This is about the Maine state income tax. I am going to present three scenarios and then put them together.

ESCAPING TO FLORIDA

I watched Harold C. Pachios interview Gov. LePage last week on the Community Television Network show “Pachios on the News.”

The governor talked about his plan to eliminate Maine’s income tax. He said that when people get rich in Maine, they head for Florida and retire there because Florida doesn’t have a state income tax.

He cited examples of states that have eliminated state income tax and how well they are doing. He revealed that his plan is to gradually reduce the income tax rate until the tax is eliminated altogether.

I was impressed with the governor’s demeanor. A man convinced of his position, he was very cheerful. Mr. Pachios, a Democrat, chatted with the Republican governor in a very friendly manner.

BIBLICAL IMPERATIVE

The agency now called Catholic Charities was started in 1966 by Aroostook County native Neil Michaud as the Catholic Bureau of Human Relations.

The late Monsignor Vincent Tatarczuk, chancellor of the Diocese of Portland from 1955 to 1974 and a strong, early supporter of Catholic social services, believed that it was Michaud’s vision and Bishop Peter Gerety’s determination that helped unify Catholic social services in the state.

Catholic Charities provides refugee and immigration services, child and adult care food programs, recovery centers, substance abuse support services, a farm program, dental services, counseling services for various groups, etc.

Donations to Catholic Charities will be solicited Sunday in all Catholic churches. This is in addition to the support that is given weekly or monthly for local parish upkeep.

Parishioners will pledge various amounts because they want to do so. They will be inspired by the Book of Matthew: “I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, in prison and you came to visit me …” (Matthew 25:35-36).

THE SCHOOL TAX

When public schools were authorized back in the 1840s, a school tax was established to pay for them.

Ever since then, on property tax bills, the school tax is singled out as a separate, dedicated tax to be used exclusively for the upkeep of schools.

People who rent their housing do not pay this tax directly but do so in their rent payment to the landlord who owns the property and who pays school tax.

A LETTER TO THE GOVERNOR

Now let’s put these three scenarios together:

Dear Gov. LePage, As your income tax plan progresses and as the tax rate gets lower and lower, I am strongly urging you to not eliminate an income tax altogether. Instead, we can give all Mainers a chance to help their neighbors.

Dedicate the state income tax exclusively to all those services that municipalities, counties and the state itself provide for needy people: homeless shelters, child and adult food programs, home health care for the elderly, etc. Instead of calling it “income tax,” call it “Mainers’ Response to Their Needy Brothers and Sisters Tax.”

It is said that Maine is one of the least “religious” states in the union. I question this. If it means that people don’t show up in churches on Sunday in great numbers, there is a reason for that. (Another topic for another time.) What it definitely does not mean is that Mainers are not genuinely generous, caring people.

Governor, if you go down in history and create this special income tax dedicated to the needy, I can’t think of anyone who would duck out to Florida rather than gladly pay it. We Mainers are not that kind of people.

P.S. There is a Latin fallacy: “Post hoc, ergo propter hoc”; literally “after this, therefore because of this.” The fallacy is committed when it is assumed that because one thing occurred after another, the second thing must have occurred as a result of the first. But this is not good logic.

So in states where the income tax has been eliminated and the economy has improved, it does not necessarily follow that one was the cause of the other. Maine may not be a state where this works well. Something to reconsider.