This is a really good group with both true depth of knowledge and understanding of the state budget and a breadth of political perspectives.

Please keep making me wrong about you Governor-elect Lepage. I am more than willing to admit mistakes in judging you if you keep giving me such good reasons to do so!

(That first transition panel of only far right wing ideologues was not so great, so you still have ground to make up. )

The fact that this was kept hushed up until AFTER the election speaks volumes about the true heartfelt nature of this act.

... but that will still be lost on the haters and jealous folks who post nasty smears based on nothing from behind their anonymous little ID's.

I am pleasantly surprised at the depth and diversity of political thought for this team.

Kudos to Lepage for making it so!

Yeah - except my 93 year old aunt worked all of her life and rents an apartment with heat included. Similar apartments that do not include rent are over $100 per month less.

You are making the completely illogical statement that just because she pays for heat through a contract with her landlord she does not deserve any help.

Like I said, my aunt doesn't need or apply for this help because she has family looking out for her needs, but what of all the other elderly folks who do need help. Why are you declaring them to be freeloaders and moochers just because of the nature of their rental contracts?

If your rent is $100 a month higher because it includes heat, that costs just as much as paying $1200 per year to heat the place on your own.

Either way it costs $1200 out of pocket to provide heat. Why would you give extra money to people just because they have different clauses in their rental contracts but they pay the exact same costs?

Your position makes no sense to me. Renters pay for heat too. Their payments just get bundled in with other stuff. If their landlords weren't providing heat their rent would be that much lower. Correctly and legally requesting help to pay the extra rental cost that goes towards heat does NOT make someone a "moocher". That is nonsensical.

Awesome. At 75 the deputy chief is still having fun and serving the public, gotta love the guy!

Congratulations to the Belgrade Rescue crew for a well deserved award and recognition.

You're hoping Lepage will stop the federal government from giving help to the poorest Mainers? Why would you want that?

My very elderly aunt would qualify for this benefit except that family members have taken over all of her heat and utilities costs. Elderly folks like her would die in their homes without help of some kind and not all have relatives who can or will help.

So far I'm not impressed in the least with the new Republican majority in the House. They decided to give their top leadership role, Speaker of the House, to a man who himself admitted to scamming the state (and taxpayers) out of hundreds of thousands of dollars - and he actually had the audacity to run this little money making scheme while he was a 3 term sitting state legislator!

For a man who had voted on the very laws and rules he was breaking to systematically over-bill to the tune of somewhere between $600k and over $2 million is no better than a welfare recipient filing false information to scam the state - and Nutting took us for a whole lot more than any welfare cheat every dreamed of! Nutting claims it was all because of "mistakes". Riiiiight - except REAL mistakes would have resulted in about equal over and UNDER billing. How stupid does he think we are?

Yesterday's stories also indicated that this deadbeat has never even paid back the amount he agreed to repay even though it was a fraction of what he scammed!

He got a light little tap on the wrist (probably because he was a legislator - you or I would have gone to jail) and then thumbed his nose at the taxpayers by not paying the assessed amount - which was LESS than what he took us for.

And that is what the Republcians have selected to lead them.

We are in very deep trouble.

Wow! Did John Martin just get elected Speaker of the House?

Oh, no he didn't. If he had then, yes his sordid past would be pertinent just as Nutting's is.

Also Nutting STILL owes the bulk of the light tap on the wrist reparation he was ordered to pay. Nutting disrespects Maine taxpayers so much he hasn't even bothered to return the portion of what he stole from us that he was ordered to pay! ... and that is CURRENT information!

His utter lack of knowledge of the name of someone he is writing smears about displays pretty much the same level of knowledge he possesses about the rest of the subject of wind power.