For decades we’ve heard from citizens who want to “get government off our backs.” But what does that mean? This year, our op-eds will focus on “What government does, and how it works for you.”

Social Security lifts more people above the poverty line than any other program. It represents a significant portion of the federal budget, providing benefits to millions of retired and disabled workers and their dependents and survivors. As of June 2024, the AARP reported that more than 72 million — 1 out of 5 — Americans were receiving monthly benefits.

The importance of this program in Maine cannot be underestimated. Over one-third of Maine residents receive benefits through Social Security and between 2002 and 2022, the number of recipients grew by 40%.

On January 5, 2025, President Biden signed into law the Social Security Fairness Act.  This eliminates two federal policies that prevented nearly 3 million people, including police officers, firefighters, postal workers, teachers and others with a public pension, from collecting their full Social Security benefits. The new law could double the amount of pensions that teachers and other public service retirees receive for almost 30,000 Mainers. In December 2022, President Biden signed SECURE 2.0 into law, encouraging more employers to offer retirement plan benefits to their workers making it easier for Americans to save.

Climate change is creating havoc nearly everywhere. Last January, back-to-back storms hit eight Maine coastal counties and brought devastating flooding and damage to both individuals, businesses, as well as to the land. On March 20, 2024, President Biden declared a Major Disaster for the state, making federal funding available. Disaster teams from the Federal Emergency Management Agency went door-to-door to help survivors register for aid including rental assistance, home repairs or replacement, child care, cleaning and the like. As of July 2024, over $4.7 million was approved for more than 800 households in addition to slightly over $6.1 million in loans to both businesses and homeowners.

The recently announced ban on new offshore oil and gas drilling in most U.S. coastal waters will ensure that coastlines will receive protection from irreversible damage. This is significant given that Maine’s tidal coastline covers 3,478 miles. In a 2023 statement, Senator King noted that Maine’s fisheries produce nearly $1 billion a year and tourism brought nearly $8 billion to the state in 2021. Its “fisheries and coastal communities rely on a healthy Atlantic Ocean to support their livelihoods … Offshore drilling would pose an immense threat to this delicate ecosystem and the economies, people and environmental surroundings it supports.”

Travel in Maine is, as you know, almost exclusively by road — all 47,000 miles of them. Over 21,000 miles are public highways, exceeding the total mileage of any other New England state. Without roads and bridges, you could not “get there from here.” As it is, you may not, as 355 bridges and over 1,284 miles of highway are in poor condition. But the Biden-Harris Administration hit the ground running, implementing the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to rebuild our roads, including the single largest dedicated bridge investment since the construction of the interstate highway system. It is already delivering results. As of March 2024, $1.1 billion has been announced in Maine for roads, bridges, roadway safety, and major projects. Approximately $1.5 billion in federal funding is expected over the next five years. to continue this work.

Each of these three examples — and there are more — are illustrations of government programs at work to aid us in our daily living — because we are elderly, have a disability, a child without a parent, a business devastated by a flood, a fisherman who lost their pier and conceivably their livelihood, a parent with a special needs child, an elder in need of health insurance, a vet in need of support. We travel to work, eat, fly on planes, drive over bridges, affiliate with others and sometimes get infected by viruses that require a vaccine or medications. We rely on the fact that someone is ensuring our safety.

We often take for granted that key elements of US public policy and governance will continue to function smoothly, regardless of who occupies the White House or Congress. We expect that Social Security checks will be issued, that Medicare will cover health care costs for older Americas, that the Food and Drug Administration will inspect the food supply and manage issues as they arise, and that the US Postal Service will deliver mail to rural areas around the state.

But for these systems to work (and we do not mean to imply that they work perfectly—there are many policies that could work better for average Americans and Mainers), we need competent public management and political leaders who believe that the system should work. For all of us.

The 2024 elections demonstrated that many citizens are frustrated with the status quo. The incoming president, partly in response to this frustration, proposed dramatic changes during his campaign in the ways that government operates and delivers support to its citizenry. We fear that many who supported those changes had not stopped to fully consider how they might actually be impacted by them.

Understanding how important federal and state government policies and programs are to our daily living as well as how they operate is essential. We will follow some of the upcoming changes and let you know how you might be affected so that you will be better prepared as we move through this next year.