Senate President Beth Edmonds said a tax or fee increase or some other revenue source should at least be considered to fill the state’s budget hole because further cuts in social services will harm Maine citizens – a posture the Senate minority leader says is a non-starter with Republicans.

“Maine has spent the last seven years trimming much of the state budget,” Edmonds said in her opening remarks on the first day of the legislative session Wednesday. “After seven years, we have cut all the fat. Now we are down to muscle and bone.”

“We have managed to hold the line on taxes,” she said. “This year we have to keep everything available and on the table.”

Edmonds referred to the “combination of cuts, increased efficiencies and temporary revenue increases,” used in the early 1990s to fill a budget hole when the sales tax was increased by 1 percent. “We have to think about where we are now,” she said.

Edmonds said after her speech that she is not advocating one tax or fee over another, but believes “revenue enhancements” need to be considered. “We can’t have a debate that leaves that off the table,” she said.

The budget hole the Legislature needs to fill is currently at $95 million, largely due to a drop in anticipated sales and income tax revenue and a failed plan by the Treasurer’s Office to collect unspent gift card balances from out-of-state retailers. That figure does not include any supplemental budget requests from departments that are facing shortages, including money to cover the rising cost of fuel. The cuts would be on a two-year budget of $6.3 billion.

Gov. John Baldacci, who has curtailed spending to fill the hole until the Legislature acts, says he will not raise taxes to make up the shortage – a position his finance commissioner reiterated on Wednesday.

Minority Leader Sen. Carol Weston, R-Waldo, said her fellow Republicans in the Senate have been firm that spending cuts not tax increases are the way to go.

“She’s going in the wrong direction,” Weston said of Edmonds. “On the first day she’s thrown down the gauntlet.”

“This is saying ‘we’re going to take more from your paycheck,'” Weston said. “People are struggling , and we’re going to take more?”

Weston said the state needs to look at what programs it’s offering that other states don’t and cut back.

“I just think we can’t pretend any longer. Ever since I’ve been here, it’s been the same kind of thing,” she said. “We’re not turning the ship around in any way.”

Edmonds said in her opening-day speech that in fact the Legislature has made the tough cuts, but there’s no more room to give.

“Just last year, we all sat here together and cut over $100 million in order to avoid a tax increase,” she said, and have been cutting every year since 2001.

“This year is unlike any since the early 1990s. House prices across America are falling. Foreclosure and bankruptcies are up and fuel and food prices are rising. State agencies, which were struggling to address unbudgeted increases in gas and heating costs, are being asked to find another $95 million in cuts, just as the need for government assistance is growing,” Edmonds said.

“If we cut too far, our communities will not be able to bounce back when the economy does improve. In the meantime, people will be suffering,” she said.