I read the recent piece by Mark V. Holden from Koch Industries with some alarm (“Maine Voices: Requiring licenses for too many jobs hinders economic mobility,” Jan. 4).

Since when is someone from Kansas, who doesn’t even claim to have ever visited Maine, a “Maine Voice”? Is the Press Herald now in the business of spreading the word of the Koch brothers, the same ones who are trying to buy our next president for just under a billion dollars?

The column reads like a template meant for national distribution, with an occasional sprinkling of local terms like “Portland,” “Maine,” “Mainer” and “Augusta.” With a staff in Kansas, the few statistics from the respective regions would be easily plugged in for nationwide reading.

Is government regulation always bad? Believe it or not, government really tries to protect us. Would readers really want any untrained hack to cut their hair or build their house?

In fairness, this opinion piece is the only exception to what I see in this column. However, should you continue to publish propaganda of this sort, would you please remove the “Maine” from the title of your “Maine Voices” feature? Perhaps you could call it “The Voice of the 1 Percent.”

David Travers

Westbrook

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