Editor’s Note: Representative Mark Walker (R-Naples) gave this week’s Republican Radio Address.

By Mark Walker

State Representative

District 84

We are at a crossroads in our state and our nation. We need to confront head-on the truth about the cost of living for families and neighbors just trying to survive. Today, I’d like to talk about harsh realities that we face — and about what your Maine Republicans will do about it if we can all just come together for Maine.

The average family in Maine has lost over $15,000 in spending power. That’s $15,000 that could have gone toward kids’ education, improving your home, or maybe just putting food on the table.

Childcare costs for some folks, are like a second mortgage. Some wonder “Is it even worth having a job?” Rents are higher and higher. Mortgage rates keep climbing. Most young people can’t even dream of having a place of their own. And day by day, spending power shrinks.

This is all both very personal and very broadly economic. Now, politicians want you to believe that any one problem has one ideal “solution” that they need to sell and shove down our collective throats. But life teaches that it’s not about A Solution but about — and please let’s all be very clear about this — about recognizing and reconsidering the trade-offs that were made well before a problem emerged.

Here’s a prime example. In Maine, we have been trading off cheap, reliable energy like natural gas, hydropower, fossil fuels, in order to subsidize ugly, unreliable, incredibly expensive solar farms and wind power. The purpose of the trade-off is this. In a hundred years, the average temperature of the whole planet might be just a fraction of one degree cooler.

Now, the plan’s promoters say they’ve just begun. Apparently, they believe the cost of this supposed global benefit should be shouldered by the people of Maine when we don’t even make up one half a percent of America’s population.

By now it’s plain we can have no certainty that a hundred years hence Maine will have reduced earth’s temperature that fraction of one degree. We also can have no certainty that in the far-flung future such tiny cooling will in any way benefit mankind.

Any rational person has to ask “who’s really cashing in?”

So, here’s the trade-off. For those uncertain, far off, supposed benefits, Maine has traded today’s very certain and very crippling energy costs, costs that will continue to skyrocket. But again, these are very personal and broad economic issues. When we buy anything, we pay for the stores increased costs for their wages, for their utilities, for their transportation.

Present and potential employers are giving up on the State of Maine. The cost of everything — childcare, farmers’ markets, education, recreation — is driven up by high energy prices. So, if we refuse to even look at the past trade-offs, any proposals from government, any government solutions will only cause more problems.

We do not have to settle for a lower quality of life.

You know, this whole political game is new to me. I didn’t know what to expect when I got to Augusta. I knew policies coming from Augusta and from Washington were failing people. But day after day, here’s what I discovered. Today’s Maine Republicans are only there to fight for you, for the citizens of this great state, in every way they can. Please, whatever you think of past office holders, give today’s Maine Republicans a chance.

Time doesn’t allow me to speak of all the things we know we can do to turn this state around. If you know that a change in direction is needed for Maine, get to know some local Republicans and consider letting them be your instrument to turn this state around.

State Representative Mark Walker is serving his first term in the Maine House of Representatives representing District 84, which includes the towns of Baldwin, Naples, Sebago, and part of Standish. Mark currently serves on the 131st Legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on Innovation, Development, Economic Advancement, and Business.