Dear Editor:

In one of the poorest states in the Union (think Mississippi), our governor has taken to the sympathetic pages of the Wall Street Journal to write an op-ed which reads more like a resume than its ostensible intent, bashing Maine's senators.

Because of their recent votes, maintaining Obamacare and its sister legislation, Medicaid, votes specifically designed to keep caring for Maine's people who, Lord knows, qualify for benefits through age and/or meagerly income, Mr. LePage accuses Ms. Collins and Mr. King of economic villainy; they have bankrupted the country having already bankrupted the state.

Where there is villainy, heroism is needed, and Mr. LePage offers himself in this role. While Maine's senators were "preening before TV cameras" single-handedly he spent two years paying down $750 million in debt, allegedly incurred by wastrel Democratic administrations.

Proudly, he avers, he slashed eligibility standards, under guise of reform, failing to mention these actions indiscriminately led unfairly to the dis-enrollment of deserving recipients.

When it came to Medicaid benefits individual states, upon passage of ACA, were provided the option, of greatly expanded services at no cost to their state treasuries. Mr. LePage crassly elected politics and shunned these freebies at the expense of people he had sworn to protect. Hypocritically, his failure to accept these benefits now, in his own words, will cost the state almost $500 million should expansion, once freely offered, occur.

A secret poorly kept is our outgoing governor's fervent wish to be bedfellows with the Trump administration, which many feel is a plague of locusts, an agglomeration of churls and boors driven by a desire to burden the poor and weak with the unwavering demands of the wealthy. If this be the case, would our governor wish to be a party and drink from such an evil, pernicious brew?

Paul E. McArdle

Boothbay