Political candidates are sometimes unfairly attacked. They can be muddling along on the campaign trail, shaking hands and kissing babies, when suddenly a QAnon weirdo accuses them of colluding with Martians.
This isn’t such an occasion. In the examples cited below, two very different contenders for high public office in Maine decided, for reasons that may have something to do with having shelled mollusks for brains, to blunder out in public and beg to be breaded and deep fried for their lack of judgement. It would be impolite of me not to oblige.
The first chowderhead is Zak Ringelstein, the Democratic sacrificial clam in this year’s race for the U.S. Senate. Ringelstein has no money and no real support from his party, which will be happy enough to see independent incumbent Angus King re-elected. To counteract the Dem establishment’s indifference, Ringelstein has declared himself a socialist and embarked on an anti-corporate rampage.
On July 22, he tweeted: “Nestlé– a European corporation – bought Poland Spring in 1992 and makes billions without paying Maine communities almost anything. Ask the Fryeburg community where Nestlé draws 603,000 gallons a day. We must save our water supply and get Nestle out of our communities.”
In an accompanying video, he warns, “As global warming takes its toll, we’re going to wonder where our water went.” He then accuses King, who’s received campaign donations from Nestlé, of “doing the business of European investors.”
This sort of left-wing populism would make the average North Korean politburo member envious.
For the record, Poland Spring paid about $21 million in state and local taxes in 2017. According to the company, it spent $49 million on salaries and benefits for its 860 Maine workers and bought more than $390 million in goods and services from the state’s businesses. And it pays Fryeburg for its water, thereby reducing the amount other customers owe.
The company bottles 900 million gallons annually, far less than 1 percent of the 2.5 trillion to 5 trillion gallons of groundwater that trickle down annually from the skies over Maine. All other human uses amount to around 49 billion gallons (including nearly 10 million gallons for the state’s craft beer industry), which leaves us with a surplus of more than 2 trillion gallons in even the driest years. Contrary to what Ringelstein seems to imply, that water can’t be saved, since it runs off into the ocean where it evaporates and returns as fresh rainfall.
Like most multinational corporations, Nestlé does some evil stuff, but kicking Poland Spring out of Maine (possible only under a socialist administration) wouldn’t stop that. It would just cost the state its sixth largest employer. And why stop there? Corporate entities such as Hannaford, TD Bank and General Dynamics all seem like prime targets for Ringelstein’s rhetoric. By the time he’s finished, the only businesses left in the state will be a couple of organic farms and Shawn Moody’s auto repair shops.
Leftists have no monopoly on nonsense. Republican 2nd District Rep. Bruce Poliquin is as adept as Ringelstein at conveying the wrong impression.
In recent letters to constituents (sent at taxpayer expense), Poliquin announced he was “honored to be selected to receive the Guardian of Seniors’ Rights award for 2018. This selective award is given to Members of Congress who vote to protect Medicare and Social Security and who are outspoken advocates for programs that help our Senior Citizens.”
Poliquin has that Trump random capitalization thing down.
Nowhere in his letter (did I mention that he used public money to mail it?) does he reveal who gave him the award. Bangor Daily News columnist Amy Fried discovered this “honor” was bestowed on lots of GOP lawmakers by the 60 Plus Association, one of the conservative Koch Brothers’ network of dark-money advocacy groups.
The Kochs have long advocated privatizing Social Security and Medicare. As Fried noted, Poliquin has voted for a budget that would have converted Medicare to a voucher program, and during his 2014 run for Congress (back when he still dared to take positions on issues), he said he was open to at least partial privatization of Social Security.
Poliquin also sent (on the public’s dime) letters to select groups extolling his virtues in fighting sexual harassment, increasing tax breaks for child care, opposing a carbon tax, supporting a work requirement for food stamps and something vague about fighting opioid addiction.
You and I picked up the tab for what amounted to the congressman campaigning for re-election.
If there’s an award for deceptive shrimps, Poliquin and Ringelstein should be finalists.
Koch up some excuses for these crustaceans and email them to aldiamon@herniahill.net.
Al:
Where did you get your aquifer recharge rate data? If it’s just by rainfall, my guess is that you might be underestimating runoff. It would be constructive to know if these aquifers were indeed recharging or if Nestle is just slowly sucking them dry. If the former is the case, let’s see some impartial data. If the later is the case, the jobs Poland Spring provides are really just a long term drop in the bucket. Caring about this is less about “leftwing populism” and more about the future of Maine.
The numbers come from a Bangor Daily News article quoting state scientists. The actual amount of rainfall over Maine is much greater than the number I quoted. I just mentioned the rain that makes its way into the aquifers. There’s no evidence Poland Spring is draining our water supply, not even in the long term.
Cheers,
AD
Seamus, From the Maine Geological Survey:
Average annual rainfall: 42 inches. Equivalent to 73,500,000 acre-feet* or 24 trillion gallons.
Run-off: About 50% of precipitation, or about 12 trillion gallons, runs off the landscape in streams and rivers.
Evaporation/transpiration: About 30-40% of rainfall evaporates or is transpired through vegetation. This equals about 7-10 trillion gallons.
Infiltration to groundwater: About 10-20% of precipitation infiltrates to recharge groundwater. This is about 2-5 trillion gallons annually.
*acre-foot= an acre of water 1 foot deep.
The Koch Brothers are Libertarians not conservatives. One of them ran against Reagan in 1980, discovered that Libertarian sentiment was far weaker than he thought and they decided to advance Libertarian principles through the GOP.
The Democrats went after Reagan with fire and fury when he proposed Social Security reforms in 1982. They had great success and no politician anywhere advocates touching Social Security or Medicare since. They all know that if these programs explode in fiscal disorder the voters won’t know who to blame. Poliquin, who knows something about finance, once thought something had to be done, but now he’s learned his trade.