“You can’t just print the names of people who receive public benefits in a newspaper”, said Gattine.
Advertisement
Republican Mayor Robert Macdonald thinks the public has a right to know who’s on welfare. “We’re, like, a haven for all these people”, MacDonald said. “It’s none of your business how much of your money they get and spend”. MacDonald, according to The Washington Post, wants a website built that will publish the names and addressed of welfare recipients because he believes the citizens of Maine have a right to know how their tax money is being spent. “I’m not sorry. I hope this makes people think twice about applying for welfare”. He argued that residents receiving public assistance have been turned into a “victimized, protected class” and are more shielded than other recipients of state benefits, such as pensioners. “Just shut up and pay!”
As a mayor, Macdonald can’t introduce a state bill on his own, and the Bangor Daily News reported that he did not have a sponsor as of Friday and that the governor does not have any plans to introduce legislation on it.
He told the Sun Journal the idea wasn’t to publicly embarrass welfare recipients, but to make the information available to the public to fight welfare fraud and abuse. On Thursday, Macdonald said a bill will be submitted in the future, and it will ask that a website be created that contains the name of every single person that is collecting government assistance.
A former police officer, Macdonald had no political experience when he won the mayor’s seat in 2011. His challenger is Democrat Ben Chin, a former Maine People’s Alliance organizer.
“Mayor MacDonald is wasting everyone’s time”. Since being elected in 2011, he has gained national attention for a number of issues, including a call in 2012 for the city’s Somali population to “accept our culture and leave your culture at the door”. Lewiston at the time was experiencing an influx of immigrants from Somalia who were resettling in the city from Portland and other locations.
Advertisement
Macdonald ended his weekly column by promising to “talk about our progressive liberal friends’ war on the elderly” in next week’s edition. Burpee said she used to be one of them.
