Dana Connors’ May 30 column touting Gov. LePage’s tax reforms is disingenuous (“LePage’s tax reform plan helps almost every Mainer pay less”). It assumes that Maine people are just plain stupid – that as long as most Mainers get some tax saving, they won’t understand that wealthy Mainers get most of the proposed cuts.

It rejects (as the wealthy often do) the whole idea of progressivity in a tax system – the idea that the wealthy should pay more because they can afford to, because it will not affect the quality of their lives, whereas tax burdens on the poor often require hard choices between food, shelter and health care. 

Connors’ piece would have us believe that families earning $119,000 a year, or that have million-dollar estates, are just average Maine folks, but they’re not. They earn 2½ times as much as the average Maine family, and there are fewer than 600 Maine families that will reap the benefit of estate tax cuts.

These are not average Maine people, and they can fully afford the tax burdens that they now bear.

Finally, Connors buys into the relentless tax rhetoric of the Republican right: Tax cuts will stimulate the economy. It’s simply not true. In our nation, low-tax states are often low-per-capita-income states, and most have high unemployment.

Moreover, 10 years of Bush tax cuts have not produced job growth or increased real income for middle-class families; nor did these cuts ward off the worst recession since the 1930s.

Bush’s cuts have only made the rich richer and increased the federal deficit. There is no evidence suggesting Le-Page’s tax cuts will fare any better; they will benefit the rich, and we will balance the budget on the backs of  poor and middle-income Maine families. Most people see this; they’re not stupid.