Distraction or delivery? What Mainers expect from Augusta | Column

As lawmakers return to Augusta, Mainers are asking practical, urgent questions at their kitchen tables: How do we afford housing? Can we find child care we trust and can afford? How much more expensive will groceries, electricity, health care and heating oil get this year? These questions shape whether young families can stay in Maine, whether older Mainers can age with dignity, and whether our communities remain strong and connected. Too often, the political conversation drifts away from these realities and toward clickbait, outrage and national talking points that do little to improve people’s lives. In the Legislature this session, we face a choice. We can engage in politics of distraction — or we can focus on delivering real, measurable progress for Maine people. You can’t eat a soundbite. Distraction politics thrives on headlines. It centers on issues that provoke fear, anger or division, but rarely results in tangible policy solutions that lower costs or strengthen communities. We’ve seen this pattern play out repeatedly. While Americans recently received the worst kind of sticker shock with skyrocketing health care premiums, our federal administration has not acted to create any relief. Instead, they are focusing on petty attempts to divide Americans rather than work on solutions. Instead of fixing our economy, we see repeated attempts to vilify others via tweet or direct political attack. We see this same fear-driven approach in rhetoric around ICE and immigrati... --- *Note: This is a summarized excerpt. Click the source link above to read the full story.*