I didn’t think I could get any angrier at state government than I was after reading the embarrassing tale of how we were fleeced through the Maine New Markets Capital Investment Program, but then I read Gov. LePage’s tax reform plan, “Moving Maine from Poverty to Prosperity.”

The document is breathtaking in its cynicism and mendacity. There are no examples of savings for those in the highest income bracket or anyone who will benefit from the repeal of the estate tax – I’m assuming those folks already know they’re getting a good deal.

Thirteen of the plan’s 21 pages are spent comparing the proposed tax reductions with the much smaller amount lost in municipal revenue sharing, but there isn’t a word about how the rest of the cuts needed to make up the additional $250 million in lost revenue.

No Republican legislator (or the governor himself) should be allowed more than one sentence in support of the proposal without detailing what cuts – beyond revenue sharing – they would be in favor of to pay for it.

The Democrats are fools to buy into the narrative that their plan should be treated as an alternative to the LePage proposal, when the real alternatives are honesty, common sense and fourth-grade arithmetic.

The municipalities need to stop making the discussion solely about revenue sharing. Cutting revenue sharing certainly makes their jobs harder, but the bump in property taxes needed to make up for it will be the least of burdens Mainers end up bearing.

In short, we’re headed for a cliff, and those who aren’t actually pushing us in that direction don’t seem to know how to stop it. But holding out for an answer to the $250 million shortfall should at least slow things down.

Peter Mason

Brunswick

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