Kudos to Republican lawmakers. With legislation recently introduced, Maine’s Republicans have taken a significant step in simplifying the Maine tax code while accomplishing three significant points.

• First, more than 70,000 taxpayers will no longer have any income tax liability. Now, Democrats ought to jump on board with this to create bipartisan support!

• Second, there will be no tax increases.

• And third, a number of businesses that are unique to the state of Maine will be encouraged.

With respect to the third point, the elimination of sales taxes on fuel for commercial fishermen means more catch landings in Maine will be encouraged, which will help ensure the survival and hopefully growth of the Portland Fish Exchange.

Also, eliminating sales taxes on parts and supplies for the historic windjammer industry will help to ensure its strong tourism position. The acceleration of equipment depreciation schedules will help the entire business community.

All of these points will help to create job stability and thus provide stability to revenues to the state.

Encouraging Maine’s businesses, which is one of Gov. LePage’s major goals, will come to fruition as Republican lawmakers develop sound pro-business legislation such as this.

Citizens will be encouraged during the governor’s next 100 days as additional sound policy is introduced by him as well as the Legislature.

Richard S. Harnett

Jefferson

 

High gas prices a worry? They’re what we voted for

 

During the last presidential campaign, then-Sen. Barack Obama said very clearly that he was concerned about America’s addiction to oil and that we should be paying gas prices similar to those on the European continent.

Now we will soon have just that. It is what the majority voted for. Quit whining about it and deal with it.

Next time when you are in the voting booth, think a little harder before you make that mark.

Kurt Christiansen

Windham

 

Labor mural defended by artist with State House cred

 

Tom Crotty’s Maine Voices column of April 15, “Commotion over labor mural does real Maine artists no favors,” cites a painting of mine on view in the Burton M. Cross Building in Augusta.

I appreciate Mr. Crotty’s expression of admiration for it. His view that the piece “transcends all politics” was certainly in accord with my intentions.

Nevertheless, I am uncomfortable at having a work of mine commended at the expense of artists who feel called upon to comment on society. This is especially true since I am, at times, one of these artists myself.

There will never be agreement on the precise role of art, but we need the examples set by Francisco Goya in his Disasters of War, by the deeply empathetic K?e Kollwitz, and by the indignant Weimar-era painter/printmaker Otto Dix as much as we need the widely revered paintings of Botticelli, Monet and Pollock.

Judy Taylor’s mural was entirely appropriate for permanent display in the Maine Department of Labor reception area. It told the right story — of the long and enduring struggles for workers’ rights — in the right setting.

Its removal seemed to me a symbolically focused act of disrespect and provocation vastly more political than the mural itself. I stand with those who protest the governor’s attempted erasure of this essential part of our history, and with those who are working to restore it.

Alan Magee

Cushing

 

Readers differ on need to vaccinate youngsters

 

Your April 7 vaccinations hearings article (“Bill could erode rate of vaccinations in Maine”) was a nice one-sided story.

I was also there. Many strong, convincing arguments were given for informing people of the very real risks of prolific vaccinations. You failed to mention many of them, like testimonies of children dying and debilitating side effects connected to immunizations by more than anecdotal evidence.

In fact, more people spoke in favor of L.D. 941, prohibiting mandatory vaccinations, than against. While the medical professionals admitted vaccinations are not currently mandatory for all, they seemed to not want people to know that.

They also neglected to mention that they could easily be made so, by a “herd-inoculated” minded government entity that chooses “Big Brother Protection” over individual liberties.

All one legislator/nurse said was she “didn’t believe” that would ever happen. Apparently she doesn’t know history very well. But what do they fear? As long as the majority of citizenry is uneducated about this issue (as most are), they will continue to flock to their allopathic doctors who urge them to fill their kids with toxins to “protect the community.”

No mention of promoting healthy lifestyles or using natural methods of treating common childhood diseases, instead of attempting to vaccinate for everything under the sun and eradicating the body’s ability to develop its own defenses and immunities. Oh, that’s because they don’t know about that style of doctoring!

Fortunately, some of us do know how to take care of ourselves and, if we do become sick, know how to handle it. We should have the freedom of choice to care for our families in the way we’ve learned works best, without lining the pockets of the so-called experts in medicine.

L.D. 941 and L.D. 694 offer education on the subject, something the medical society supposedly advocates. But not this kind, apparently.

Dena Worster

Palmyra

 

About the need for vaccinations, which is being discussed in the Legislature and was on the front page of the April 7 Press Herald, in October 1975, when our son was 11 months old, we were living in Nairobi, Kenya.

He was one month shy of the recommended age for a measles vaccine. I had stopped breast-feeding him five months earlier, so he had no natural resistance to measles. One Sunday morning we went with him to church. He went to the nursery; we went to worship. A week later, he came down with measles. We were fortunate that he recovered in a week or so. Later we learned that the virus could have infected his eyes, brain or lungs.

I urge parents to vaccinate their children early for measles. The measles virus is out there, it’s dangerous, and it’s highly contagious.

If it’s not in your child’s classroom, it could be somewhere he or she travels later in life. Don’t take chances with measles. Vaccinate young.

Susan Gilpin

Falmouth

 

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