By Reps. Rich Cebra and Scott Lansley

During the election season last fall, campaigning door to door, we often heard stories about the exploitation of Maine’s generous welfare system. The general attitude was that people were coming to Maine solely for the benefits, especially Medicaid.

When you have a system such as ours, where no residency requirement exists to qualify for Medicaid and other welfare programs, you invite abuse. Unscrupulous or desperate people will flow in to take advantage of programs intended for the poor and needy permanent residents of our state.

Unfortunately, Maine’s ultra-generous benefit programs have turned us into a “welfare magnet” for people who have exhausted their welfare eligibility in other states. We now can see the fallout from our lenient welfare culture. We have the nation’s highest percentage of population on Medicaid – 21 percent of the under-65 age group, or 260,000 people. (Medicare kicks in at 65.) This runaway program – totally free medical and dental care, including braces – has become a backbreaking expense, costing us more than $1.2 billion every two years, with the federal government providing a $2.4-billion “match.”

Considering the staggering tax burden already impacting Maine residents, our constituents expressed anger at outsiders streaming in to get on the taxpayer-funded “gravy train.” Several of them sent us reports of people abusing our system. Here are a few examples:

“While having a cast placed on my arm at an orthopedic center in Portland last fall, the doctor told me he was from Tennessee. He further told me that his mother, back in Tennessee, had read a newspaper article that said Tennessee was busing indigents to Portland, Maine, where they could take advantage of better welfare programs.”

Here’s another one: “While volunteering at the soup kitchen, I was speaking with a patron. He told me he was from Ohio and he came to Maine earlier that week because he was told that we have many good programs and anybody could use them.”

In Atlanta, a nonprofit group actually advertised on radio that Maine was the place to go if you had exhausted your Georgia welfare benefits. Before long, busloads of people began arriving in Lewiston, where other nonprofit workers swiftly signed them up for Medicaid, cash benefits, food stamps, subsidized housing and myriad other forms of public assistance.

Or try this one: “Kate went to Pennsylvania a couple of weeks ago to visit with her goddaughter, who just had a baby. The night she arrived, the Philadelphia 6 p.m. news had a piece about the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania busing indigents to Maine.”

Finally, our current governor signed an executive order that has turned Maine into a “sanctuary state” for illegal aliens. People can enter the country illegally from all over the world, make their way to Maine, and immediately sign up for the full slate of welfare freebies. State workers are prohibited from even inquiring about their immigration status.

No one begrudges extending a helping hand to someone who is truly needy. That’s why welfare programs were established, to ensure that our fellow citizens do not end up destitute and on the street. We are better than that. But when the safety net becomes a hammock, the situation demands reform.

Maine taxpayers should not be expected to endlessly pay for people who come here not to work or contribute to our state, but merely to collect welfare. Every welfare dollar we give to a new arrival is one less dollar we have available to assist longtime Mainers losing their jobs in mills and manufacturing plants.

It is time that we start instituting some common sense limits to “demagnetize” Maine as a welfare haven. We are both sponsoring a bill before the Legislature, LD 957, to help us restore a modicum of control over these programs. This legislation would enact a five-point reform plan that would begin by setting a 90-day residency requirement for all recipients of Maine public assistance.

For the sake of consistency, we would apply the same residency criteria that the state requires of someone applying for a fishing license. To be considered for an in-state license, the applicant must be a U.S. citizen who has been domiciled here continuously for three months before applying. Furthermore, if the applicant is registered to vote, the registration must be in Maine. If the applicant has a car, it must be registered in Maine and subject to the excise tax.

These are fair requirements which, if met, would signify that the applicant is serious about living in Maine permanently. The point here is not to deny benefits to someone going through tough times temporarily. The goal is to ensure that benefits go only to those who truly need them and not to those just scamming the system.

The second point of LD 957 would offer tax credits to employers who hire welfare recipients – 75 percent of the salary in the first year, 50 percent in the second year and 25 percent in the third. The bill also would eliminate the rule under which anyone working more than 20 hours a week is cut off from welfare. Provisions of the bill would ensure that no recipient would lose money by taking a job. In fact, it would make it economically beneficial to do so.

The bill’s final point would bring Maine law into conformity with the Federal Welfare Reform Act of 1996, one of President Clinton’s landmark achievements. LD 957 would place a 60-month lifetime limit on welfare eligibility, the same as the federal limit.

Five years of welfare is much more generous than most states, where recipients hit the limit after two years. The important thing is that we begin to end this culture of dependency we have in Maine and get people back on their feet and working and doing well.

As for people from away who look upon Maine as a welfare refuge, perhaps we should tell them to try a new approach – like, say, getting a job.

State Rep. Rich Cebra (R-Naples) serves on the Legislature’s Transportation Committee. Rep. Scott Lansley (R-Sabattus) serves on the Taxation Committee.