Before we take a look at Gov. Paul LePage’s proposed supplemental budget for 2013, it is important to look at why it’s even necessary.

During the long slog toward a balanced biennial budget in the last Legislature, taxes were cut for the top tier. A family making more than $65,000 saw their state income taxes go down.

While $65,000 is not a huge sum, it’s well above the average Maine income, about $48,000. Some very low-income Mainers also stopped paying income tax at all with the tax cuts.

In all, more than $300 million in revenue was lost. So the tax cuts make up a large portion of the expected revenue shortfall of $756 million coming due.

However, there is another important reason why Maine is experiencing a shortfall: willful blindness.

In 2011 and 2012, LePage fought for cuts to MaineCare, Maine’s version of Medicaid. The cuts were supposed to take effect in FY 2013 but passage of the Affordable Care Act strongly suggested Maine wouldn’t be able to cut MaineCare in any meaningful way because the ACA required a “maintenance of effort” of current levels of state programs until 2014.

Maine asked about waivers in the spring, and was told they probably wouldn’t be forthcoming and to plan for paying for current levels of MaineCare.

Even with plenty of warning, the Republican-led Legislature balanced the budget on MaineCare cuts that they knew, or should have known, wouldn’t be allowed.

Last summer, the Supreme Court upheld the law. Only then did Maine formally request a waiver, seeking to make cuts at the end of the fiscal year in October. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services responded that it could take three months or more to review the plan, and that Maine should make whatever revisions necessary in its budget to accommodate the MaineCare spending, since, as they’d already been told, the waivers were unlikely.

LePage and Attorney General William Schneider blustered about the constitutionality of the law and filed suit in the First Circuit Court, an effort that went nowhere and cost the state even more money.

Eventually, the feds ruled that, as they’d already said, most of the MaineCare cuts were not allowed, because of the “maintenance of effort” requirement.

Maine was able to jettison a few elderly and disabled people, and some parents who earned more than 133 percent of poverty level. However, Maine is on the hook for millions in MaineCare costs the Republican Legislature and the governor didn’t budget for — leaving the budget in entirely predictable — and entirely avoidable — tatters.

The supplemental budget that has to try to close the structural gap of $756 million cuts education and Department of Health and Human Services, more or less across the board.

Those are the two largest budget items, so it makes some sense that they will take the biggest hit.

A large portion of the gap could be filled by rescinding the 2011-12 tax cuts. But that’s not part of the governor’s plan.

LePage issued his 2014-15 biennial budget Friday to try to solve the self-inflicted budget wound. But it hurts more people than it helps.

The largest proposed cut is a suspension of the Municipal Revenue Sharing program for two years: $98.9 million each in fiscal years 2014 and 2015.

Essentially, revenue sharing parcels out a portion of income taxes back to towns and cities. Revenue sharing keeps local property taxes down. Without revenue sharing, local spending for things like schools, roads, sewers, water systems and local government may be slashed, or property taxes may soar.

It is very unlikely that this will pass the now-Democratic Legislature. Some Republicans have gone on record opposing the measure, too.

It’s not just the revenue-sharing suspension that would harm people who pay property taxes. The governor’s budget would also eliminate the homestead property tax exemption and circuit breaker program for everyone except those older than 65 and veterans. This would affect nearly 200,000 Mainers — about one in six, mostly low- to middleincome.

Because property taxes are regressive, overall taxation for the poor and middle class will rise compared to taxes for wealthier Mainers.

Businesses are likely to face the loss of business tax exemptions for equipment if they are retail establishments. Most of the businesses who get the exemption are large retailers, including Walmart — which was reimbursed $1 million in 2010 — and the current Legislature may be willing to let this go.

Education is due for a hit, making local school districts pick up more of teachers’ pensions under the governor’s plan.

The largest cost driver in the budget was, and will continue to be, the Department of Health and Human Services.

Being unable to use most of MaineCare to curtail the budget, the governor’s plan calls for personnel cuts, especially in foster care and adoption services; and nearly $52 million in welfare programs, including the Drugs for the Elderly program.

Despite the deep cuts, the administration found $2 million to increase mental health supports.

None of this is set in stone. With a Democratic Legislature, this is just the opening salvo.

A lot of work must be done between now and the end of June to craft a two-year budget — as well as a supplemental budget that everyone can live with — and get it to the governor for a signature.

But with both sides worlds apart, it will be a long, long process.

GINA HAMILTON, of Bath, is editor of the New Maine Times. She welcomes emails at [email protected].