficiary of compensation for work related injuries, rather than the administrative, legal and medical providers who presently reap sixty cents of every’ claim dollar paid.
* Assist the injured worker back into the workplace.
* Accelerate claims settlements.
* Eliminate non-work related claims.
* Continue workplace safety training.
HEALTH CARE
The Maine Republican Party supports quality, affordable health care that is accessible. We believe in preserving what is best about the existing system but support significant changes necessary’ to improve the system.
It is easy to agree that health care reforms are long overdue. Maine Republicans recognize that there are at least seven actors on the stage of health care. For significant reforms to occur, Maine must see meaningful compromise from physicians, hospitals, consumers, attorneys, government, insurance companies, and business/unions. We are ready to create the atmosphere for that compromise to begin!
Faced with the fact that there are 130,000 people in Maine who have no health insurance, We support the following:
Accessibility and affordability for both individuals and small business:
-Tax incentives and tax credit reforms relative to purchase of health insurance.
-uniform low-cost minimum maintenance benefit package (no frills)
-State-run risk pools for medically uninsured
* Health care services must be made more available for rural Maine :
-Scholarship/loan repayment opportunities
-special tax credits
* Reduce the cost of health care
-Eliminate mandated health services
-Standardize/simplify insurance forms
-Consider disease prevention and health promotion expenditures as medical expenses for tax treatment.
-Eliminate needless governmental regulating such as the Maine Healthcare Finance Commission
-Eliminate healthcare fraud
* Provide for medical liabilities by:
-pre-litigation screening panels
-creation of “agreed standards on appropriate care”
* Increase access to cover long-term care:
– Reclass long-term care insurance as health insurance for tax purposes
– Include long-term coverage in cafeteria benefit plans
– Allow rollover funding in IRAs to long-term care insurance without penalty
– Support use of life insurance benefits during final stages of terminal illness/long term care without harsh tax consequences
* The Maine Republican Party believes that a peaceful political revolution to replace the welfare state is vitally necessary to Americans’ prosperity and safety.
* The Maine Republican Party requests that our elected officials at all levels of government replace the welfare state with a quality, high-tech, free market opportunity society.
* Invest in promoting health and preventing disease to improve
Maine’s health future:
-controlling communicable disease
-encouraging healthful lifestyles
-reducing hazards in the environment
-ensuring access to preventative and personal health services
-providing leadership, structure, and resources to ’s public health system
MAINE PEOPLE AND THEIR FAMILIES
The Republican Party of Maine has always supported traditional family values. To re enforce these values we must:
* Protect Maine citizens from want and abuse.
* Support programs which encourage working families by:
– Providing affordable child care through a partnership of government and business.
-Maintaining safety nets which offer a temporary helping hand rather than a way of life.
Encouraging private construction of affordable housing for all our citizens.
* Support our law enforcement agencies in maintaining and improving the public’s safety in our cities and towns. The people of Maine deserve and demand a government that will maintain a policy of zero tolerance for drug dealers, drug profiteers and habitual offenders, who have shown no respect for the rule of law nor remorse for the damage that illicit drugs have caused to families and society in general.
* It will be the firm policy of this Republican Party to support education and rehabilitation where possible but to affirm that punishment and incarceration will not be spared in the effort to rid this state of this type of human pollution. It is the policy of this party that the harshest measures will be reserved for those whose primary aim is to gamer profit from the sale and distribution of illicit substances.
* Support the concept of “family” and work to protect that concept from intervention by too much governmental regulation.
EDUCATION
The Maine Republican Party believes in education as vital to our society. For personal growth and enrichment, for active participation in our political and cultural life, and for economic prosperity, quality education is essential. Education is our best hope to gain and maintain a competitive economic position in this country and in the world, providing secure jobs for our children, new industries for future growth, and an economic base that will let us meet growing obligations.
We believe:
* The state should set uniform minimum standards in education, and provide the most equitable financing possible at both the state and local levels.
* Funding for the Maine Educational Assessments Test should be restored and the program itself should be maintained and extended.
* That local and parental control of education, through operational responsibility, curriculum choice, and community involvement, is the best means of meeting our educational standards.
* That Maine ’s vocational and technical training efforts should be enhanced by greater emphasis on technological requirements, increased availability of such training and greater recognition of its importance at the High School level.
* That Maine will benefit by the extension of our university and technical college programs, and that opportunities for life-long learning through adult education and post-secondary college programs should he encouraged.
* That new ideas and directions in education, such as the America 2000 program and Maine ’s Common Core of Learning, must be encouraged.
ENVIRONMENT
The Maine Republican Party recognizes that our environment is an integral part of who we are as a people. Our seacoast, mountains, rivers, forests and tranquil cities and towns are our greatest assets in this competitive world. It is our goal to maintain, and where necessary improve, ’s environmental well being and quality of life for future generations.
We believe that we can and must simultaneously weigh the needs of environmental protection and economic prosperity. We cannot afford a singular focus. The health of our economy and wellbeing of our environment are interdependent.
We support:
* Balancing the economic impact on municipalities, individual or industries with the environmental risk when developing and enforcing regulations.
* Industry’s efforts to find innovations which minimize their impact on air and water quality. We support activities that sustain renewable resources to assure the long term health of the industry and economy of the State.
* Continuing the revamping of the permitting process to make it fair, timely, and understandable.
* The regulatory agencies must be easily accessible, providing assistance when needed to solve environmental problems.
* Continuing to find environmentally acceptable methods, such as waste reduction and recycling, to solve the burgeoning and costly waste disposal problem.
TAXATION
The Maine Republican Party proposes a down-sized State Government and a legislature committed to serving . Legislators must ask themselves two questions, one “will this help save or create jobs?” and two “can we afford it?”. The recent three hundred million dollar tax increases are draining the life-blood from our economy. Maine Republicans are committed to reversing tax increases that have placed Maine among the highest taxed in the nation. We must have the courage and foresight to dedicate the effort needed for a less demanding tax policy that recognizes fairness, common sense, and well being.
Maine needs a “State Economic Recovery Act” to help regain confidence in State government; stability and fairness in state revenue policy to encourage job creation; and a business incentive package to jump-start the economy.
Maine Republicans recommend as components of this “State Economic Recovery Act”:
* A capital gains tax cut at the state and federal levels to re-create the 52,000 Maine jobs lost in the past two years and to protect the investments of Maine working people.
* Training investment credits to promote re-training for the changing work force, supplying new jobs that offer opportunity, self esteem, and hope.
* Property tax relief which is equitable and based on the ability of tax payers to pay while maintaining our commitment to education through a restructuring of state education funding.
* Reduction of the sales tax and income tax to encourage competition and confidence.
* Removal of the luxury tax that has nearly crippled Maine’s boat building industry.
ECONOMY
The people of Maine deserve a government that will do everything in its power to protect and improve their standard of living. Republicans understand that private enterprise, not the government, is the key to our economic success. Republicans want action to protect jobs, and help families prosper.
Maine Republicans support President Bush’s proposed cuts in defense spending and feel strongly that deeper cuts would not only jeopardize the nation’s defense, but also the jobs and livelihoods of Maine workers. We must continue to support those military industries and bases which remain after cuts, and help convert to peaceful production those facilities which are no longer essential to the nation’s defense.
* We will work to gain tax relief for working people that will make available more spendable income for living expenses, family education, savings, investment, and retirement.
* Maine jobs are threatened by a worker’s compensation system that is out of control. That system must be changed.
* We believe unnecessary rules and regulations must be eliminated and a fair balance struck between the economic impact of regulations and their benefit to society and the environment.
* We support an improved transportation infrastructure including railroads, cargo ports, airports, highways, and bridges.
* We support rebuilding and expanding our commercial and industrial base in Maine , while maintaining our support for traditional such as agriculture, wood products, and fishing.
GOVERNMENT
In keeping with the principle that government should act only when individuals cannot, we believe that government has a role in helping people who are in absolute need and that help should be of the manner which improves one’s conditions and promotes self-sufficiency, not dependency.
We support legislation which accomplishes the following changes in the Legislative and Executive branches of government:
LEGISLATIVE:
* Reverse the current trend to establish a professional legislature by strengthening the traditional role of a citizens legislature.
* Limiting the terms of legislative leadership to restore the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches of government.
* The Republican Party endorses having the Legislature allow the citizens of the State of Maine to vote on whether the State House of Representatives should be reduced from 151 to 99 Representatives and the State Senate reduced from 35 to 33 Senators.
* Reduce legislative budget by:
-Reducing the legislative staff
-Shortening legislative calendar
-Limiting study commissions
* Economic impact study part of all legislative considerations
* No unfunded state mandates
* State treasurer to be an administrative appointment
* Secretary of state and attorney general to be elected through popular vote
* Gubernatorial line item veto
EXECUTIVE:
* Reduce the overall cost of state bureaucracy:
-privatize state services where competition exists and encourage competition where possible.
– all rules and regulations must show economic impact
-rules and regulations must not exceed authority of original legislation
Source: Copy of the printed platform at the Maine State Law Library.
ISSUE REVIEW AND PLATFORM COMMITTEE
Hon. Richard Armstrong, Chairman
Hon. Joan Pendexter, Vice Chair
Sharon Hilton, Secretary
Hon. Wendy Ault
Hon. Ronald Bailey
Jeffrey Bellwood
Daniel Billings
Rosemarie Cote Butler
John Clifton
Catherine Damren
Hon. James Donnelly
Diane Dninkwater
Hon. Judy Foss
Eric Howes
Hon. Sherman Hutchins
Hon. Duane Lander
Marc LeDuc
Hon. Jack McCormick
Priscilla Lindsley
Margaret McIntosh
Betsy Murphy
Hon. Eleanor Murphy
Hon. Oman Norton
Kevin Raye
Karen Srarn
Paul Volle