Maine's Republican Governor Calls Social Security & Medicare "Welfare Plain & Simple"

Gov. Paul LePage has long cast a wide net for programs that he says fit the definition of welfare. On Wednesday, in a media release written as an alternative take on new personal-income data from the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis, he lumped Social Security and Medicare into that definition. […]

How far out of the mainstream is Maine Republican Gov. Paul LePage? This far:

"It doesn't matter what liberals call these payments, it is welfare, pure and simple," LePage said in the statement. "Liberals from the White House all the way down to Democratic leadership in Augusta believe that redistribution of wealth—taking money from hard-working taxpayers and giving it to a growing number of welfare recipients—is personal income. It's not. It's just more welfare expansion. Democrats can obfuscate the numbers any way they want. The fact is that we have created thousands of jobs, more Mainers are working, and their income is going up."

That, challenger Rep. Mike Michaud rightly calls "an insult to Maine seniors."

"These two programs have helped to provide a secure retirement to thousands upon thousands of hard-working men and women who have earned them one paycheck at a time," Michaud said in a prepared statement. "They deserve much better than to have their monthly Social Security checks called 'welfare handouts.' The governor should be embarrassed that he ever suggested such a thing."