The LePage Legacy: Triumph and tumult

Of course, LePage’s many critics opposed a number of his financial or tax policies and suggest they had long-standing, negative impacts on the state.

“We certainly feel there was a missed opportunity in the way that the state budgets have been handled by this administration,” said Sarah Austin, a policy analyst with the left-leaning Maine Center for Economic Policy.

Austin criticized LePage for prioritizing tax cuts that disproportionately benefited the wealthiest Mainers. An analysis by the policy center estimates that LePage’s tax cuts will result in nearly $900 million less revenue flowing into state coffers over the next two fiscal years when compared to projections based on the tax code at the time he took office.

“That just gets us into a situation where we are asking less and less of the people who actually have the capacity to pay for things such as education and health care,” Austin said.

Click here to read the full story, published December 30, 2018, in the Portland Press Herald.