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Rick Bennett on Budget & Economy

 

 


Budget grew 77% in 10 years: twice inflation rate

Q: On budget and spending: Our rates are 5.8% to 7.1% income tax. Would you lower those? Or cut?

CHARLES: We are talking about a state that is spendthrift and the reason is we have no accountability whatsoever in the state. We need oversight [which would] find literally billions of dollars.

PINGREE: What we are spending money on is health care, education, revenue sharing a lot of these things go out to the community.

BENNETT: The ugly truth is that we have not had any transparency, public hearing on the largest bill that the legislature deals with every year, and that is the current services portion of the state budget. It has been six years since we have had a public hearing, and it is all because of a partisan failure, it means the budget needs to be passed by March, and it's frankly not enough time to do the full amount of public hearings -- in fact, no public hearings on the state budget. That is the reason the state budget has grown 77% in 10 years, twice the rate of inflation.

Source: C-SPAN transcript on 2026 Maine Gubernatorial race , Oct 1, 2026

Other governors on Budget & Economy: Rick Bennett on other issues:
ME Gubernatorial:
Angus King
Ed Crockett
Hannah Pingree
Janet Mills
Paul LePage
Robert Charles
Shenna Bellows
Troy Jackson
ME Senatorial:
Angus King
David Costello
Demi Kouzounas
Graham Platner
Janet Mills
Susan Collins
Troy Jackson

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