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LePage argues that the policies are a major cause of the relatively high cost per kW of electricity in Maine—34% above the national average. On November 18, 2013, LePage pledged $10,000 from his official contingency account to a program run by Portland-based LearningWorks for helping new immigrants learn the English language. LePage met with Somali immigrants in Lewiston to make the announcement, and discussed other difficulties immigrants had in obtaining education and employment, which LePage related to given his life with French as his first language. ; born October 9, 1948) is an American politician who served as the 74th Governor of Maine from 2011 to 2019.
His campaign described it as an inadvertent error that would be corrected, but she was eventually cleared by officials therebecause her ailing mother lived in the home, meaning the property qualified for the tax break. Making a comeback attempt now against his successor, Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, Mr. LePage is focusing heavily in his campaign on a push to phase out Maine’s income tax. He argues that the change is needed to keep wealthy residents from moving to Florida for just long enough each year to take advantage of the Sunshine State’s tax breaks. Gattine responded by calling LePage's message "upsetting, inappropriate and uncalled for." LePage produced a binder of drug arrestees and went through some of the mugshots with the press.
Biden and House GOP to Start 2023 With Scant Ties
But this is not the first time the LePages have faced scrutiny over such a tax matter — in 2010, Florida officials fined Mrs. LePage $1,400 before rescinding the penalty — and Mr. LePage’s focus on taxes in the current campaign for governor could open him up to attacks from Democrats. As he runs for governor of Maine, Paul LePage has pushed to phase out the state’s income tax, saying the move is necessary to stop wealthy residents from moving to Florida. Arden Manning, campaign manager for the Maine Democratic Party, said Monday night that the letter from Florida does not entirely absolve the candidate. The issue became a lightning rod last month as LePage”s opponents accused the candidate of shady tax dealings, all the while campaigning on the need to lower taxes. Volusia County property appraiser Morgan Gilreath pointed out in his letter that Florida has an exception wherein anyone who receives a homestead exemption in another state also qualifies in Florida if the property is the permanent residence of a legal dependent. LePage, who filed for a new gubernatorial run Thursday as a resident of Edgecomb, is violating Florida law by neglecting to remove his name from the voter rolls in Flagler County.
Over the years, LePage said Maine’s taxes are too high, forcing snowbirds to declare their homes to be in Florida. Florida has no income tax, and property taxes are lower, the former governor said. He told a radio show host that he was moving if Democrat Janet Mills was elected governor. She took office on Jan. 2, 2019, the same day that an election official said LePage registered to vote in Flagler County. On July 8, 2012, LePage said, while discussing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, that the Internal Revenue Service was "the new Gestapo" due to their role in enforcing the law.
Former Gov. Paul LePage really did move to Florida
Since the issue came to light, the LePages have repaid Waterville $227.93 in back taxes and requested removal from the homestead program in the city. There is no penalty attached to violating the Florida statute requiring a voter who moves to notify the registrar in his county. LePage registered as a Republican on Jan. 2, 2019, in Ormond Beach and has apparently never taken steps to indicate to officials in Florida that he’s moved back to the Pine Tree State he governed for eight years after winning office in 2010. It was Gattine’s criticism of LePage’s race-related comments about the opioid epidemic that culminated in the governor’s threat of a duel. But for Gattine and other Mainers, LePage’s behavior was somewhat typical by that point. Over his eight years in office, LePage cultivated a reputation for offensive comments and for adversarial relationships with reporters, Democrats and even fellow Republicans.
That misstep was reported in 2010, during Mr. LePage’s first campaign for governor. Florida tax officials originally fined Mrs. LePage $1,400 for misleading them about her residency status in the state, but they withdrew the penalty shortly after, citing an explanation from Mrs. LePage that her mother, Rita DeRosby, was living in the house. A seldom-used provision in the Florida tax code allows homeowners to claim a homestead exemption if a dependent is residing on the property.
Government reform
Depicted in an old real estate listing is the house at 40 Gale St. in Ormond Beach, Florida, that Paul and Ann LePage purchased in 2018. LePage insisted that he never said that Mr. Trump had not won the 2020 election. Rob Caldwell on Channel 6 asked him that several times during an interview that aired on the 207 show. The snowbird who lives in Florida in the winter has registered to vote in the Sunshine State, the Sun Journal reports. But he also clashed with the media on the issue after he initially refused to answer questions about his wife’s residency status, why his name was not on either deed, and whether he paid in-state tuition rates for his children attending Florida colleges. As of midday Thursday, a year after registering in Maine, LePage is still listed as a registered voter living at 40 Gale Lane in Ormond Beach, a home his wife Ann purchased in 2018 and still owns.
Florida law requires that “when an elector changes his or her residence address, the elector must notify the supervisor of elections” in their home county. In that July 9 post, he also mentioned that he had “registered to vote last week” in Maine after returning from a year-and-a-half sojourn in Florida. LePage’s adversarial history could be contributing to his poor performance in recent polls, some of which show Mills with a double-digit lead in the race.
On March 21, 2013, LePage summoned a dozen state employees of the Bureau of Unemployment to the Blaine House for a luncheon to discuss the state's unemployment compensation hearing and appeals process. Although LePage described the meeting as "cordial", the workers described it as pressuring and used to intimidate them to give more rulings on unemployment claim appeals in favor of businesses, as well as to state that they were doing their jobs poorly. LePage called the accusation "outrageous" and said that David Webbert, the president of the Maine Employment Lawyers Association who made the allegation, was making it up.
His father drank heavily and terrorized the children, and his mother was too intimidated to stop him. At age eleven, after his father beat him and broke his nose, he ran away from home and lived on the streets of Lewiston, where he at times stayed in horse stables and at a "strip joint". After spending roughly two years homeless, he began to earn a living shining shoes, washing dishes at a café, and hauling boxes for a truck driver.
The restaurant owner stated hiring LePage was not a publicity stunt, citing the difficulty of hiring new workers. LePage and Ann DeRosby have had conflicts with Florida tax authorities since they have claimed full-time residence in the state while not fulfilling the requirement to live there for the required amount of time to do so. But Mr. LePage and his wife, Ann LePage, who have owned property in Florida for over a decade, have themselves benefited from that state’s tax laws while living in the Maine governor’s mansion, and again as he campaigns to return to the job. From 2009 to 2015, and also from 2018 through the end of this year, the couple received property tax breaks reserved for permanent Florida residents, public records show.
LePage rejects the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change, which states that climate change is dangerous and primarily human-caused. According to Democratic state senator Brownie Carson, during LePage's time in office "he not only didn't care about the environment, he was actively hostile toward it". His final budget proposal in 2017 contained a tax overhaulthat would have melded income tax cuts and a broadening of the sales tax with limiting Maine’s homestead exemption to people over age 65, though the package was never seriously entertained in a divided Legislature. In 2010, Ann LePage was initially cited in Florida after claiming a homestead exemption on homes there and in Waterville.
After his re-election he expressed support for the general idea of increasing or broadening the sales tax to reduce or eliminate the income tax which he later proposed in his 2015–2016 budget. He has said he will "spend the rest of my days" fighting opponents of his tax proposals, especially in the legislative election year of 2016. Starting in 2015, LePage stated he was "very strongly" considering entering the 2018 U.S. Senate race against incumbent independent Senator Angus King, citing King's caucusing with Senate Democrats.
Despite his re-election, LePage was generally unpopular for most of his second term. In 2016, his approval ratings registered at 38%, making him one of ten state executives with higher disapproval (58%). LePage was consistently ranked as one of the most unpopular governors in the United States, and he left office with an approval split of 39–53%.
