Opening remarks by LePage: He got a standing ovation when he was introduced.

He emphasized the need for deregulation, to get government out of the way of business, and the need for more technical training. Session 1 with LePage: Someone (last name and Co. name is Pingree) talked about the need to expand rail. Woman from Bangor Hydro talked about how all conservation efforts in the past have been aimed at electricity rather than fossil fuels. She said home heating with electricity is now reasonably affordable. Most electricity is generated from fossil fuel coal. Mining and burning coal is environmentally unfriendly and unsafe. The electricity that is not generated from coal comes from foreign souces like hydro from Canada. A man stated that we could solve many problems by forcing people who lose lawsuits to pay all of the costs of that lawsuit. That would mean that only rich people would be suing each other. A man who owns a lodge and other tourist type businesses complained about the ineptness of local planning and zoning boards. The only requirement to be on one is that you are breathing. He also complained of the expense of getting a yearly lodging certificate, $150 a year, and that he has been told it would rise next year. LePage told him that he has imposed a freeze on any such increases. Planning and zoning boards are only enforcing codes that elected officials have created. I told him that I was very concerned about the high cost of healthcare and that LD 1333 would only make things worse. Vermont has single payer, Montana, Hawaii, and California are moving toward it. We are going to be competing with those states for business and if we could take the cost of health insurance for employees out of the equation we would be more competitive. He responded that 1333 was going to initially increase costs but once it was completely rolled out costs would actually be less. It would have been a stronger bill if it hadnt had to comply with Affordable Care Act (ACA) including the fact that 85% of premiums must be spent on healthcare but that Maine has a waiver for that. He assured me that we would not be competing with Vermont. He did not tell me how he knows this. I told him that if the states who have single payer have a waiver from AFA. He told me that getting a waiver was almost impossible because a state would have to have even more requirements that AFA. That is a bad thing?

A man talked about the need for infrastructure improvements, roads and bridges. The governor told him that he didnt think that the answer was to increase gas taxes but to get people off welfare. If we could reduce the number of people on welfare it would free up enough money in the general fund to improve roads and that we would be moving towards privatization for road and bridge improvements. LePage told us all that he needs help from the 3rd floor, especially from the chairmens of the committees so we should all call our legislators and the chairmens of the committees. He said he gets more grief from Republicans than Democrats. He said he had gotten burned from them the day before and he was still stinging from it. Does anyone know what he was referring to there?

2nd session with Deb Neuman: This was the session where a man asked if the state would do something about land use regulation inconsistencies between towns. He used an example of two towns (one is China, cant remember the other) who share a dam and each town wants to do something different with it. I was dismissive of this because I couldnt imagine what the governors office could do about town regulations, especially a governor who is so disdainful of what the federal government imposes on him. I was shocked that by the time I got home there was already something in the Bangor Daily News about it. 3rd session with commissioners: I tried to have a conversation with the Education Commissioner but got frustrated quickly so I spent most of this session talking to the more reasonable Eric Cioppa from the insurance bureau. He talked about how Workers Comp law has been changed and that has drastically reduced costs. I dont know much about this or what it is about the law that helped. He mentioned several times that not much can be done because the health insurance companies are spending 80% on health care costs. I told him that I do not trust that but regardless single payer systems are spending much closer to 90%. I had a hard time understanding why he kept coming back to the fact that they are spending 80% on healthcare. Maine got a waiver from AFA for this. As long as insurance companies are complying with the 80% they are going to be unhindered in their ability to raise rates. Closing remarks by LePage: He said he had heard over and over complaints about unemployment compensation. I never heard anything about it in any of the sessions I was in. He talked about how we are paying the unemployed too much to stay home, that people had jobs but no one to fill them. I never heard that in any of the sessions I was in.