If you receive government assistance in the state of Maine, Lewiston Mayor Robert Macdonald thinks the public has a right to know about it.
In
a Thursday column for the Twin City Times, Macdonald said a bill will be submitted during Maine’s next legislative session“asking that a Web site be created containing the names, addresses, length of time on assistance and the benefits being collected by every individual on the dole.”
He added: “After all, the public has a right to know how its money is being spent.”
Proposals to target welfare recipients and reform assistance programs have become lightning rods for broader discussions on
how the poor are treatedand how taxpayer dollars are used.
Kansas lawmakers received both national criticism and praise this summer after approving a law limiting how people in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program can use their benefits. And
at least 13 states have some sort of drug testing laws for public public assistance applicants or recipients.
[Kansas bans welfare recipients from seeing movies, going swimming on government’s dime]
Macdonald, a local Republican mayor who is up for reelection in November, can’t submit a state bill himself, so he would need a state lawmaker to back the plan in the legislature.
In his column Thursday, he wrote that Maine has a Web site listing the pension amounts individuals receive — something “taxpayers have a right to know,” he said — and wondered why welfare recipients’ information isn’t also publicly posted.
“The answer: our liberal, progressive legislators and their social-service allies have made them a victimized, protected class,” Macdonald wrote. “It’s none of your business how much of your money they get and spend. Who are you to question it? Just shut up and pay!”
