When we talk about what happens in Augusta it’s easy to get lost in the details, and hard to see how it’ll matter to Mainers, day to day.
But the MEJ policy team just spent weeks camped out at the state house and we promise: what happens in the state budget absolutely does impact your life, and we’re going to explain how.
We also want to explain how federal budget decisions (vs. our state ones) are showing up in Maine’s communities. While DC makes it harder for regular people to get by, Maine is making a different choice–by passing a Millionaire’s Tax and funding many of the programs that keep people safe, healthy, and thriving, legislators really stepped up and made some bold changes.
Here are some changes we saw in this year’s budget (for even more detail, read up with Maine Center for Economic Policy). If you’re interested in how the budget process worked, you can read more from Maine Public.
Affordability: what difference will this year’s budget make?
Federal vs. state budget: cuts and chaos vs. dirigo diligence
The federal budget passed by Congressional Republicans and the Trump Administration last July massively cut food (SNAP) and health care (Medicaid, or MaineCare here in Maine) in order to give tax cuts for the wealthy. In Maine, about 10,000 fewer households have food assistance now than before the budget went into effect; 30,000 Mainers may lose MaineCare next year when program cuts go into effect.
Now, Republican leaders in Congress want to make even more cuts in the safety net through the "reconciliation" budget process to pay for a bigger military budget. These are policies MEJ will continue to keep an eye on over the next few months. In the meantime, legislators and Gov. Mills took some steps to limit the damage by federal cuts in this year’s state budget.
Maine is investing in more staff for our SNAP and MaineCare programs to make sure we don’t get penalized by the federal government and can manage significant changes to eligibility for these programs. We invested $53 million in the Medicaid Stabilization Fund to be available for future health care needs. Maine also invested $30 million in a new SNAP “Contingency Fund” so we can pay up to one month of benefits if the federal government fails to send SNAP funds to the states (like we saw last fall). While the budget investments responding to federal funding cuts don’t make headlines, they are making a real difference for Maine people.
We’re always incredibly grateful to all the people and partner organizations (too many to name!) who showed up in Augusta, or took action from home, to make this budget possible. If you have questions about the budget, you can email kkdr@mejp.org.
