Reply #13: Taxes [View All]

[Shorebound]

> "If not TABOR than what?" so you ask. <

Who asks? Or is this a rhetorical question?

> First, Mainers do have a high AVERAGE overall tax burden, but remember that this is the AVERAGE, skewed in large part by our traditionally low overall income levels compared to cost of living in this state. However, our actual average tax burden per family in REAL DOLLARS is down around 35th in the nation. <

True, but unfortunately those taxes are paid from our REAL personal income in REAL DOLLARS, and our per capita personal income is about 30th in the nation. (http://www.census.gov/statab/ranks/rank29.html) So with personal income within shouting distance of average, our tax burden is definitely above average.

> The problem is tax dollars compared to income level.<

Agreed. Too little income, too much tax dollars.

> The coastal LOCAL real estate marketeer-driven explosion in housing costs haven't helped! Average housing costs are WAY too high Maine compared to income levels. <

The explosion in housing costs is a function of supply and demand, and it's not limited to the coast. Prices are high because there are people willing and able to pay them. The "marketeers" (whoever they might be) wouldn't be able to sell at those prices otherwise. IOW, people are selling their homes for what the market will bear. Nothing more, certainly nothing less. If you can get Mainers to sell their homes for 1970s prices, more power to you. I'll be first in line to buy.

And I completely agree that increases in income have not kept pace with the increase in real estate values, but then that's also true in New York City.

> We are also a large state geographically compared to population with LOTS of infrastructure to take care of. We have ALWAYS been a relatively poor state with lots of elderly and low income folks, especially in rural Maine, who rely on social programs to survive. We have to pay a lot for energy here in the cold northeast, and we have lost tens of thousands of good jobs, as have many other states, due to awful trade agreements that have sent our factories to the third world (No one can blame Baldacci or Dems for that!!).<

The same can be said for North Dakota and Montana, yet their tax burdens are considerably less than ours. Your point?

> universal single payer healthcare like Canada and MANY other advanced nations would help big time. <

I'd be more than willing to consider that very seriously, but not at the state level. As you noted, "Canada and many other advanced NATIONS." (Emphasis mine.) Something like that MUST be nationwide. Maine simply does not have the wealth necessary to make it work BY OURSELVES. We're trying to do it with Dirigo and MaineCare and we're crippling ourselves financially as a result. This is the road Tennessee tried to travel a couple of years ago, and it almost bankrupted the state.

> roll back the TONS of costly new education mandates; require annual zero-based local budgeting practices statewide; <

Agree completely. I would expand your suggestion to include zero-based STATE budgeting practices as well. The Brookings Report caled Maine "administrationland" or something similar because of the high percentage of administrators to workers at all levels of government.

> either find a way to cap property valuations for tax purposes or expand the circuit breaker program; take out the LD1 loopholes to hold local govts. more accountable and ensure LD1 provisions are enforced; <

A property VALUE cap accomplishes nothing in terms of tax relief, because it doesn't limit the property tax RATE. It doesn't matter if my house is valued at half of "market value" if my city is taxing it at twice the current mill rate.

> Quick-fix one-size-fits-all schemes like Palesky and TABOR designed by and for the greedy right-wing are WRONG and UNFAIR and FLAWED.<

But the fact that they were even considered (and we may not have heard the last of TABOR if the rumblings I'm hearing at the grassroots are any indication) should tell us that the problem is serious, and the solution may be taken out of our hands unless we can respond with more than another round of smoke-and-mirror tax reform. The problem has always been (IMO) a term-limited legislature's inability to deal with something as controversial and complex as comprehensive tax reform. By the time a legislator has learned enough about the issue to be knowledgeable, s/he is out of office.

The Brookings report suggests forming an independent commission, like the BRAC panel that decides on military base closings, to draw up a comprehensive tax reform plan outside of the pressures of special interest groups and term limits. The plan gets a straight up-and-down vote in the legislature, just like the BRAC recommendations do in Congress. That's a possible solution. Revising the term limits law to lengthen terms to 10 or 12 years would also help IMO.