At Gov. LePage’s fiery news conference last Friday, he said, “Maine people deserve to have a say in the income tax.” So here is mine: Do not eliminate the income tax. To say “no income tax” is like offering candy to a child without explaining all the chores and hardships that will pay for it later.

I strongly believe that the governor’s proposed constitutional amendment to eliminate the state income tax would take us in the opposite direction from where we (the state and the country) should be going.

Analysis by the Maine Center for Economic Policy (www.mecep.org) shows clearly what proportion of income tax (out of their total tax bill) is paid by poor people and the middle class and the top 1 percent. If we cut the state income tax, all the real benefit goes to people at the top.

Since sales tax and property tax are a much larger fraction of total income for the bottom 80 percent than the top 20 percent, increasing those taxes to compensate for a lack of income tax is totally regressive. LePage’s plan actually increases total taxes for people making $22,000 to $57,000 a year.

I can’t believe our governor is trying to make the rich richer and the poor poorer in this era, which already has near-historic income inequality. This country hasn’t been in this kind of a situation since the late 1800s and early 1900s, with violent worker demonstrations against robber barons. Do we really want to go back there?

Karen Topp

Brunswick

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