Classic Misinformation

Nick Isgro’s piece in your Dec. 22 issue purporting to claim that eliminating the income tax can alleviate municipal budget woes demonstrates the classic case where misinformation or actual untruths get spread because we take them at face value when they satisfy our preconceived notions.

If the Maine Income tax were eliminated, the money the state puts into the state employee’s retirement system would disappear and the pension trust would quickly evaporate. That includes the payment to all of the town’s retired teachers and municipal employees. The 55 percent of the local school budget that is funded by the state would also disappear immediately.

The result would be what was required before government started disbursing wealth through the tax code. That is, people would have to educate their own children and would have to save for their own retirement.

The road to the Garden of Eden is a one-way street and we are going the wrong way.

Fred Blanchard,
Brunswick