The last hope?
There will be a push in this legislative session for some sort of tax increase, but, given Baldacci, and given the economic orientation of most Democrats and Republicans, there seems meager hope of anything but a continuation of the savage cuts — with, possibly, a cigarette-tax increase. The only significant progressive hope appears to be somewhat distant: electing progressive lawmakers in 2010 — especially, a governor.
But is there any real hope here? When the gubernatorial candidates commented on Baldacci’s new budget cuts, “Many, regardless of party, were unhappy that the budget plan didn’t make structural changes in state government,” Matt Wickenheiser reported in the Press Herald, summarizing their reactions. Structural changes, many of them suggested, to shrink government.
This attitude should be expected from Republicans, but Rosa Scarcelli, a businesswoman running an aggressive Democratic primary campaign, talked mainly about making the cutting more efficient, and on her Web site she expresses opposition to tax increases. John Richardson, former head of the Department of Economic and Community Development, told the Press Herald he saw the need for the cuts. Only former attorney general Steve Rowe expressed concern about commitments “to protect the public, educate our children, and care for our most vulnerable,” but on his Web site he applauds the Democrats’ tax-reform giveaway to the well-off because it’s a giveaway to them (it’ll attract “investment capital” to the state). No one mentioned a need for a tax increase.
Lizzy Reinholt bemoans that government leaders have gotten “into a culture of never talking about anything except cuts.” In fact, on economics most sound like right-wing clones.
But to make a final test of this thesis, the Phoenix e-mailed the major gubernatorial candidates — followed up with reminders — asking whether they would support tax increases to bridge the budget gap and, specifically, support an income-tax increase on the wealthy.
In reply, by press time, no Republican or Democratic candidate had expressed support for a tax increase on the well-off or any other kind of increase, except Republican state Senator Peter Mills supports a gasoline-tax hike to fix the roads. Republican businessmen Matt Jacobson, Paul LePage (he’s also Waterville’s mayor), Bruce Poliquin, and Les Otten are adamantly against any tax increase. Eliot Cutler, an independent and former United States Senate aide, didn’t respond before deadline.
Democrat Rowe says that as a last resort he’d “not take revenues completely off the table,” and he’d look first at raising cigarette or alcohol taxes since they were “discretionary purchases.” Democrat Donna Dion, Biddeford’s former mayor, says she would support a tax increase only as a last resort. Democrat Elizabeth Mitchell says she’s not taking a position now on taxes because as Senate president she will have to lead negotiations on the budget. Scarcelli reaffirmed her opposition to tax increases. Richardson didn’t respond by deadline.
Only Green Independent candidate Lynne Williams, a civil-rights attorney, says she would, temporarily, tax higher-income people at a higher rate, proposing three new brackets beginning at $35,000, $50,000, and $75,000, for couples, with rates “somewhere between 8.6 and 9 percent.”
Not a large increase, for sure, but she’s the sole major candidate with the guts to break the taboo. No wonder Maine’s Democrats have lost a lot of progressive voters to the Greens.
Lance Tapley can be reached atlance.tapley@gmail.com.
