As usual, Maine’s approach to its No. 1 industry, tourism, is to maximize potential revenue rather than incentivizing the behavior.

My parents built a summer home on Spruce Head Island in 1966 at a total cost of $40,000. The town frequently increased property taxes until they reached $4,000 in 1980. Can you imagine paying 10 percent of your investment in property taxes? It became the driving force for my parents to sell the house in 1981.

Liberals look blindly at people’s ability to pay such fees and taxes rather than considering whether smart people, who made their money through wise thinking, may change behavior if you increase their taxes. Furthermore, it never seems relevant whether the state truly needs more revenue; rather, it’s always predicated on their ideal to grab the most revenue you can. As another current example, the city of South Portland, so far, hasn’t even attempted to justify any need for 30 percent more property tax revenue.

Maine politicians lack the courage to articulate any long-term vision to encourage economic development that would lift the lives of all of its citizens. They believe that tourists and wealthy “people from away” will always subsidize the bad behavior that produces the mediocre and inadequate status quo. As a result, we rank 41st in the nation for economic outlook, with most of Maine mired in long-term economic decline. If you took Cumberland and York counties out of Maine, we’d be by far the poorest.

Geoffrey Emanuel
Falmouth

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