Live Blog with Steve Abbott
Welcome to the live issues chat with Steve Abbott
Steve held his first Online Issues Chat today.
Great questions from everyone, thanks for participating!
I've known Steve Abbott for a number of years and have worked with him during that time on issues relating to Maine and the state's business climate. Anyone who knows Steve Abbott or has worked with him comes away with a positive impression. In the 12 years that he has worked with Senator Collins, he has gained invaluable experience and has developed many relationships at the federal level. He has a tremendous work ethic, superior intelligence, and integrity. Those qualities, coupled with his knowledge of Maine and his proven commitment to the state's people, will make him an excellent Governor.Peter Vigue,
Chairman, Cianbro Corporation
Chairman, Cianbro Corporation
Comments
Getting Maine's Economy Moving!
What do you think is the single most important step to make Maine's economy boom?
The number one concern I hear
The number one concern I hear from the business community is the lack of consistency from state government. It seems that every place they turn, the state government is putting up road blocks that get in their way. New leadership with strong support for improving our business climate is the most important place to start.
Dirigo Health
Dirigo Health is a miserable failure...what is your plan to deal with Dirigo Health.
Dirigo Health should be
Dirigo Health should be eliminated. It was a well-motivated, but has not worked. We need to take a different approach to making health insurance affordable for Mainers. The first things that we should do are make it easier for small businesses to pool for the purchase of insurance and allow people and businesses to purchase insurance across state lines.
Welcome to my live blog.
Welcome to my live blog. Thank you for joining us today. I am going to be taking questions and answering as many as I can. This is the first one of these that we have done on the Abbott for Governor campaign, so if you have feedback or ideas about how to make it better, please let us know.
I am typing these answers myself. I will go as fast as I can, but please be patient. There undoubtedly will be typos, misspellings and other mistakes.
We may have some technical glitches too, but we will try to get through those.
You can post your questions anonymously or you can use your name. But we do ask that members of the media (old or new) identify themselves and their affiliation.
Your page will refresh about every minute or so – that will keep you current with the discussion, but will mean that you will need to scroll down to the bottom to see the current questions.
Don’t worry when your questions don’t appear immediately. They go into a cue – new questioners get priority, but you can submit follow ups if you want.
Here we go
What is your position on
What is your position on increasing so-called "sin taxes" (sales taxes on alcohol or cigarettes) as a source of state revenue?
We shouldn't be increasing
We shouldn't be increasing taxes. We should be trying to increase the number of taxpayers.
Upcoming season
Steve,
How do you think the Redsox will fair in this coming 2010 season?
Hope springs eternal. It was
Hope springs eternal. It was great seeing the pitchers on NESN this morning. Lester looks like he is in great shape.
K-12 Education
David Flanagan's column on the problems confronting K-12 education this morning raised some interesting possibilities for reducing education costs without hurting quality. If you read the column, please comment.
Health Insurance
Health Insurance has become unnecessarily expensive in Maine due to the Bureau of Insurances over reaching regulations.
Since the Bureau of Insurance seems to have its own agenda and not the interests of self-employed of small businesses, I would like the opportunity to purchase Health insurance out of State. As Governor, would you make more affordable health insurance a priority.
For example; My family of five currently pays $1290/month for a 3200 deductible with a Zero deductible accident policy. That same policy in Missouri would cost me $436.00 per month. Even less in other States.
Thank You
It needs to be a priority.
It needs to be a priority. Our mandates are one of the reasons that our health care costs are so high. My answer above on Dirigo addresses some of the steps I would take for small businesses.
2nd Amendment
I am a hunter and the 2nd Amendment is a very important issue to me. What is your view of the 2nd Amendment?
Hunting
It's been stated in a National Hunting publication that Maine's Bucks only program is not working. Would you as Governor have IFW look at what other states are and have done to improve the quantity and quality of their deer herds?
I would look at what other
I would look at what other states are doing. I would also support a predator control program, including coyote snaring near our northern deer herds. The shrinking deer herd is bad for our economy.
I am a hunter and a gun owner
I am a hunter and a gun owner as well. I strongly support the 2nd Amendment.
Campaign Finance
Are you running as a traditionally funded candidate? What are your views on the State of Maine's so-called Clean Elections law?
I am running as a
I am running as a traditionally funded candidate. Especially with the difficult budget situation that we are facing, it is wrong for our gubernatorial candidates to be taking hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to run a campaign. Shameless plug -- I am accepting donations which you can make online at www.abbottforgovernor.com
What are you thoughts on
What are you thoughts on David Flanagan's, Maine Voices piece in today's Press Herald? He speaks to the challenges facing K-12 and some possible policy solutions.
Jean and Mert -- I just
Jean and Mert -- I just skimmed David’s piece this morning, but have talked to him about his ideas in the past. I think he is generally on the right track. I would have preferred that the consolidation effort follow an incentive-based model like we used with the SAD system in the 1960s. But we still need to work to find efficiencies in K-12. If I recall correctly, David mentioned his support for a state-wide pre-K program. I do not support that effort and think it is too expensive.
Nuclear power
What is your position on Nuclear Power coming back to Maine?
I support nuclear power -- it
I support nuclear power -- it is being used successfully, and safely, around the world.
Thank you everybody for
Thank you everybody for participating today. We will do this again soon.
Steve