It’s not too late to deliver a state budget that reflects the priorities and values of Maine families!

Gov. LePage is breaking his promise to improve the economy for Maine families and small business. The Maine Center for Economic Policy reports that “the Governor’s tax proposals put Maine’s wealthiest taxpayers ahead of working families and small business — they are compromising our future prosperity.”

You can find the proof of what’s really going ononline at www.mecep.org. MECEP lawyers have read the fine print and calculated the real costs.

The hard facts:

• 75,544 — the number of non-elderly Maine households receiving circuit breaker property tax relief in FY2010 (to be slashed in 2011).

• $83 — the average proposed income tax break for Maine families earning between $28,000 and $48,000 in the governor’s budget

• $2,770 – the average proposed income tax break in FY2013 for Maine families making more than $363,000.

• 550 – the approximate number of estates that benefit from doubling the estate tax exemptions to $40 million in FY 2014 and 2015.

• $203 million – the cost to the state of proposed tax changes — 50 percent of which will be given away to families earning more than $119k a year.?

Maine’s roads are crumbling, bridges are deteriorating, education is suffering from chronic understaffing. We need real solutions for Maine’s economic future. A better state “jobs bill” would target tax relief for average Mainers, not the wealthy few.

Government needs to put money in the pockets of average families who are more likely to spend it and generate economic activity.” Write or email your legislators NOW. It’s not too late to deliver a state budget that reflects the priorities and values of Maine families!

Deb King
Brooks 

The Maine People Before Politics website states “Gov. LePage’s budget proposal reduces the income tax for 439,000 Maine people.” Sounds pretty good at first glance. The only problem is that — according to the Maine Center for Economic Policy — more than 80 percent of the benefits of proposed tax changes go to taxpayers with incomes greater than $63,648, and much of that goes to those earning above $120,000. Middle income taxpayers will get tax breaks amounting to about $80 apiece.

The LePage plan to reduce teacher retirement benefits and increase retirement age has a hidden cost that no one is talking about. Teachers retiring three years later at age 65 will lead to decreased costs to the state but increased costs to towns — and thus to those paying property taxes.

Any school district in which 10 teachers delay their retirement by three years could see the local tax burden rise by $600,000 over that period. This is due to the fact that the district is not replacing teachers at the top end of the salary scale with starting teachers making $30,000 per year.

This LePage sleight of hand looks good to the uninformed, but the real result to Mainers may well be be increased taxes.

For low income and middle income homeowners, the news gets worse. Since the local school district is funded primarily by property taxes and since property taxes are regressive (meaning low and middle income folks pay a higher proportion of their income for property taxes than wealthier folks), the cost savings the state gains by delaying teacher retirement is put on the backs of you guessed it: low income and middle income taxpayers.

Ray Wirth
Belfast 

Route 1 planning process unwisely abandoned 

Gov. Le Page’s quick dismissal of the Route 1 Gateway Initiative is alarming.

Why did he not take more time to evaluate the plan, which was evolving for years through the efforts of many different points of view, both business and environmental before axing it? The reason many people move to and love living in Maine is that they recognize they are in a place that does not look, feel or have to conform to the strictly commercial side of the American way of living. To disregard the care and concern that for six years individuals have put into planning for the future and in one quick move transfer all the power to the Department of Transportation is ludicrous. The DOT is historically less vested in preserving beauty, history and open space on our coastline and can only operate as the multiheaded political behemoth that it is.

Using the excuse that removing the Gateway will save money is short-sided thinking on the part of our new governor.

Once the forested and natural parts of Route 1 are taken away and replaced by a conglomeration of asphalt and who knows what, they surely will never return.

With proper planning, we could have a chance to allow both commerce and nature to move forward in equitable fashion. Gov. LePage must believe that his views are superior to those of the myriad of Gateway resident planners and business owners from many towns that live here and dedicated their time and talents to assuring for Midcoast Maine going forward something more visionary than the rest of the country.

People who live in all parts of Maine elected Governor LePage. I can only wonder what the rest of his tenure in office will bring if he has already stopped listening to a basic common sense approach to planning for the future of our state.

Debra Arter
Damariscotta 

Hardworking Mainers not among LePage’s critics 

Finally we have a man in the Blaine House who when he arises in the morning, does not have to call Libby Mitchell, the teacher’s union or worker’s union and ask permission to go potty!

Unfortunately for Maine, if he decides to run for re-election, he will not be elected. With 62 percent of the voters living on the hardworking Maine taxpayers, he doesn’t stand a chance.

Furthermore there will not be an unnecessary, cushiony, well paid job waiting for him at the Pentagon, like there was for former Gov. John Baldacci.

Interesting when a politician is elected everyone says, good or bad, give him a chance, except for Paul LePage. But then again he is not a politician out to buy votes.

Craig Elliott
Bristol 

Anti-trespassing bill really is anti-hunting 

I am writing in response to Rep. Andy O’Brien’s letter to the editor (“Trespass protection bill not anti-hunting measure”April 3)

It’s really refreshing to finally see a bill that’s not an anti-hunting bill. And one that allows colored forestry paint so that the dogs will know when to stop chasing the coyote, bear, or cat, etc.

The problem with this is that it’s going to be very difficult to train the dogs what these colors mean.

I would suggest to Rep. O’Brien it might be more efficient to propose a law that made it illegal for the predators to trespass near where these landowners don’t want dogs running. It just makes a lot more sense.

I really don’t think the dogs will stop the chase because of paint! Or does he want the dog owner not to release dogs anywhere near where they might trespass?

Sounds kinda anti-hunting to me.

Ron Looke
Addison 

Kay Havener’s vitriolic letter chastising Roxanne Quimby for her eagerness to donate 70,000 acres of pristine north woods for a new national park is yet another exercise in letting no good deed go unpunished.

Among the things that everyone seems to hate in what passes for culture in dumbed-down, redneck America are bright women and wealth. And, when a bright woman is wealthy, look out, as envy meets enmity, watch out!

To suggest that this bright, wealthy woman would be giving away land worth many millions as some sort of self-serving tax scheme is absurd on its face.

Thanks, Roxanne, for this and all you do to enhance the quality of life in Maine.

Tom Walsh
Gouldsboro

 

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